|
|
|
|
The Adoration of Jenna Fox: Suspense, Sci-Fi & Family Drama for YA Readers
March 25, 2008 - As Mary E. Pearson's new novel, The Adoration
of Jenna Fox, begins, it's some time in the near future, and
Jenna has just awakened from an 18-month coma. She knows that she was in a terrible
car accident, and that her memories have fallen casualty to the traumatizing
event. What she doesn't understand, though, is why her family moved to California
when her father's work is still in Boston. She wonders why her Boston friends
aren't keeping in touch -- and why there is a layer of edginess under her parents'
loving words. Pearson's skillfully constructed, suspenseful, and surprising
story follows Jenna's search for answers -- a journey from uncomfortable suspicion
to horrified comprehension. |
 |
Enjoyable Education & Human Connections: Vroman's Kamimura on Wi3
February 06, 2008 - For Robyn Kamimura of Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, California, last
week's Winter Institute taught her how the bookselling community is "one
big family," provided great insight into how to be successful and green,
offered terrific education sessions, and, importantly, gave her plenty
of opportunities for friendly banter with colleagues. Here is her take
on her Wi3 experience. |
|
An E-Fairness FAQ
January 22, 2008 - Laws in the 45 states that collect sales tax stipulate
that when a company has a physical presence in the state (called "nexus")
-- through a retail store, warehouse, office, or sales agent -- the company
must collect and remit sales tax on purchases made by customers in those states.
However, some online retailers with affiliates (who act as both an office and
sales agent) in these states are not collecting sales tax, while their in-state
competitors are. Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about nexus,
the Streamlined Sales Tax Project, ABA's position on e-fairness, and what booksellers
can do. |
|
Atlas & Co. Charts a Solo Course
January 16, 2008 - James Atlas, the founder of Atlas Books, which partnered with HarperCollins
to publish the Eminent Lives series and with W.W. Norton to publish the Great
Discoveries series, has given the publishing company a new name -- Atlas &
Co. -- and a new purpose. The change "reflects both the collective nature
of the enterprise and our willingness to take sole responsibility for the books
we publish," Atlas said. Atlas & Co. is launching its inaugural list
this spring. |
|
The "Unexpected Things" Booksellers Love About Bookselling
November 07, 2007 - To help bookstore owners and staff gird themselves for a hectic holiday
season, here is an uplifting look at some of the unexpected things 15 of their
fellow independent booksellers love about bookselling. The list began when Lauretta
Nagel of Constellation Books in Reisterstown, Maryland, posted a comment on
BookWeb's Bookseller-to-Bookseller discussion forum. |
|
Bridging the Generational Divide: Strategies for Managing Staff Ages 18 to 80
November 01, 2007 - Americans are staying healthier and living longer, which means, among
other things, it's no longer unheard-of to have teenagers and octogenarians
in the same workplace. While recognizing that generalizations are by their nature
only sometimes true, whether about age groups or other entities, BTW
asked five very experienced booksellers what it's like to have such a diversity
of generations in their bookstores and if it's necessary to tailor management
styles for each. |
|
Take This Book and Shelve It: Confronting the Category Ghetto
October 17, 2007 - It's a dilemma that every bookseller faces: Where do you shelve a book
so that the right reader finds it? Sounds like a simple question, but as many
booksellers will tell you, it's not. Does that biography with lots of travel
stories go in biography or travel ... or is there space to put a copy in each
section? What about books by or about Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani --
are they placed in politics, history, or biography ... or somewhere else? Or that
great, lost literary mystery that has cross-appeal? Importantly, where do you
think your customers will expect to find the book? |
|
Matrimony: The History of a Marriage and a Novelist
September 26, 2007 - By setting his novel, Matrimony (Pantheon), an October Book Sense
Pick, on college campuses, as well as within a marriage, married writer Joshua
Henkin chose familiar territory. The acclaimed writer spoke to BTW while
on the road. |
|
Notes From the Sidelines: Bracelets, Banks, Albums & More
September 25, 2007 - Whatever a bookseller calls merchandise other than books -- sidelines,
gifts, or non-book items -- the effects are still the same: The addition of
non-book merchandise to the inventory mix can add significantly to a bookstore's
bottom line. Gifts buyer Judy Flam of Massachusetts' Brookline Booksmith
said that the bookstore's cards and gifts section has "grown enormously
to the point that, during the busier weeks of the fourth quarter, it has
been known to contribute up to 24 percent of the total gross income of the store!"
Flam and several other booksellers from around the country recently offered
some of their sidelines recommendations. |
|
Bookseller Turns the Tables to Pen A Crooked Kind of Perfect
September 18, 2007 - After a decade of hosting hundreds of author visits as the marketing
director for Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, California, Linda Urban will now
be the one signing the books. The former bookseller, who currently lives in
Montpelier, Vermont, had her first novel, A Crooked Kind of Perfect,
published by Harcourt this month. The witty middle-grade story chronicles the
difficulties of Zoe Elias, a Vladimir Horowitz wannabe, with a Perfectone D-60,
"a wood-grained, vinyl-seated, wheeze-bag organ," instead of an elegant
baby grand. |
|
What Are They Reading? Sharing Personal Favorites Via Social Networking Sites
September 06, 2007 - In the physical world -- the realm of bricks and mortar, streets, trees,
and actual human beings -- independent bookstores often evolve into a community's
"third place": a gathering place where people can meet and exchange
ideas. So, it's no surprise then that in the virtual world a number of book-related
websites have morphed from sites where users catalog their home libraries into
an online third place (or perhaps "fourth place") for bibliophiles.
The popularity of these book
sites has attracted the eye of publishers and booksellers alike, who now scour
users' libraries and rankings to see just what titles booklovers love ... or hate. |
|
Booksellers Befriend MySpace
August 15, 2007 - Part I of a Bookselling This Week miniseries about online endeavors
that will keep you on trend and put you in touch with the tens of millions of
people who engage in online social networking. Coming up next week: bookseller-bloggers,
and why you might want to become one. |
|
On the Need to Become Craftier: Inspiration to Help an Often Underdeveloped Section
August 08, 2007 - Author, former bookseller, and enthusiastic knitter Melissa Lion explores the advantages of looking at
a bookstore's tired crafts section with new eyes. Noting that needlecrafts are
a $1.07 billion industry, Lion recently spoke to some of today's bestselling
craft authors about ways to improve craft sections, craft-related book groups,
the viral spread of word-of-mouth on craft books over the Internet, and more. |
|
Are You Experienced? -- Music Licensing for the Uninitiated
August 01, 2007 - If you're a bookstore owner who has been in business for some time, you may have received the phone call: A customer service representative is on the line and inquiring as to whether you play music in the store. Assuming the answer is "yes," the CSR tells you that you need to pay her company money on an annual basis. What exactly is this person talking about? Here's an up-to-date look at the organizations, regulations, and fees relating to music licensing, as well as other alternatives, such as commercial music services and satellite radio. |
|
Creating Effective Customer Surveys: Why & How
July 25, 2007 - Over the past decade as retailers of all shapes and sizes have felt
the increasing crunch of competition, new technology has made it much easier
to garner crucial data about customers -- data that can be used to develop strategies
to increase sales and achieve business goals. In this competitive environment,
it is critical for independent booksellers to go beyond an anecdotal knowledge
of their customers. This nuts-and-bolts article, adapted from the association's
education seminar "How to Do Customer Surveys: A Case Study," examines
the steps to creating an effective customer survey. |
|
Debut Novel Offers Compelling Look at the Cost of Revolution
July 24, 2007 - The phrase "beach read" typically
calls to mind a certain sort of book: usually fiction, light of subject matter,
an easy read. Although Dalia Sofer's first novel, the August Book Sense Pick
The Septembers of Shiraz (HarperCollins), is far from fluffy,
it certainly is a page-turner -- and a good recommendation for late summer reading
lists. Sofer's
literate, compelling, and compulsively readable novel is set in Tehran, Iran,
in 1981, in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Isaac Amin, a rare-gem
dealer, is arrested by revolutionaries who accuse him of being a Zionist spy.
