Names and faces

After years of tabloid gossip claiming marital troubles, country music’s top couple Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert announced their divorce after four years of marriage. The news was confirmed in a statement by the couple to The Associated Press, issued by their representatives Monday. “This is not the future we envisioned,” the former couple said in the statement. “And it is with heavy hearts that we move forward separately. We are real people, with real lives, with real families, friends and colleagues. Therefore, we kindly ask for privacy and compassion concerning this very personal matter.” The two multiplatinum stars came together just as their careers were hitting their peak, but the couple had to constantly deny rumors that their superstar careers were taking a toll on their marriage. Grammy-winning native Texan Lambert, 31, is one of country’s music most lauded female singers with her brand of sass and sincerity on songs like “Gunpowder & Lead” and “The House That Built Me.” “Boys ‘Round Here” singer Shelton, 39, became a ubiquitous star as he juggled his musical and television career, as a judge on The Voice and a co-host of the Academy of Country Music Awards. Shelton’s first marriage of three years ended in divorce. Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman sold more than 1.1 million copies in North America in its first week on sale and now has more than 3.3 million copies in print, the publisher, Harper-Collins, said Monday. “First-week sales of ‘Go Set a Watchman’ have far exceeded our expectations,” Brian Murray, president and chief executive of Harper-Collins Publishers, said in a statement. “We are thrilled to see readers responding to this historic new work from an iconic author like Harper Lee.” Despite the controversies clouding the book’s release, and mixed reviews, readers flocked to bookstores to buy Watchman, which arrived 55 years after Lee’s debut novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper-Collins has done multiple printings of the book. At Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million, Watchman set first-day sales records for adult fiction. Barnes & Noble said it expected Watchman to be its best-selling title of the year. The book was the most preordered book at Barnes & Noble since the 2009 publication of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, said Mary Amicucci, vice president of adult trade and children’s books for Barnes & Noble.

Shelton and Lambert

Lee