This week, #1 bestselling author James Patterson and Little, Brown and Company are donating 200,000 copies of hardcover Patterson titles to the United States Armed Forces.
The donation will include copies of Tick Tock, Private, The Postcard Killers, I, Alex Cross, Swimsuit, The 9th Judgment, Run for Your Life, Cross Country, Sail, and The Quickie. The books will be distributed via Operation Gratitude with the help of George Scott of Books for Heroes and the Peerless Book Store of Alpharetta, Georgia, as well as a number of military support organizations via Feed the Children.
James Patterson said, “Every day the men and women of our Armed Forces sacrifice themselves on our behalf. I can’t think of a more deserving group to receive this gift, and I hope that this gesture shows how big our gratitude truly is. I’m also grateful to the people at Books for Heroes and Feed The Children that helped make this donation possible. Together, I hope we’ve brought some joy to our service people.”
George Scott of the Peerless Book Store said, “Since 2004, I’ve been shipping books to soldiers, and I started this service because I found out that soldiers had nothing to read. The goal is that soldiers serving our country have the same opportunity as we do to read and enjoy books, and have quality as well as quantity in their book selection. Books for Heroes is a community with a common goal—to provide, free of charge, books for well-deserving people! I wish to thank James Patterson, Ned Rust, and all those at Hachette Book Group for making this happen, as well as the board of trustees of the Books for Heroes Charitable Foundation, Ron and Sandy Jones, and Janice Scott. Without their support, this would not be possible.”
“This wonderful gift from James Patterson and Little, Brown and Company will help Feed The Children provide something extra for the men and women who protect our freedom,” said Feed The Children spokesperson Tony Sellars. “Our donors are keenly interested in providing aid for military personnel, and these books will be a welcome addition to the food and essentials that we deliver.”
These books will go to members of the United States Armed Forces via care packages sent to various soldiers in the United States and Afghanistan, and in direct donations to various military outreach programs. The logistic of shipping thousands of books and getting them into the hands of our servicemen and women would not have been possible with the help of Rodent of Transource, Alex Walker, Rich Hernandez, and Mike Myers and Erin Carlstrom of Feed The Children.
This donation is made in addition to the thousands of books James Patterson has sent over the past several years to military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as to VA hospitals around the world. In addition, James Patterson makes yearly donations of books to troops overseas via the USO.