He's taken to jail, and his hard work -- and resulting wealth and prestige --
that were once a source of satisfaction become a source of danger, as Isaac's
envious jailers declare his riches and secular lifestyle reasons to suspect
him of treason. |
|
LIBRIS Asks: Is Your Business Prepared for an Emergency?
July 09, 2007 - Whether your bookstore has many employees and locations, or it's just
a two-person operation, having a basic accident and emergency control program
is good business. Here, the insurance professionals at LIBRIS (League of Independent
Book Retailer Insurance Services), the ABA-owned insurance company, offer nine elements that should be addressed by an effective risk management program. |
|
The Resilient Story of Life -- After We're Gone
July 02, 2007 - Alan Weisman's audacious new work, The World Without Us (St.
Martin's/Thomas Dunne), asks readers to "picture a world from which we
all suddenly vanished." With "human extinction ... a fait accompli,"
wondered Weisman, "how would the rest of nature respond?" Getting
a comprehensive answer to that question necessitated four years of research,
taking veteran journalist and author Weisman to nearly every continent for interviews
with hundreds of scientists, writers, engineers, and others -- all in an attempt
to frame the direst of human dilemmas in a manner that would engage and even
inspire readers. |
|
How to Talk to a Bookseller: A 10-Step Guide for Authors
May 17, 2007 - Melissa Lion, events coordinator at DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland,
California, and author of Swollen (Laurel Leaf) and Upstream (Wendy
Lamb Books), offers fellow authors tips for dealing with her fellow booksellers.
When things go well, writes Lion, "the book will gain momentum from bookseller
reviews and suddenly Julia Roberts is playing the author in the story of her
life." Here are Lion's 10 steps to set an author on the Julia Roberts path
-- or maybe just the path that leads to a shelf-talker and a face-out display. |
|
A Moving Memoir From Maine's Unlikeliest Chaplain
May 15, 2007 - Kate Braestrup, a Unitarian Universalist minister and the author of
the new memoir Here If You Need Me (Little, Brown), likens her role as
chaplain for the Maine Warden Service to that of Father Mulcahey in MASH.
Braestrup, who found her "hand-me-down" calling when her
first husband was killed in a car accident, offers mediations on theology and
questions of fate and faith, as well as Ian Frazier-esque family stories dealing
with the emotional tumult of puberty and wars waged at the dinner table. There's
also an element of true crime, quick, elegant sketches of the Maine wilderness,
and lots of Braestrup's great sense of humor -- irreverent and otherwise. |
|
Steven Hall: The Road Blog, Part II
May 10, 2007 - Steven Hall ends his U.S. tour for The Raw Shark Texts
(Canongate), an April Book Sense Pick, with visits to several independent bookstores,
including Elliott Bay Book Company, Powell's, Books & Books, and Porter
Square. Along the way, he's denied beer, causes floods, and draws enthusiastic
supporters. |
|
Children's Poet Laureate Aims to Foster a Lifelong Love of Poetry
May 08, 2007 - This past fall, Jack Prelutsky, the author of more than 40 books of
verse and the editor of several poetry anthologies, was named the first Children's
Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. Prelutsky recently spoke to BTW
about his goals for his tenure as Children's Poet Laureate, how poetry enriches
kids' lives, and his advice for children who want to be poets. |
|
Steven Hall: The Road Blog
May 03, 2007 - Steven Hall, author of The Raw Shark Texts (Canongate), an April Book Sense Pick, provides an entertaining look at his experiences on a cross-country promotional tour, including a surreal experience surrounding a ginger cat at Skylight Books, the loss and return of $3K worth of electronics, a photo shoot, and a visit to Alcatraz. |
|
Plum Assignment: BTW Talks With Author Angela Davis-Gardner
April 19, 2007 - By tradition, plum wine is made at home by an individual, for the eventual
enjoyment, perhaps, of a few family members and friends. Similarly, Davis-Gardner's
novel Plum Wine (from Dial Press in paperback) -- which touches upon
this tradition in the course of its compelling story -- seemed destined, like
a bottle of homemade wine, to be enjoyed by a select few connoisseurs. But then,
in Davis-Gardner's words, "an amazing thing happened." Word-of-mouth
began about this special book and spread. "It suddenly took off,"
the author said. "And it was because of independent booksellers." |
|
The Elements of Email: Two Top Editors Highlight the Write Stuff
April 03, 2007 - David Shipley and Will Schwalbe were having lunch one afternoon at the
Oyster Bar in New York City's Grand Central Station, and both had experienced
the kind of morning that was just plain awful. "We discovered that almost
everything, not just that morning, but over the last week and before that, had
been caused by either an aggravating, vague, or sarcastic email we had received
-- or something we had precipitated by sending an email that maybe we shouldn't
have," said Schwalbe, the senior vice president and editor-in-chief of
Hyperion Books. That's when he and Shipley, the op-ed editor of the New York
Times, decided to write the book they needed. The result is Send: The
Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, to be published by Knopf this
month. |
|
Talkin' Baseball: The Cubs Win It All, Baseball Haiku, and the Babe's 104 Home Run Season
March 28, 2007 - With the baseball season set to begin on Sunday evening, BTW Senior Editor David Grogan, an admitted baseball addict,
compiled a selective list of recently published and upcoming baseball books.
This year's books cover an array of subjects, but there are some decidedly hot
topics: the history of minorities in the game, the ongoing steroids issue, and
a look at baseball's wild early days. |
|
WiFi Hotspots Draw the Right Demographic to Independent Bookstores
February 21, 2007 - Adding a WiFi hotspot to the bookstore mix was among the smartest decisions she has ever made, said Bridget Rothenberger of Nomad Book House. And, while
she and other booksellers acknowledge that there are some challenges in adding
new technology, most agree that WiFi hotspots draw in new customers and make "regulars"
of the old ones. |
|
What the Winter Institute Drove One Bookseller to Do
February 21, 2007 - Less than two weeks after attending this year's Winter Institute, Becky
Milner, the owner of Vintage Books in Vancouver, Washington, wrote to ABA staff
to share some of the many changes the two-day education program, and her networking
colleagues, inspired her to make in the store's operations. What she created
was the beginnings of a great marketing checklist for any independent bookseller. |
|
Saying It All About the Flower Business
February 13, 2007 - When Amy Stewart began writing Flower Confidential: The Good,
the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers (Algonquin)
her goal was to trace the flowers' journey from seed to store and to make the
narrative arc of a flower's life understandable to consumers. Amid the vivid
tableaux, however, she discovered a cut-flower industry in the midst of significant
transitions and found parallels to the challenges facing independent bookstores. |
|
The Winter Institute Take-Home: A Bookseller's Chronicle
February 08, 2007 - Jessica Stockton, events coordinator at New York City's McNally Robinson
Booksellers (and bookseller blogger extraordinaire) files a full account of
the second annual Winter Institute, in Portland, Oregon, from the opening reception
to the plane flight home. |
|
Bookseller Sees the Bright Side of Publishing Noir
January 24, 2007 - For 18 years, David Thompson has sold the best in mystery, crime, and thrillers to customers at one of the most celebrated mystery bookstores in the nation, Murder By the Book, in Houston, Texas. Now, Thompson, the store's assistant manager and the founder of Busted Flush Press, is the publisher of an anthology featuring a 2007 Edgar Award nominee in the Best Short Story category. |
|
A Fictional, Fun Take on the Book Industry
November 14, 2006 - A bookseller is one of the few good guys among a nasty cast of characters
in Blind Submission, memoirist Debra Ginsberg's debut novel set in a
Bay Area literary agency. A sort of Devil Wears Prada for the book industry,
the November Book Sense Pick follows former bookseller Angel Robinson as she starts a new career. Thinly veiled bookselling and publishing references,
allusions to books both real and imagined, bitter, but funny, office politics,
and even a kind of sustained campy suspense (complete with red herrings) are all in the mix.
