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James Patterson Awards $500 Bonuses to Bay Area Bookstore Employees

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Inside Green Apple on Clement Street; the bookstore has two additional locations, Green Apple Books on the Park and Browser Books. (Courtesy of Green Apple Books)

Six hundred employees at independent bookstores — from Princeton’s The Cloak & Dagger to Sacramento’s Wild Sisters Book Company — will receive $500 holiday bonuses from author James Patterson. Among the recipients are employees at 32 Bay Area bookstores.

The awardees were able to nominate themselves, or be recommended by store owners, managers, peers, community members and others.

“I’ve said this before, but I can’t say it enough — booksellers save lives,” Patterson said in a statement Wednesday. “What they do is crucial, especially right now. I’m happy to be able to acknowledge them and their hard work this holiday season.”

One of the world’s most popular and prolific writers, Patterson has given millions of dollars to booksellers, librarians and teachers. In 2015, the same year he began awarding employee bonuses, he was presented an honorary National Book Award for “Outstanding Service to the America Literary Community.”

Patterson has even co-authored a tribute book, The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians, which Little, Brown and Company will release in April.

Sponsored

“We all continue to be awed by, and grateful for, Mr. Patterson’s continuing support of independent booksellers,” Allison Hill, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, said in a statement. “It means so much to have him recognize the valuable role booksellers play in the industry and we appreciate his financial generosity as well as his generosity of spirit.”

A full list of the Bay Area winners is below.

Carolyn Hutton, Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary & Garden Arts, Berkeley
Tim Rogers, Pegasus Books, Berkeley
Emily Somberg, Pegasus Books, Berkeley
Reiko Redmonde, Revolution Books, Berkeley
Ari Ray Agnew, Book Passage, Corte Madera
Lisa Perez, Rakestraw Books, Danville
Amy Davis, Banter Bookshop, Fremont
Cindi Whittemore, Ink Spell Books, Half Moon Bay
Kaitlin Smith, Copperfield’s Books, Healdsburg
Brittany Caine, Kepler’s Books, Menlo Park
Michael Reinken, Kepler’s Books, Menlo Park
Lori Haggbloom, Books Inc., Mountain View
Elizabeth Freeman, East Bay Booksellers, Oakland
Cheyenne Maier, Orinda Books, Orinda
Mark Warren, Copperfield’s Books, Petaluma
Jennifer Lockhart, Word Horde, Petaluma
Samantha Kimmey, Point Reyes Books, Point Reyes Station
Robyn Brodrick, The Reading Bug, San Carlos
Susan Tunis, Bookshop West Portal, San Francisco
Joan Toledo, City Lights Books, San Francisco
Marcus Ewert, Fabulosa Books, San Francisco
Eileen McCormick, Green Apple Books, San Francisco
Jeff Gray, Green Apple Books on the Park, San Francisco
Sarah Manolis, The Booksmith, San Francisco
Christine Leonard, Hicklebee’s Bookstore, Inc., San Jose
Jerry Blume, Books Inc., San Leandro
Drew Durham, Books Inc., San Leandro
Katherine Megna-Weber, Books Inc., San Leandro
Colleen Ross, Books Inc., San Leandro
Patty Norman, Copperfield’s Books, Sebastopol
Petal Conlon, Readers’ Books, Sonoma
Bonnie Sullivan, Stinson Beach Books, Stinson Beach

Rae Alexandra contributed reporting.
An earlier version of this story listed the 2022 winners.

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