Harriett’s Bookshop among bookstores receiving a $500 Christmas bonus from James Patterson
The bestselling author has been dolling out cash to bookstores since 2015. “Publishing and publishers as we’ve known them are at stake," he said.
Two local bookstores are among eight in Pennsylvania to win a $500 grant from award winning author James Patterson’s annual Holiday Bookstore Bonus Program.
Harriett’s Bookshop in Fishtown and Main Point Books in Wayne were the local winners.
Harriett’s owner Jeannine Cook thanked Patterson on her Instagram.
“Thank you [James Patterson] for supporting Harriett’s in this way and spreading love to our bookshop cousins all across the country when many of us need it most,” Cook wrote, adding that she will use the money to support her Bookshop Without Borders project that brings books and companionship to people who are lonely.
Patterson, who released Return of the Spider, the latest installment in the popular Alex Cross series in November, pledged $300,000 this year, distributing $500 to 600 booksellers and members of the American Bookstore Association. Bookstores are nominated by authors, customers, employees, fellow bookstore owners, and managers.
This year’s winners were announced Wednesday. This is Main Point Books second consecutive bonus and Harriett’s first. Doylestown’s the Doylestown Bookshop also received a grant.
Patterson has been doling out cash to bookstores in this holiday bonus program since 2015. The gifts, he said to the New York Times in 2014, are to financially support and recognize the vital work of independent bookstore employees and librarians. Patterson alludes to the need to fund independent bookstores in his 2024 book The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians, True Stories of the Magic of Reading.
“Our bookstores in America are at risk,” he said in 2014 at the advent of the program. “Publishing and publishers as we’ve known them are at stake. To some extent the future of American literature is at stake.”