|
|
Exposing the Big-Box Swindle
November 09, 2006 - "The government's role in chain store proliferation is very much
in the shadows," said Stacy Mitchell. The senior researcher for the Institute
for Local Self-Reliance and author of Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers
and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses (Beacon Press) recently
spoke to BTW about the "scandalous degree" that expansion of
big box retailers is fueled by public policy, what independent business owners
and their communities can do about it, and more. |
|
Facing the Moral Questions of Global War
October 31, 2006 - Historian Michael Bess is too young to have lived through the global
conflict that created the ethical dilemmas he scrutinizes in Choices Under
Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II (Knopf). But tales told to him in
childhood by both his parents planted the seeds for this 21st-century work that
he hopes will help readers better understand, and become more accepting and tolerant of, ambiguity in the world that we live in today. |
|
Unbridled Success for a Team of Veteran Independents
October 26, 2006 - Unbridled Books is on a roll, with 12 of its last
21 titles selected as Book Sense Picks. For Unbridled's two veteran publishers
(and its nationwide "virtual staff"), the key is caring "about
quality prose and good stories artfully told." |
|
Winter Institute Speaker Daniel Pink: Right-Brainers to Rule the Future
October 19, 2006 - Daniel Pink thinks the creative types shall inherit the earth. Pink
-- author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future
(Riverhead) and plenary speaker at ABA's upcoming Winter Institute -- says a
sea change is already taking place in our business and personal lives. We are
moving from the Information Age (where lawyers, programmers, and accountants
ruled) to what he dubs the Conceptual Age (artists, inventors, and designers, your time has come!). |
|
Rise Up: Michael Shuman on Launching a Small-Mart Revolution
October 12, 2006 - In his latest book, The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses
Are Beating the Global Competition (Berrett-Koehler), Michael Shuman explores how buying, planning, and thinking local is not just a marketing
strategy, but a movement, or small-business revolution, with the capacity to
revitalize and improve various aspects of community -- economy, environment,
security, and overall quality of life. Shuman recently spoke to BTW about
ways that independent retailers can effect a Small-Mart Revolution. |
|
An Open Book: Diary of a Soon-to-Be Independent Bookseller
October 11, 2006 - "The opening of my new bookstore is only weeks away, and things
are hectic," writes retired school teacher Ann Lacefield. "I have
just left a meeting with my contractor, and only hours before, I finished an
interview with the Greeley Tribune, my northern Colorado town's local
newspaper. In a week or so they will print a story about a new independent bookstore
right here in Greeley -- my bookstore, An Open Book LLC!" |
|
Tremendous, Superb, Wonderful ... Perfect, Once Removed
September 28, 2006 - It was 50 years ago -- October 8, 1956, to be exact -- that Yankee pitcher
Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in World Series history: 27 men up
to the plate and 27 men set down. No errors. No walks. It was a perfect game
from the unlikeliest of sources. |
|
A Love Letter to Bookstores
September 26, 2006 - Lewis Buzbee's The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, A History
(Graywolf Press), a July 2006 Book Sense Pick, is one man's account of his
journey from frequent reader to true bibliophile. It is also a sweeping history
of bookselling, from sixth-century China to 21st-century America, papyrus scrolls
to e-books. And it is, from beginning to end, a love letter to bookstores. |
|
Novel Set During Irish Famine Reveals Beauty Amid Struggle
September 05, 2006 - It's been quite a year so far for Peter Behrens. His son Henry was born in
February; in August, Behrens, his wife, and baby moved to Maine after 15 years
in California. Shortly thereafter, his first novel, September Book Sense Pick
The Law of Dreams, was published by Steerforth Press. And next week,
he'll begin traveling in earnest to promote the book. |
|
Freed "Enemy Combatant" Chronicles Seizure and Detainment
August 29, 2006 - In Enemy Combatant: My
Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar (New Press), Moazzam
Begg details a harrowing story of imprisonment and of perseverance. |
|
Kids Cooking as Easy as 1-2-3
August 29, 2006 - Award-winning chef and cookbook author
Rozanne Gold has adapted her unique 1-2-3 cooking format, using only three ingredients
per recipe, for kids ages eight to early teens. Her new book, Kids Cook 1-2-3, illustrated
by Sara Pinto and coming in October from Bloomsbury, is her first for children. |
|
"Gidget" Charms Beach Towns Bookstore Tourists
August 28, 2006 - Larry Portzline, the originator of the bookstore tourism concept, was himself a tourist on the Southern California Booksellers Association's recent "Beach Towns Bookstore Trip," which featured a lively lunchtime chat and book signing with "Gidget" herself, Kathy Kohner Zuckerman. |
|
All in the Family: Successful Succession From One Generation to the Next
August 17, 2006 - During the last year or so, several prominent independent bookstore
owners have announced plans to retire in the near future and to gradually turn
over their stores to their children. Fortunately, these future former-bookstore
owners -- Neal Coonerty of Bookshop Santa Cruz in California; Ed Morrow of Northshire
Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont; and Michael Powell of Powell's Books
in Portland, Oregon -- came to the table with a plan. |
|
Responding to Critics of Local First
August 02, 2006 - Michael Shuman, author of The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses
Are Beating the Global Competition (Berrett-Koehler), offers responses to
six of the most common arguments against Local First initiatives. |
|
Love in the Age of iPods
June 28, 2006 - Rachel Cohn and David Levithan aren't the sort of authors who need complete
silence in order to be creative: they prefer to rock out to the music on their
iPods as they write. It's fitting, then, that their book, Summer 2006 Book Sense Children's Pick
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (Knopf), features characters that
love music ... and begin to fall for each other during a music-filled all-night
adventure. |
|
Keeping Kids Coming Back for More
June 22, 2006 - Collette Morgan of Minneapolis' Wild Rumpus is a master at creating
authorless events that not only draw crowds, but that also ensure that her young
customers continue to return to the store through high school and beyond. |
|
Diplomat Finds Serenity in a Haiku Life
June 20, 2006 - Before Abigail Friedman moved to Japan she had, like many Americans,
"lots of well-founded ignorant views" of haiku. |
|
Finding a Secret Sister, Finding Self
April 25, 2006 - In Secret Girl (St. Martin's Press), Molly Bruce Jacobs
tells the story of her younger sister Anne who in the 1950s was hidden away
in an institution after being diagnosed as hydrocephalic and mentally retarded.
