James Patterson, patron saint of the A.C. Hunter Public Library, loves their prank

When one of the biggest authors on the planet sees your April Fool's Day prank about his plethora of titles, it's a good day.

"I'd like to take this opportunity to officially announce my retirement from April Fool's Day pranks," says Dan Murphy, who came up with the idea to take over all displays at the A.C. Hunter Public Library in St. John's with just James Patterson titles.

"I've learned that when you win the Olympic gold, it's time to retire."

Murphy came up with the idea in a meeting with his colleagues when they were trying to brainstorm what their April displays would be.

"It seems like every other day we're getting a new James Patterson book and I was like, 'Why don't we just make a James Patterson display?' And then that snowballed from, make a display, to make all the displays," he said.

His favourite Patterson display is, "Guess what? James Patterson writes romance novels, too."

The prank was tweeted out and got plenty of likes, but Murphy and fellow librarian Emily Blackmore did not expect to have Patterson see it.

But he did.

And he loved it.

"It was really exciting, actually, to see such a big author notice something that we thought was kind of silly and fun that we did," Blackmore told CBC's Weekend AM.

"It made everyone here feel really good and happy."

"We are very lucky, we are very blessed, that James Patterson himself … said that he thought it was one of the funniest April Fool's pranks ever," Murphy added.

"I've since printed said tweet and it is framed on my desk because this is a life goal for me. There's nowhere I can go from here."

Patterson most popular

The displays are still up for the rest of the month, and Murphy and Blackmore said it has indeed had the effect of getting even more James Patterson novels checked out — something they didn't think was possible.

"He is one of the most prolific authors of our time, I would say. We have over 700 records for him in our system," Blackmore said.

"We have 94 libraries and he's the No. 1 most popular author people ask for."

Blackmore is the adult fiction and social media librarian, responsible for buying titles for across Newfoundland and Labrador Public Libraries branches, so she's very familiar with how popular Patterson is.

"I think that this was a little bit for us just as much as it was fun for people," she said.

"He is so prolific that we have so many of his books that they overflow into the basement. It's almost a funny joke that, of course you have to go downstairs to get another James Patterson book."

Murphy agreed, saying at the A.C. Hunter library, he has his name on titles on every floor, in pretty much every genre.

"That's the beauty of James Patterson: he transcends all three — all four floors if you count the basement."

There's something special about Patterson's books, Murphy said, that make him so popular.

"He has a really good voice. One of the best parts about James Patterson is that you can pick up a book and you can instantly get transported into that world and you just instantly want to know what happens next," Murphy said.

"He captures you with these really short chapters and you think, I can just read another one. And then somehow, it's 13 chapters in and you didn't even know it happened."

As for what the library will do next year to try to top this, the pressure is on, but Blackmore hopes people set their bars relatively low.

"There's a little bit of nervousness because I don't know how we could top this."

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