Hundreds of bookstore staffers receive holiday bonuses from author James Patterson

NEW YORK (AP) — Staffers at Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama, San Francisco’s City Lights Books and The Nook in Cedar Falls, Iowa, are among 600 booksellers receiving $500 holiday bonuses from James Patterson. The bestselling novelist has been awarding independent store employees since 2015. “Booksellers save lives. Period,” Patterson says in a statement Tuesday. Along with his gifts to booksellers, Patterson has given millions of dollars to schools, libraries and literacy programs. In 2015, the National Book Foundation presented him an honorary National Book Award — the Literarian Award — for “outstanding service to the American literary community.”