The author didn't meet Anne until the two women were in their 30s, and
this skillful and honest memoir examines why it took so long. |
|
Everything's Coming Up "Rosie" for New Algonquin Title
April 20, 2006 - Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants, the number-one selection
on the June Book Sense Picks list, was just a day away from starting a different
novel, when an article about a photographer named Edward J. Kelty caught her
eye -- and then her undivided attention. |
|
Series Focuses on Need for Confidential Sources
April 05, 2006 - The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the MLRC
Institute have begun co-sponsoring a series of talks by reporters and media
lawyers to explain the importance of confidential sources in uncovering news
stories. Some of the nation's leading investigative reporters are appearing
at bookstores across the county to discuss the dangerous increase in efforts
to force journalists to reveal their sources. |
|
What's in a Name: Colson Whitehead on Apex Hides the Hurt
March 21, 2006 - If it's true that the child who reads is father to the man who writes,
one might well wonder: What sort of cutting-edge literary fare shaped the early
sensibilities of novelist and MacArthur Fellowship-recipient Colson Whitehead,
author of the April Book Sense Pick Apex Hides the Hurt (Doubleday)? |
|
Exploring the Implications of Our Role as The Weather Makers
March 14, 2006 - "We are the generation fated to live in the most interesting of
times for we are now the weather makers, and the future of biodiversity and
civilization hangs on our actions," writes Tim Flannery in the March Book Sense
Pick The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means
for Life on Earth (Atlantic Monthly Press). |
|
Serving the Hispanic/Latino Book Market
March 07, 2006 - Bookseller Dennis O. Evans has worked intermittently
at Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore in Salt Lake City for the past 10 years, and he has been the store's general manager since July 2002. Here, he discusses
how Sam Weller's created a marketing and business strategy to profit from Salt
Lake's burgeoning Hispanic/Latino market and how other booksellers
can do the same in their communities. |
|
The Gift Experience
February 07, 2006 - "Gifts, properly done, can change the identity of your store in a positive
way (perhaps even attract new customers and generate additional purchases from
existing ones) and increase your cash flow," says Lance Fensterman, manager
of R.J. Julia at Elm Street Books in New Canaan, Connecticut. "Gifts are
just one way that independent bookstores can reinvent themselves." |
|
ARCs: How to Handle Too Much of a Good Thing
February 07, 2006 - While most booksellers would agree that Advance Reading Copies are a
useful and necessary tool for gauging the sales potential for all kinds of books,
sometimes galleys can pile up in the stock room in a hurry. |
|
Friend's Dream Will Live On
December 12, 2005 - Bookseller Kathleen Caldwell pays tribute to Debi Echlin, owner of A
Great Good Place for Books in Oakland, California, and a member of the Board of
Directors of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, who died in her
sleep on Thanksgiving Day. |
|
A Bookseller's Father Inspires Story of Love & War
November 29, 2005 - For bookseller Clyde Holloway of So Many Books, in Vancouver, Washington, the inspiration to pen his recently self-published nonfiction book, Pacific War Marine, literally fell into his lap. |
|
Booksellers and Writers: Keeping It in the Family
November 22, 2005 - Writing and bookselling are family affairs
at Books & Crannies in Tehachapi, California. Cheryl Clarke Kitzmiller,
also known as Chelley Kitzmiller, author of several historical romance
novels and many newspaper and magazine articles, opened the 2,000-square-foot
bookshop with her daughter, Gina Christopher, in 2001. Kitzmiller's brother is Gerald Clarke, author of Capote (Carroll
& Graf), the 1988 biography on which the current film is based. |
|
New Booksellers Shed Light on "Opening" Experience
November 22, 2005 - Former librarians Kimberly Diehm and Jennifer Graves are preparing to
open The NeverEnding Story Children's Bookshoppe in Las Vegas, Nevada, in February
2006. Here, they share their experiences
in gathering information to help them make the decision to become booksellers,
about writing a business plan, and in finding financing. |
|
November Notable Pays Tribute to George Whitman and Shakespeare & Co.
November 21, 2005 - In 1999, Canadian crime reporter Jeremy Mercer suddenly found himself
in a difficult situation. At the beginning of his memoir, Time Was Soft There: A Paris
Sojourn at Shakespeare & Co. (St. Martin's), Mercer writes that a thief
had provided him with explicit details about a crime for a book that he was writing, and the book was published with facts that the thief had specifically
forbidden Mercer to use. Fearing for his life, Mercer suddenly quit his job and fled to Paris. |
|
Betsy Burton on Being a Bookseller and More
November 14, 2005 - At this fall's New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association trade
show, bookseller Betsy Burton of The King's English in Salt Lake City, Utah,
presented an inspiring keynote address that touched on the topics of what it
means to be an independent bookseller; the importance of, and the challenges
to, free expression today; the necessity of keeping independent businesses alive,
and much more. |
|
Debut Novelist Looks Homeward
November 14, 2005 - Laila Lalami's debut novel, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (Algonquin),
begins on a flimsy raft as several Moroccans attempt to illegally cross the
Strait of Gibraltar from Morocco to Spain. |
|
Jack Klugman Shines Spotlight on Friendship With Tony Randall
November 03, 2005 - Jack Klugman, the veteran stage and screen actor, has published Tony
and Me: A Story of Friendship (Good Hill Press), a loving reminiscence of
his friend and Odd Couple co-star Tony Randall, which also incorporates
stories and photographs from Klugman's own history. |
|
Debut YA Novel Crosses Boundaries
October 04, 2005 - When Laura Whitcomb, author of the Book Sense Children's Pick A Certain
Slant of Light (Graphia), was a teenager, one of the reasons she and her friends "wanted
to read 'adult' books was the impression that YA books were like medicine,"
she recently told BTW. "They were moralistic, and you were supposed
to read them to learn something."
|
|
Publisher Pens a "Notable" Thriller
August 29, 2005 - Juris Jurjevics' The Trudeau Vector (Viking) is a gripping tale
of infectious disease and a marooned Russian submarine set largely at an internationally
staffed research station in the Canadian Arctic. The whole of Jurjevics' inventive
book -- which touches on such matters as global warming, nuclear proliferation,
and biological warfare -- stands apart from the run-of-the-mill. The same can
be said of its 62-year-old author, who described himself, as "the oldest
first-novelist in captivity." |
|
Chris Crutcher on Writing for Teenagers, Intellectual Freedom, The Sledding Hill & More
May 24, 2005 - Book-banning is familiar territory for Chris Crutcher: Each of his nine
books has caught the attention of censors around the country. It is fitting,
then, that his latest novel, The Sledding Hill (Greenwillow Books), a
Summer 2005 Book Sense Children's Pick, explores friendship, grief, growing
up -- and a censorship attempt at an Idaho high school. |
|
To Catch a Thief: What Some Booksellers Are Doing
May 18, 2005 - Some prefer to call it shrinkage, others call it theft, but no matter
the terminology, it's a problem many booksellers have to face every day. Here,
five booksellers -- David Bolduc of Boulder Book Store in Boulder, Colorado;
Alan Beatts of Borderlands Books in San Francisco; Chuck Robinson of Village
Books in Bellingham, Washington; Dale Szczeblowski of Porter Square Books in
Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Victoria Brondum of Colgate Bookstore in Hamilton,
New York -- share their experiences and the measures they have taken to thwart
would-be thieves. |
|
Bestselling Author of Novel of Papal Intrigue Finds Timing Is the First Secret
May 17, 2005 - Some young people have visions that change their lives -- like the trio
of youngsters in Fatima, Portugal, who were visited by the Virgin Mary in 1917.
