Crikey Reporter Jane Nethercote writes:

It looks like The Latham Diaries
are selling like hotcakes. “You cannot get a copy of Latham’s book from
our local Border Books, Angus & Robertson, and Dymocks,” reports a
Crikey tipster … “They all say we have to wait two weeks for the
reprint.”

Our little ad hoc, and highly unscientific, investigation this morning confirms that stocks are pretty low across the board.

Independent Melbourne bookseller Readings over-ordered the Diaries “as
a matter of principle,” says Simon at the Carlton store. But despite
worrying that ordering 300 copies (across all stores) might have been
over-ambitious, there are now only four Diaries left in Carlton. So the bookseller has put an order in for another 400.

Borders
management says there are “heaps” of copies across its stores – but it
depends where you look. When we called Borders in Melbourne Central,
they only had six copies remaining, but Borders at Sydney’s Macquarie
Centre still had 47. The Brisbane store had sold out, as had Adelaide’s
Rundle Mall store – for the second time.

At Angus &
Robertson, stocks are low, says publicity manager Lucie Pepeyan.
Despite a very large order – Pepeyan believes the bookseller nabbed a
fair whack of Melbourne University Press’s initial print run – the
book’s sales have “exceeded expectations.” A&R have got a lot more
stock on order, with a reprint due to leave warehouses on 29 September.
For books to sell in this magnitude – and so quickly – is “quite a rare
thing,” she says.

Capital cities should have more copies by next
Friday, says Jessica Little at Melbourne University Press, where she
says the atmosphere is “very positive.” Oh really.