Book Buzz: Veronica Roth's 'Four' adds up

Veronica Roth followed up Divergent, her best-selling dystopian trilogy aimed at teens, with a short-story collection.

Four: A Divergent Collection includes four stories told from the perspective of one of her characters, the mysterious Tobias "Four" Eaton. (He got his nickname after it was discovered he had only four fears — far fewer than the average in dystopian Chicago.)

And it, too, is a hit.

In print and e-books, Four sold more than 600,000 copies in its first week, according to publisher HarperCollins. The collection lands on Paste BN's Best-Selling Books list at No. 2.

Three e-book versions of the separate stories also land on the list: The Initiate (No. 8), The Son (No. 11) and The Traitor (No. 13). The fourth story, The Transfer, was originally published in September 2013 when it landed at No. 19.

On her latest book tour, Roth has drawn about 1,000 fans during each of four stops, which hit Boston, Atlanta, Denver and Lansing, Mich.

The movie version of Divergent, the first book in the trilogy, starring Shailene Woodley and Kate Winslet, was released in March. The novel is No. 16 on Paste BN's weekly list and was No. 2 among Paste BN's top best sellers for first half of 2014.

Roth was a 21-year-old creative-writing major at Northwestern University when she wrote and sold Divergent in 2010. HarperCollins says her worldwide sales are 25 million copies — and counting.