Collection of Poems is Canada’s Top Seller in Poetry So Far This Year
TORONTO May 11, 2006 – Leonard Cohen’s much-anticipated Book of Longing, a collection of poems, drawings and epigrams, has topped Canada’s non-fiction best seller list and has outstripped perennial favorite The Prophet as the country’s bestselling book of poetry so far this year, according to data collected by BookNet Canada.
Book of Longing is Cohen’s first book since 1993s Stranger Music and comes on the heels of news of his financial ruin at the hands of a business manager. Cohen has been awarded US $9 million in a civil suit he filed in California against his former business manager, Kelley Lynch, whom he accused of fraud, negligence and breaches of contract and fiduciary duty during her 16-year tenure. Sales will likely be helped further by Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man, a documentary slated for theatrical release this month.
The attention to Cohen has also sparked sales of his backlist titles – Book of Mercy, first published in 1984, is number 11 in terms of poetry sales year to date.
Canada’s top 10 non-fiction titles are:
- Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen
- Rachael Ray Express Lane Meals, Rachael Ray
- Marley and Me, John Grogan
- France, Dorling Kindersley Publishing Staff
- Weber’s Real Grilling, Jamie Purviance
- Beyond the Small Circle, Marjorie Anderson
- Night, Elie Wiesel
- The Weather Makers, Tim Flannery
- My Life So Far, Jane Fonda
- The Jesus Papers, Michael Baigent
Canada’s top 20 books of poetry, year to date, are:
- Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen
- The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
- Rooms for Rent in the Outer Planets by Al Purdy
- Beowulf by translated by Seamus Heaney
- Irish Blessings by Ashley Shannon
- Gilgamesh by translated by Stephen Mitchell
- Break, Blow, Burn by Camille Paglia
- The Iliad by Homer
- Mother by Maya Angelou
- Reflections of a Peacemaker by Mattie Stepanek
- Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen
- A Wild Peculiar Joy by Irving Layton
- Love Poems
- The Rose that Grew from Concrete by Tupac Shakur
- The Best of Robert Service by Robert Service
- Amazing Peace by Maya Angelou
- The Divine Comedy Vol. 1 by Dante Alighieri
- Good Poems
- The Story by Michael Ondaatje
- Good Poems for Hard Times by Garrison Keillor
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About BookNet Canada
Created and supported by the Canadian book industry, BookNet Canada is the not-for-profit agency dedicated to technology innovation in the Canadian book industry. It provides services and develops standards and certification in areas including business-to-business electronic commerce, bibliographic data, and analysis of point-of-sales and other industry data.
