Wakatipu book lovers clamouring to read The Luminaries by Man Booker prize-winning New Zealand author Eleanor Catton should find more copies in stock tomorrow in at least one Queenstown bookshop.
Copies of the 832-page murder-mystery sold out last week in Whitcoulls on Beach St, and also in most shops around the country Whitcoulls book manager Joan Mackenzie, of Auckland, said she understood about 10,000 copies had been bought since Catton's novel was published by Victoria University Press on July 30, an extraordinary achievement, particularly for a New Zealand title.
Ms Mackenzie said copies from the reprint of a similar number by the university press will be made available in Queenstown's branch tomorrow, and a third wave of copies was expected next week in the resort and nationwide.
Queenstown Lakes District libraries have eight copies of The Luminaries transiting between branches in the Central Lakes districts to cater for the 34 people on the waiting list to read the book.
Those odds are slightly better than the list of 92 people waiting for the six copies in the Dunedin City Library.
Otago Daily Times book reviewer Cushla McKinney, of Dunedin, said in September The Luminaries ''has everything you could want in a whodunit: guns, drugs and money, extortion, theft and murder, and a plot that is both satisfying, intricate and - provided you pay close attention - solvable''.