Others -- like Steve Berry, author of The Third Secret (Ballantine),
a June Book Sense Pick thriller about present-day Vatican figures involved in
intrigue surrounding those youngsters' Fatima revelations -- hear voices. |
|
Book Sense Notable Is a Novel of Reverie & Remembrance
May 09, 2005 - At the center of Pablo Medina's The Cigar Roller (Grove Press) is Amadeo Terra, a former cigar roller
from Cuba, who is living in a Catholic nursing home in Tampa in the 1940s after
he has suffered a stroke that has left him paralyzed. When his nurse feeds
him some mango -- quite a treat compared with his usual baby-food mush -- the
tangy flavor helps him to conjure vivid memories of life in Havana. His marriage,
his unfaithful meanderings, his rocky relationship with his three sons, and
the political turbulence that inspired his family to end up in Florida all return
to him in moving, artful detail. |
|
Lizzie's War -- Doing Justice to Vietnam Vets and Their Families
May 02, 2005 - Beginning at age 20, Tim Farrington, author of May Book Sense Pick Lizzie's
War (HarperSanFrancisco), worked for 10 years as a dishwasher, followed
by another decade as a house-cleaner. He also wrote several unpublished novels
along the way. "It was a lot of self-therapy," Farrington explained,
"a very long exploratory apprenticeship. I'm sure there are much more efficient
ways to do it." No matter the path he took, Farrington has certainly arrived
at his writerly destination: in addition to Lizzie's War, he's the author
of The Monk Downstairs (a July/August 2002 Book Sense Top 10 Pick) and
two previous well-received works of fiction, plus a crime novel written under
the name Frank Devlin. |
|
An NPR Commentary by Richard Howorth
May 02, 2005 - This past weekend, Rowan Oak, the newly restored home of author William
Faulkner, was rededicated in Oxford, Mississippi. To mark the occasion, on Monday,
May 2, NPR's Morning Edition featured "Literary Pilgrims Flock to
Faulkner's Home" by Melanie Peeples, followed by "Finding Faulkner,
Forging a Different Path," a commentary by Richard Howorth, Oxford's mayor
and owner of Square Books. |
|
Rich Characterizations Propel Debut Novel to May Picks
April 26, 2005 - "I never think about plot," Renee Manfredi said in a recent
interview. "I don't think about theme. I think about characters. And these
characters became very real to me. I dreamed about them." It's no wonder,
then, that the people in Manfredi's gripping, interweaving debut novel and May
Book Sense Pick, Above the Thunder (Anchor), are so convincingly rendered. |
|
BTW Talks to George Soros
April 21, 2005 - George Soros is the author of eight books, including The Bubble
of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power (PublicAffairs); his new book will be published by PublicAffairs in the fall of
2005. Soros, in conversation with his publisher, Peter
Osnos, will be featured at the Thursday morning Plenary Session, kicking off
ABA's "Day of Education" at this year's BookExpo America. |
|
Inside the Walls of The Glass Castle
April 19, 2005 - To stand out in the current sea of memoirs isn't easy, but with
fine writing and a compelling story, Jeannette Walls' debut memoir,
The Glass Castle (Scribner), is winning rave reviews. From her nomadic,
unusual, and difficult early life to her current success as gossip columnist
for MSNBC.com, Walls provides a balanced portrayal of a family led by parents
who themselves were prone to extremes. The book was chosen by independent booksellers
as a March Book Sense Pick and has garnered starred reviews from Kirkus and
Publishers Weekly. |
|
History Top Ten Pick Explores an Injustice On American Soil
April 19, 2005 - A writer never knows where he may strike gold. For Jack Hamann -- author
of On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of World War II (Algonquin),
a Book Sense History Top Ten Pick -- it was at a 1987 Seattle hearing about
a proposed expansion of a sewage treatment plant. |
|
Are You Experienced? -- Music licensing for the uninitiated rewound
April 11, 2005 - If you are a bookstore owner who has been in business for some time,
you may have received the phone call: A customer service representative (CSR)
is on the line and inquiring as to whether you, the owner, play music in your
store. Assuming the answer is "Yes," the CSR explains that you need
to pay his/her company money on an annual basis. While you remain silent --
wondering how this person got your name and number -- the CSR explains that
you are in violation of the copyright law if you are "publicly performing"
music in your store without the permission of the copyright owner(s). |
|
Eight of Swords Makes a "Notable" Debut
April 11, 2005 - In David Skibbins' debut mystery novel, Eight of Swords (St. Martin's
Minotaur), dramatic events occur with startling synchronicity in the life of
its protagonist, a part-time professional tarot-card reader. The
book's author experienced a similar, if happier, extreme convergence a year
ago, when, after six months of having his manuscript rejected, he had just about
reached the end of his rope as a would-be novelist. |
|
Helping Mississippi Read
April 06, 2005 - In 2000, the Barksdale family of Mississippi
decided that the reading skills in its home state were unacceptable and became
determined to improve them. A donation of $100 million by family members resulted
in the founding of the Barksdale Reading Institute in Oxford. |
|
Author Julie Mars: Seeking Her Sister, Self, and the Spirit in A Month of Sundays
March 23, 2005 - It is not uncommon for someone to
respond to the death of a loved one by attempting to understand that person's
life better, or trying to find "God," or trying to find out more
about one's self. In Julie Mars' A Month of Sundays: Searching for the
Spirit and My Sister (Greycore Press, due out in mid-April), the author
manages to do all three when, following the death of her beloved older sister
from cancer, she embarks on a pilgrimage of going to Church every Sunday for
31 weeks. |
|
Charlie Stella Books a Winning Title With Cheapskates
March 22, 2005 - "I'm a big romantic at heart," says Charlie Stella -- a statement
that might startle readers of this Brooklyn-raised author, whose four published
novels, including the just-released Cheapskates (Carroll & Graf),
describe the often quite unromantic doings of various small-time East Coast
hoods and hustlers. Here, BTW talks with Stella about his latest book
and the colorful, former livelihood that inspired it. |
|
Klinghoffer on Judaism, Christianity, and the Elephant in the Room
March 15, 2005 - In his latest book, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History (Doubleday), David Klinghoffer addresses the Jewish-Christian debate over the Jews' rejection of Jesus; discusses why Jews had valid reason to be skeptical of Jesus; reveals that the ancient Jews, according to the Talmud, claim that they accepted some responsibility for Jesus' crucifixion (even though the Romans were the only people who had the power to crucify someone in Roman Palestine); and tackles other provocative issues. |
|
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Biographer Offers a Unique Perspective on Franklin, France, and the Birth of America
March 08, 2005 - When Benjamin Franklin traveled to France in 1776, he had already made
his mark as a statesman, scientist, inventor, printer, and philosopher. "At
the time he set foot on French soil Benjamin Franklin was among the most famous
men in the world," writes Stacy Schiff in The Great Improvisation: Franklin,
France, and the Birth of America (Henry Holt). But Franklin's most vital
service to his country would come during the eight years he spent in France.
During that time, the charismatic and naturally diplomatic Philadelphian convinced
France to bankroll America's independence. |
|
Luncheonette -- Serving Up Real Life With a Side of Humor
February 28, 2005 - When Steven Sorrentino quit his job as vice president and executive
director of publicity at HarperCollins to write his memoir, it was a remarkably
bold move. Sorrentino hadn't written a book since sixth grade, when he penned
Costume of Cellophane, a mystery novel inspired by The Hardy Boys.
But despite feeling "terrified" as he sat down before a blank computer
screen in May 2001, Sorrentino didn't waste any time. This February, Regan Books
published Luncheonette, a darkly funny and affecting memoir about his
experience taking over the family business in the face of his father's illness.
The memoir has won praise from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, and
was recognized by independent booksellers as a March Book Sense Pick. |
|
Natan Sharansky Makes The Case for Democracy
February 24, 2005 - Few books in recent memory have grabbed the attention of so many in
the media, and spurred as much political debate, as Natan Sharansky's The
Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny & Terror (PublicAffairs).
But then again, it's not often that an author has his book publicly lauded by the President of the United States. Recently, BTW conversed with Sharansky
via e-mail regarding President George Bush, Iraq, and The Case for Democracy.
|
|
Script Offers Help in Handling Scam Relay Calls
February 23, 2005 - Among the scams plaguing bookstores across the country is one in which
fraudulent orders are placed through the relay telephone system developed to
assist the hearing-impaired. To help new employees understand the scam and to
provide an appropriate response to a relay call, Molly Seamans, the assistant
manager of Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts, put together a relay
call reference sheet and a sample dialog. |
|
Bestseller Reveals Dealings of an Economic Hit Man
February 22, 2005 - John Perkins tried for a long time to get Confessions of an Economic
Hit Man (Berrett-Koehler) published. In fact, versions of the book
were rejected by about 20 of the largest publishing houses -- "with amazing
letters that said things like 'this book is riveting, but it's not quite right
for us now,'" Perkins told BTW in a recent interview. |
|
Beautiful Inez Plays Upon Author's Past
February 15, 2005 - Bart Schneider lives a life steeped in words. He is editor of Speakeasy
Magazine, has for three years served on the board of the National Book Critics
Circle, and was founder and editor of Hungry Mind Review. He is
married to a poet, Patricia Kirkpatrick, and his own writing endeavors began
with poetry, then playwriting. Most recently, he has written three novels --
the newest, Beautiful Inez, is out from Shaye Areheart Books/Random House
this month. |
|
Will 2007 Be Your Bookstore Computer System's Y2K?
