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Category Archives: The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas
Striped Pyjamas hits 1 million in UK
From The Bookseller:
Harris, Picoult and Boyne join Millionaires Club
Joanne Harris, Jodi Picoult and John Boyne are the latest writers to become members of the book trade’s “Millionaires Club”, an exclusive list of authors who have seen at least one of their books pass the 1,000,000 sales barrier since official sales records began in 1998.
Harris’ Chocolat, Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper (Hodder) and Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (both Black Swan) have all reached the seven-figure barrier in 2012, with Chocolat the first to achieve the feat in January. My Sister’s Keeper passed the mark in February, with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas soaring into seven figures at the end of March. In total, a combined £16.7m has been spent on 3,005,000 copies of all three novels, all of which have benefitted from silver-screen adaptations.
Chocolat sold 564,000 copies in the year its big-screen adaptation was released in the UK (2000), while 428,000 copies of My Sister’s Keeperwere snapped up in 2009 when its Nick Cassavetes adaptation hit cinema screens. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas sold 438,000 copies in the year its adaptation was released.
According to Nielsen BookScan data, Harris has become only the fourth British female novelist, after J K Rowling, Helen Fielding and Kate Mosse, to join the Millionaires Club, while Boyne is only the second Irish novelist, after Cecelia Ahern, to become a member.
Since records began in 1998, nine writers have seen two or more of their books become 1,000,000-plus bestsellers: J K Rowling (eight), Dan Brown (five), Stephenie Meyer (four), Stieg Larsson and Philip Pullman (both three), Julia Donaldson, Khaled Hosseini, Helen Fielding and J R R Tolkien (all two).
Transworld m.d. Larry Finlay said: “I couldn’t be more thrilled that Chocolat has joined this exclusive club of million-plus sellers. And what perfect timing as we gear up for the Doubleday hardback publication of Joanne Harris’ triumphant return to the magical setting of Lansquenet on May 27th. Peaches for Monsieur le Curé is going to capture readers’ hearts and senses all over again.”
Random House Children’s Publishing m.d. Philippa Dickinson added: “From its first publication by David Fickling Books in 2006, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has touched readers of all ages all over the world. We’re delighted that it has now also reached this significant milestone of selling over one million copies in the UK. John Boyne is a wonderful storyteller, and we look forward to his latest book, The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket, which will be out on 2nd August.”
Vintage Classics
I’m delighted that THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS is one of the 20 novels included on the new Vintage Children’s Classics list, which will be published in August of this year. Vintage Classics publish the best in classic fiction from the last 3 centuries so to be part of this list is a great honour.
You can pre-order the edition from Amazon here.
The full list is:
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome
The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner
The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Five Children and It by E Nesbit
The Railway Children by E Nesbit
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Treasure Island by RL Stevenson
Peter Pan by JM Barrie
What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge
No.49
According to the Guardian, THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS is no.49 on the list of the top 100 best-selling novels since Nielsen records began in 1998 and the best-selling book by an Irish author. Less than JK Rowling, more than John Grisham. I can live with that.
Book of the Decade
The Irish Book Awards have announced the ten frontrunners in the ongoing Irish Book of the Decade poll and The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas is one of the ten.
Voting closes on May 27th and you can cast your vote for one of these 10 (or one of the other 40) at the Book of the Decade website.
Eason Book Club
I was very happy last week to be informed by Eason’s, Ireland’s oldest and best known booksellers, that they had been running a poll for the last few months to find the best book of the ‘Noughties’ and that THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS won. Rounding out the top 5 were THE TIME TRAVELLER’S WIFE, THE LOVELY BONES, GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO and THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME. I took part in a photocall to celebrate winning and am seen here with Maria from Eason’s and Gillian, a reader who won the Top 50 books in the competition. You can read more about the poll and add comments about all 50 titles in the Easons Book Club Facebook page.
World Book Club
The interview I did at the South Bank a few weeks ago as part of the BBC World Service World Book Club programme is available on-line now. It’s an hour long discussion about THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS, how I wrote it, the ideas behind it and the response from readers to it. There are questions from the studio audience too.
BBC World Book Club
World Book Club
I was in London over the last day or two for a couple of interesting interviews. The first took place at Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank, an interview with the BBC World Service as part of their ‘World Book Club’ programme. This programme has been running for about 5 years and encourages people around the globe to read the same book at the same time – this month’s book was THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS. Harriett Gilbert conducted the interview and questions were taken from the audience of about 100 who were gathered to listen to the recording as well as from emails and phone questions that had come in in advance from places as far away as Nigeria, the Crimea and America. Thanks to all those who participated. The programme goes out on March 6th and will be kept on the World Service website after that.
Then, this morning, I was at Sky Arts to take part in The Books Show with Mariella Frostrup. We were discussing THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE, the paperback of which will be published in the UK in April. The other guests were Shirley Williams and Joshua Ferris. As well as discussing our new books, we also spoke about our favourite book of the last decade – Josh chose THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy, I chose THE ROAD HOME by Rose Tremain and Shirley (declining to choose another ‘Road’ title) went for THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS, which was quite a surprise for me, and indeed for her as she had not realised that I was also going to be a guest on the show. But it was a tremendous honour to meet her, and Josh, whose first novel THEN WE CAME TO THE END I admired very much. That sentence seems a bit convoluted but there we are.
In other news, I was at my publisher’s office yesterday morning recording some video pieces for use on the Random House website soon and it involved me barking like a dog. This might seem strange but the reason why will be revealed soon. Towards the end of March, to be precise…
Nielsen Book Award
At the Random House Authors’ Christmas party last week I was presented with this very nice award by Nielsen, who tabulate UK book sales – the Gold Book Award to mark the first 500,000 sales of THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS in the UK. Pictured with me here are David Fickling and Bella Pearson who published/edited the novel.
Illustrated Boy
For the first time, THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS is available in a beautiful illustrated edition, courtesy of my Italian publisher Rizzoli.
The illustrations are by the Italian artist Gianni DeConno, who has done a fantastic job of creating new images of Bruno and Shmuel for this hardcover edition.
Last Days In Melbourne
My 3 weeks in Australia are drawing to a close but there are still a few events to finish. One of the highlights of the trip has been getting to know the wonderful Australian writer Morris Gleitzman, author of ‘Once’ and ‘Then’ (amongst others), two books which, like The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, explore the subject matter of the Holocaust through a child’s eye. Morris and I gave a joint interview yesterday at the festival which was broadcast live on the ABC. I think it was quite an interesting discussion. You can listen to the entire interview as a podcast on the ABC Bookshow website here.
With Morris Gleitzman
