John Grisham doing 1st big book tour in 25 years
John Grisham fans will get a double treat in June — a new book and a 12-city tour, his first such extensive tour in a quarter century.
On June 6, fans will be able to get their hands on his new thriller, “Camino Island,” the first book he has done involving rare books and bookstores.
"The story came out of nowhere a couple of years ago, and the more I wrote the more I enjoyed it," Grisham said. "It’s a fun trip through the murky world of stolen rare books, with an ending that everyone has liked so far. I almost got through with the story avoiding all lawyers, but, alas, a couple were needed at the very end."
Grisham’s website has posted the rules for his book tour, which starts June 6 in Paramus, N.J., and ends June 29 in Doylestown, Pa. The tour is a combination of noted bookstores, such as Parnassus Books in Nashville, along with lesser known bookstores, all of them east of the Mississippi.
On June 20, Grisham will stop at Square Books in Oxford, which Publishers Weekly named the Bookstore of the Year in 2013.
Owner Richard Howorth said by ordering the new book on their website, people will be entered for a drawing to become one of 200 who will be able to attend a live event where Grisham will speak. That event will be taped and become a podcast.
Those 200 will also be able to meet Grisham and have their books signed, he said.
The deadline for the drawing will be May 19 so that people can make any travel plans they need to, he said.
Even if people fail to win the drawing, they can still get a signed book from Grisham, he said.
Howorth praised the new book.
“I love the literary references and antics,” he said. “I think all of his fans, and maybe nontraditional fans are going to enjoy this book.”
“Camino Island” begins with thieves stealing five handwritten F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts from Princeton University’s Firestone Library and selling them in the rare books black market.
While the FBI and a secret underground agency hunt for the stolen treasures, a young writer begins her own investigation, running into a charismatic bookstore owner.
Grisham plans to stop at Lemuria Books on June 21.
Owner John Evans said tickets for the drawing will go on sale, along with preorders for the book, May 16 at Lemuria.
“I want people to visit the physical bookstore,” he said. “That’s in keeping with what Grisham is doing in his book.”
He dubbed the new novel a “biblio-thriller” and believes it may inspire readers to go back and read Grisham works they have missed in recent years.
“I’m just astonished at how fun it is,” he said. “It’s a love letter to the real analog experience of what books mean, what bookstores mean and what writers mean to bookstores, what bookstores mean to writers and what reading means to a community.”
Square Books and Lemuria were among the five bookstores that promoted Grisham in the early days, and he continued to visit them with each book he released, even after he stopped his national tours. But when those signings grew into 10-hour marathons, he halted them, too.
Grisham has long collected first editions. He told The Clarion-Ledger that he wished he had held on to the 1,500 copies he once had of his first book, "A Time to Kill."
The value of those books today? $7.5 million or more.
The Firestone Library holds the manuscript for Fitzgerald’s first novel, “This Side of Paradise,” which was published in 1920. Charles Scribner’s Sons printed 3,000 hardcover copies and priced them at $1.75 each.
They sold out in three days.
That success encouraged Zelda Sayre to marry Fitzgerald.
The fact that Grisham is featuring the Firestone Library came as news to those working with the more than 300,000 rare books, manuscripts or other printed works there.
In addition to housing the manuscripts of Fitzgerald, the library also holds the manuscripts of Toni Morrison, Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Emily Brontë, Robert Browning, Lord Byron, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot and Robert Louis Stevenson, to name a few.
Grisham typically releases a book each October, and that will not change this year. An untitled legal thriller is slated to be released Oct. 24.
No word yet on whether any more library books will be stolen.
Contact Jerry Mitchell at (601) 961-7064 or jmitchell@gannett.com. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.