February 10, 2005 - While it might not be as well-publicized as "Y2K," a potentially
very serious computer systems problem looms on the horizon for booksellers and
retailers: In the near future, the book community will run out of unique 10-digit
ISBNs, and, to ward off the possible repetition of ISBN identifiers, there is
a transition currently underway from a 10-digit ISBN to an ISBN- or EAN-13 identifier.
And while Y2K ended up more hype than reality (due to proper planning), the
change to ISBN-13 could easily spell disaster for the unprepared retailer. |
|
Bookseller Pens Her Adventures in The King's English
February 09, 2005 - The King's English Bookshop is a fixture
in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Betsy Burton is a local and national fixture as
its proprietor. Her 27-year odyssey as a bookseller in the Mormon
hub, and as a community activist, writer, and mother of a child with multiple
disabilities, is chronicled in The King's English: Adventures of an Independent
Bookseller, to be published in May by Gibbs Smith. |
|
Debut Novel's Success Puts Former Bookseller Over the Moon
February 02, 2005 - Former bookseller and first-time author Dean
Bakopoulos (Please Don't Come Back From the Moon, Harcourt)
isn't ashamed to admit he might know something about recent spikes in BookWeb traffic statistics: "When I found out I made the February Book Sense Picks
list, I was thrilled. There's fierce competition; the best-read people in America
are picking their favorite books," he said. And, he added, "I'd be
lying if I didn't say I was obsessively checking the BookWeb site every week,
waiting for the list to be published."
|
|
New Title Looks at Category Killers
January 25, 2005 - After Robert Spector's 1995 book The Nordstrom Way became a top
seller, the author became somewhat of a customer-service guru: He parlayed the
book's success into a follow-up title (Lessons From the Nordstrom Way)
as well as speaking engagements across the U.S. and around the world -- including
appearances at BookExpo America and regional bookseller conventions. It's been
10 years and counting, and he's still traveling and talking about customer service.
Spector has also written a new book, Category Killers: The Retail Revolution
and Its Impact on Consumer Culture (Harvard Business School Press). |
|
Former MI5 Director Creates a True-to-Life Heroine At Risk
January 19, 2005 - Stella Rimington, author of the espionage novel At Risk (Knopf), is
surely one of the most high-profile first-time spy-thriller writers of this
or any year -- and, perhaps, the best informed. The 69-year-old Ms. Rimington
-- or Dame Stella Rimington, as she is properly known in her native England
-- is the former Director-General of Britain's MI5 Security Service. |
|
Successful Business Strategies: Plan for Success in 2005
January 11, 2005 - Rhonda Abrams, author of The Successful Business Plan: Secrets &
Strategies and founder of The Planning Shop, describes how to develop an
annual plan that can greatly increase a business' chance of success. "The
key is to take a look at where you've been, where you want to go, and the best
way to get there," says Abrams. |
|
Traveling a Long & Winding Road to The Ha-Ha
January 11, 2005 - Dave King's teenaged writing endeavors included a novel penciled on
a steno pad and a screenplay he thought would be a good vehicle for David Bowie
(who never did respond to King's pitch). The author's writing tools have grown
more sophisticated in the intervening decades, but his penchant for risk-taking
has remained, as evidenced by his first novel The Ha-Ha, out this month
from Little, Brown and a January Book Sense Pick. |
|
Bury the Chains -- A Gripping Look at Early Human Rights Activism
January 05, 2005 - In 1787, a group of zealous individuals gathered in a London bookshop
to organize what would become a landmark undertaking: A campaign that would
put an end to slavery in Great Britain. The campaign wasn't a simple one, but
about 50 years later, the work of this enterprising group (which included one
woman) would bring about justice for those enslaved. In the January 2005 Book Sense Pick Bury the Chains: Prophets, Slaves,
and Rebels in the First Human Rights Crusade (Houghton Mifflin), Adam Hochschild
explores this story in a gripping, illuminating manner, combining immense historical
research with the drama of an exciting novel. |
|
Guerrilla Insights: 10 Ways to Guerrilla Creativity
December 20, 2004 - Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the bestselling Guerrilla Marketing series,
shares 10 insights into marketing creativity that prevent guerrilla marketers
"from going over the edge, losing their way, or wasting their time and
money." |
|
Discovering a Laotian Sleuth
December 20, 2004 - Dr. Siri Paiboun, the protagonist of Colin Cotterill's December Book
Sense Pick debut suspense novel The Coroner's Lunch (Soho Press), is a most
unlikely series hero: a 77-year-old Paris-trained physician serving as reluctant
coroner to the Communist Pathet Lao regime in Laos in 1976. |
|
Making the Case for Women's Rights at Wal-Mart
December 14, 2004 - Betty Dukes is no Erin Brockovich. A middle-aged, African-American woman
who thought sex discrimination was something unseemly and describes herself
as a "preacher of the Gospel," Dukes -- who is currently employed
as a 'greeter' at the Wal-Mart in Pittsburg, California -- is nevertheless poised
to head a group of 1.6 million women in the largest civil rights class-action
suit in history -- Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. The suit is the subject of a new book, Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart, by Liza Featherstone (Basic Books).
|
|
Nadine Gordimer Edits Story Collection to Benefit AIDS Charity
November 23, 2004 - In the early '80s, when the news of AIDS first started to disseminate
and stigmatization and misinformation were rampant, some of the first to work
towards raising funds and awareness about the syndrome were actors. And actors,
along with musicians, have continued their fundraising and education efforts
ever since. Nadine Gordimer, Pulitzer- and Nobel Prize-winning author, noted
this and saw that while writers individually had given their time and contributions
to the cause, they hadn't combined forces. She decided to change that: Gordimer
has organized and edited Telling Tales, an anthology of 20 well-known
writers, which will be published by Picador on December 1. Profits will benefit
HIV/AIDS organizations in southern Africa. |
|
Stacy Mitchell on Working to Ensure Independents Can Compete & Thrive
November 22, 2004 - As senior researcher with the New Rules Project (a program of the Institute
for Local Self-Reliance), a board member of the American Independent Business
Alliance, and author of the book The Hometown Advantage: How to Defend Your
Main Street Against Chain Stores and Why It Matters (Institute for Local
Self-Reliance), Stacy Mitchell has become a leading advocate for independent
businesses. Mitchell has traveled the country to educate citizens and policy
makers on the economic and social importance of local businesses and to help
level the playing field for independents and entrepreneurs. |
|
Heroic Effort to Save Books in Iraq Subject of New Kids' Book
November 17, 2004 - Author/illustrator Jeanette Winter creates award-winning children's
books on some very complicated subjects: She has explored other cultures, from
Mali to Mexico, and has introduced the lives of artists as varied as Georgia
O' Keeffe and Emily Dickinson to young readers. Her latest book, The Librarian
of Basra: A True Story From Iraq, to be published by Harcourt in January
2005, tells a small but significant story from the current war, in language
that even the very young can comprehend. |
|
Creating a Culture of Service Excellence
November 04, 2004 - Successful retailers know the importance of customer service. And in
this article from the book Guerrilla Retailing -- Unconventional Ways to
Make Big Profits From Your Retail Business by Jay Conrad Levinson, Elly
Valas, and Orvel Ray Wilson (Guerrilla Group, Inc.), the authors warn, "Ninety-six
percent of unhappy customers won't complain, but nine out of 10 won't come back.
