Pope John Paul’s death was big business for publishers and memorabilia collectors yesterday as five books penned by the pope zoomed into Amazon.com’s Top 100 – while rosaries purportedly blessed by the Catholic leader fetched hundreds on eBay.
John Paul II’s “Memory and Identity: Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium” charged to No. 11 on Amazon just three hours after his death, and the book was listed at No. 2 on Barnes & Noble’s Web site.
Other pope-authored top sellers were “In My Own Words” (2002); “The Way to Christ: Spiritual Exercises” (1994); “Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way” (2004), and “The Poetry of Pope John Paul II” (2003).
A 2001 biography of the pope, “Witness to Hope” by George Weigel, crept back into Amazon’s Top 50.
Meanwhile, rosaries said to have been blessed by the pope were going for $400 to $500 on eBay, while a Virginia T-shirt manufacturer went online with $10 “X-Tra Large Pope T-Shirts,” which he claimed to have designed “within an hour after the pope passed on.”
Over the past week, Catholic gift shops have stocked up on CDs and DVD on the pope’s life, and Barnes & Noble sent messages to its stores about how to set up papal displays.
The company gave instructions on how to display in-stock books with signs reading “A lifetime remembered.”