Books and beans

Starbucks, the giant coffee chain, has picked "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Child Soldier," by Ishmael Beah, as its second featured book. The book will be sold in 6,000 Starbucks locations and about 10 percent of sales receipts will be donated to UNICEF.

Beah, 26, who lives in New York, was forced at 13 to be a soldier of an armed militia in his native Sierra Leone, in West Africa. He left the country when he was 16, came to the United States, and graduated from Oberlin College. The memoir is due from Farrar Straus & Giroux in February.

Starbuck's first featured book, Mitch Albom's "For One More Day," sold 92,000 copies in Starbucks coffee shops. As did Albom, Beah's author tour will include Starbucks stores in 10 cities. Judging from its website, Starbucks doesn't offer "West African Wake-Up," a fair-trade coffee from Sierra Leone, but that would be fitting. Mr. Beah might even buy a cup.