Each unhappy customer will tell nine others about their experience, and 13 percent
of them will tell as many as 20 others about your poor service." |
|
Newmarket's Kinsey More Than a Movie Tie-In
November 03, 2004 - Newmarket Press is packing some hot material in a brown paper bag. Well,
at least it's designed to look like a brown paper bag. It's actually the cover
of the trade paperback Kinsey: Public and Private, the official tie-in
to the film Kinsey, which explores the life of famed sex researcher Alfred
Kinsey. The book and the film, directed by Bill Condon and starring Liam Neeson
as the insect scientist (gall wasps were his thing) turned sexual revolution
igniter (thanks to his Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, aka "The
Kinsey Report") and Laura Linney as his wife, are both slated for release
on November 12. Though the 352-page book is technically a movie tie-in, its
dynamic presentation makes it so much more. |
|
Kids' Book Talk: Megan Tingley Books
October 28, 2004 - While the recent announcement of the 2004 National Book Award finalists
included many unfamiliar names, one very familiar name in publishing came up
twice in the same category. Nominated for the Young People's Literature award
were two titles bearing Little, Brown's Megan Tingley Books imprint: Harlem
Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance by Laban Carrick Hill
and Luna: A Novel by Julie Anne Peters. BTW recently had the opportunity
to ask Tingley about her approach to publishing children's books -- what she
looks for when building her list, and what she's doing right. |
|
New Carroll & Graf Title Puts a Personal Face on 50-Year Struggle for Equality
October 26, 2004 - Just months after Brown vs. Board of Education altered the legal
landscape of 1954 America, William L. Taylor landed his first job at the NAACP
Legal Defense Fund, where he began working for two men who had been instrumental
in the landmark case: Thurgood Marshall, then chief counsel of the fund, and
his deputy, Robert Carter. Taylor joined Marshall and Carter in working to build
upon the Brown victory -- and four years later wrote the Supreme Court
brief that led to desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas, schools. This achievement was one of many in a career that has spanned several decades. Now, in The Passion of My Times: An Advocate's Fifty-Year Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement (Carroll & Graf), Taylor details his encounters with the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr. and President John F. Kennedy and describes the political and social climate of America from the perspective of someone who has long been entrenched in the quest for equality. |
|
BTW Talks to Maureen Dowd, Author of Bushworld
October 21, 2004 - Adding to Bookselling This Week's continuing coverage of things political, this week BTW talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning
New York Times Op-Ed columnist Maureen Dowd, author of the Book Sense
Bestseller Bushworld:
Enter at Your Own Risk, a collection of her funny, and pointed,
Times columns. The book's all-new introduction makes especially interesting
reading in these last weeks before the election, and courtesy of Dowd's publisher, G.P. Putnam's Sons, BTW is pleased to make it available
in PDF format. |
|
Steal This DVD, Part II: Turning a Bookstore Into a Media Center
October 14, 2004 - Over the past decade, as the bookstore market has become increasingly competitive, many independent bookstores began to delve into sidelines in an effort to broaden their stores' appeal and to enhance their bottom line. For many booksellers, that meant bringing in CDs and, more recently, DVDs. This week, BTW focuses on the challenges facing those who are looking to broaden their store's horizons by bringing in music and film.
|
|
Hopping on the Bus -- With Book Lovers
October 13, 2004 - "Bookstore Tourism," a term copyrighted by Larry Portzline, is a grassroots effort to promote and support independent bookstores by marketing them as tourist destinations and thereby creating a new travel niche for book lovers. Portzline, a Harrisburg-based writer for the Pennsylvania State Senate and an adjunct college instructor, has developed this concept so enthusiastically over the past two years that he has written and published a book, Bookstore Tourism: The Book Addict's Guide to Planning & Promoting Bookstore Road Trips for Bibliophiles & Other Bookshop Junkies (Bookshop Junkie Press).
|
|
Creating a Guerrilla Marketing Calendar
October 12, 2004 - A marketing calendar is an integral part of a successful marketing plan, and a savvy retailer won't wait until after the holidays to create a marketing calendar for the new year. Pre-holiday rush is a good time to start formulating
new plans as well as to assess which of the past year's marketing efforts worked
and bear repeating. In this article, which originally appeared in the book Guerrilla
Retailing -- Unconventional Ways to Make Big Profits From Your Retail Business
(Guerrilla Group, Inc.) by Jay Conrad Levinson, Elly Valas, and Orvel Ray Wilson,
CSP, the authors note that it takes about three years to develop a perfect marketing
calendar, but once done it will be one of a store's most precious assets. |
|
#1 Book Sense Pick Mines 19th Century California
October 12, 2004 - Given the bucolic setting, poetic prose, and transcendental themes of The
Green Age of Asher Witherow (Unbridled) -- a book that takes place in the
late-19th-century coal-mining region of Northern California -- it comes as no
surprise to learn that M. Allen Cunningham, author of this philosophically ambitious
and impressively assured first novel and number-one October Book Sense Pick, came
of intellectual age under the spell of some monumental 19th-century poets and
thinkers. |
|
Compelling Memoir Explores a Soldier's Journey From War to Peace
October 06, 2004 -
Claude Anshin Thomas, the author of At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey
From War to Peace (Shambhala), recently recounted the meditation retreat
he attended in 1990, a gathering for Vietnam War veterans led by the renowned
Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. It was a profound experience for the decorated
combat vet. "When I first heard Thich Nhat Hanh speak about Buddhist practice
and principles, it was clear that the Vietnamese were no longer my enemy,"
Thomas said. "If I had still seen the Vietnamese as my enemy, then I was
still an enemy to myself and separate from my own humanity. Without contact
to my own humanity, there was no possibility for healing and transformation." |
|
NEA's Reading at Risk Redux
September 29, 2004 - Here, bookseller Robert Gray of Northshire Bookstore in
Manchester Center, Vermont, writes about his "deeply
vested interest" in the results of the "Reading at Risk" study, released
in July by the National Endowment for the Arts. This column originally appeared as part of Gray's Weblog, "Fresh Eyes: A Bookseller's Journal." |
|
Book Sense One-on-One: Susan Avery Talks to Francisco Goldman
September 28, 2004 - From its beginnings, the Book Sense program has underscored the singular
relationships between independent booksellers and authors. BTW is pleased
to occasionally feature "Book Sense One-on-One," in which the bookseller
who has nominated a title as a Book Sense Pick interviews that title's author.
This week, Susan Avery of Ariel Booksellers, New Paltz, New York, interviews
author Francisco Goldman, whose The Divine Husband: A Novel (Atlantic Monthly)
is a September 2004 Book Sense Pick. |
|
Looking at Life From Both Sides Now: Melissa Lion, Bookseller/Author
September 23, 2004 - From her spot behind the counter at Diesel: A Bookstore, in Oakland,
California, bookseller Melissa Lion recommends great reading from her current
favorite genre, young adult fiction. Among the edgy titles that she likes to
handsell to teenagers, and those who love them, Lion promotes Swollen
(Wendy Lamb Books) unpretentiously but with genuine enthusiasm -- after all, she wrote it. |
|
BTW Talks to BEA Show Manager Chris McCabe
September 22, 2004 - Booksellers, publishers, and other industry professionals attending BookExpo
America 2005, to be held in New York City from June 2 to 5, will see a new face
as they travel up and down the aisles of the show floor: Christopher McCabe,
a vice president and eight-year veteran of Reed Exhibitions, who in June became
the show's new manager. BTW recently had a chance to talk to McCabe about
his new role. |
|
On Selling (What Else?) Books
September 08, 2004 - Nicki Leone, manager of Bristol Books in Wilmington, North Carolina,
was recently invited by author M.J. Rose (The Halo Effect, Mira) to be
a "guest blogger" on Rose's Weblog. Leone's assignment: To "write
about anything related to getting books read." Thanks to Nicki Leone and
M.J. Rose for allowing BTW to share with our readers this lighthearted
look at the extent to which a bookseller will go to sell a book. |
|
Some Stories Are Meant to Be Heard: Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie
September 08, 2004 - Usually, when an author's book is nominated for an award it is cause
for celebration, but for author and eighth-grade English teacher Jordan Sonnenblick
-- whose book, Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie, was nominated in July
2004 for the Young Adult Library Services Association's (YALSA, a division of
the American Library Association) 2005 Bests Books for Young Adults -- it was
cause for panic. |
|
Letter to the Editor
August 31, 2004 - "During my time on ABA's Booksellers Advisory Council, one of the
priorities that arose was providing opportunities for booksellers to get together
and share ideas," says Russ Lawrence, co-owner of Chapter One Book Store
in Hamilton, Montana, and a member of the ABA Board of Directors, in this Letter
to the Editor. "That notion led to some fairly substantial changes in ABA's
programming at BEA (BookExpo America), but it is reflected most clearly every
day in the existence of the Idea Exchange on the ABA Web site, BookWeb.org." |
|
Damian McNicholl and A Son Called Gabriel
August 31, 2004 - Set against the backdrop of turbulence in Northern Ireland in the 1960s
and '70s, Damian McNicholl's A Son Called Gabriel (CDS Books) is a moving
coming-of-age story about an Ulster adolescent, Gabriel Harkin, growing up in
a strict Catholic community and struggling to come to grips with his homosexuality.
BTW recently had a chance to talk to McNicholl about the novel, an August
2004 Book Sense Pick. |
|
NAIBA Scholarship Winner Lucky to Be a Bookseller Because ...
August 30, 2004 - Jessica Stockton of Three Lives & Company in New York City was recently
named the winner of the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association's contest
that asked booksellers to write an essay that began with "I am a bookseller
because …" Thanks to Jessica Stockton and NAIBA for allowing BTW
to reprint the winning essay here. |
|
Guerrilla Insights: Do You Really Aim to Please?
August 26, 2004 - In this article, which is part of a series on the Guerrilla Marketing Web site,
Debra Kahn Schofield discusses the four questions to ask your staff and yourself to make a commitment to improving customer service. |
|
Greek New Yorker Gives Meaning to His Survival by Facing Athens
August 17, 2004 - Facing Athens: Encounters With the Modern City (North Point Press)
is a book George Sarrinikolaou, a New York environmental-policy worker and former
journalist, had been wanting to write for years. But it was the events of September
11, 2001, that caused the would-be author to commit himself to his task of writing
about the forces shaping modern Athens. |
|
A Perfect Summer Ghost Story
August 11, 2004 - From the moment William "Dead" Kennedy's ability to see ghosts
causes him to almost become one, writer Sean Stewart ambushes the reader's attention
in Perfect Circle (Small Beer Press). Stewart's novel could be described
as a "Meaning of Life Thriller," a term Stewart coined to describe
a book that "tackles the profound questions of human existence, but doesn't
skimp on the sword fights." Perfect Circle is a July Book Sense
"We Also Recommend" selection. Bookselling This Week recently
interviewed Stewart via e-mail. |
|
Ruminations on the Closing of a Bookstore
July 28, 2004 - "We weren't in it for the money. Many of us who started bookstores
in the '60s and '70s wanted to change the world: end the war (all war),"
begins this column by R. David Unowsky on the closing of St. Paul's Ruminator
Books. "We saw our bookstores as part of the movement for civil rights,
women's rights, gay rights, environmentalism. We had a strong distrust of the
corporate world. We believed in the power of words and ideas and that the pen
was indeed mightier than the sword. And we applied our sense of social and economic
justice to our own businesses." |
|
Being in the Zone Pays Off for First-Time Novelist
July 27, 2004 - Raelynn Hillhouse will soon break into print with Rift Zone (Forge),
an end-of-the-Cold War thriller bearing enthusiastic blurbs from half a dozen
masters of her chosen genre. And this debut author's first novel has been chosen
as an August Book Sense Pick. Such developments might startle any other beginning
novelist, but the resourceful Hillhouse seems to be taking all this well in
her stride. |
|
Retail Strip Mining
July 13, 2004 - Chuck Robinson of Village Books in Bellingham, Washington,
likens the effects of out-of-state, corporate retail
companies, which extract dollars from the local economy, to the effects of strip mining for coal on the land. This column originally
appeared in the Summer 2004 edition of the store's The Chuckanut Reader:
A Magazine for the Northwest's Most Avid Readers. |
|
An Unfinished Season Mixes Memory and Desire in a Just Cause
July 13, 2004 - "It's a mistake," cautions one of the characters in Ward Just's
14th novel, An Unfinished Season (Houghton Mifflin), "to infer the
author's life from the author's fiction." But this compelling work -- set
mostly outside Chicago in the 1950s, told in the first-person voice, and rich
with convincing detail -- forces the question anyway: How close is this story
to its writer's? |
|
Life Savers
July 06, 2004 - The power of books to change lives is the subject of this column by
Andy Weinberger, co-owner with his wife, Lilla, of Readers' Books in Sonoma,
California. This piece originally appeared in "One for the Book,"
an occasional newsletter from Readers' Books. |
|
Creativity + Resourcefulness = Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved
July 06, 2004 - At first, Kate Whouley didn't want to write her memoir, Cottage for
Sale, Must Be Moved: A Woman Moves a House to Make a Home (Commonwealth
Editions). Rather, she said, she was busy working on a novel, handling bookstore-consulting
projects, and mulling over a children's book based on the cottage-moving adventure. |
|
Marketing Guy Returns From Book Tour Humbled, Exhausted, But Happy
June 22, 2004 - Carl Lennertz, vice president of independent retailing at HarperCollins,
former senior consultant to ABA's Book Sense marketing program, and friend to
independent booksellers everywhere, shares his thoughts about his recently concluded
weeklong book tour to promote May Book Sense Pick Cursed by a Happy Childhood
(Harmony). |
|
Putting the "Books" in Bookstore
June 22, 2004 - The Haverford College Bookstore in Haverford, Pennsylvania, is a 6,000-square-foot independent offering a "hand-selected inventory of reading that runs wide and deep," as well as textbooks and pretty much anything else a student needs to get through a semester. This article, which originally appeared in Founders Green, the college's parents' newsletter, takes a look at how the store successfully competes with larger stores by meeting the needs of the college community and beyond. |
|
V.B. Price on The Oddity
May 24, 2004 - BTW talks to V.B. Price, poet, political columnist, professor at the University of New Mexico, and author of The Oddity, to be published this month by UNM Press. |
|
Speaking of Audio: Stop, Look & Listen at BEA
May 18, 2004 - Robin Whitten, editor and founder of AudioFile magazine, takes
a look at audiobook highlights at BookExpo America. |
|
A Marketing Guy Sees It From Both Sides Now
May 04, 2004 - Carl Lennertz, vice president of independent retailing at HarperCollins,
former senior consultant to ABA's Book Sense marketing program, and friend to
independent booksellers everywhere, shares his thoughts about his new role as
author of May Book Sense Pick Cursed by a Happy Childhood (Harmony). |
|
June Pick Explores the Power of Diversity and Collective Wisdom
May 04, 2004 - In The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and
How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations
(Doubleday), James Surowiecki talks about how we run businesses, fight terrorism,
structure political systems, perform scientific research, walk through crowded
streets, and drive on tightly packed highways. And, in doing so, Surowiecki illustrates how "groups"
of all shapes and sizes end up being smarter than the individuals who comprise
them, and how these groups can ultimately determine progress and achievement
far better than mere individuals. |
|
Adult /Young Adult Lines Grow Increasingly Blurry
April 27, 2004 - Young adult readers are a powerful market force in the book industry
-- teens spend $94.7 billion per year, increasing by $1
billion each year (Jupiter Research). Most booksellers have sections devoted
to young adult or teen readers, but increasingly the lines between age ranges
and target audiences are blurred. Can labeling a book 'teen reading' turn off
potential readers over 14? Do the very characteristics that publishers require
for YA books limit the books' ability to generate interest for those seeking
complexity rather than straightforward moral lessons? |
|
|
|
Poet Olena Kalytiak Davis Talks About Spring, T.S. Eliot, and Wonderoos
April 20, 2004 - To mark National Poetry Month, BTW recently interviewed poet Olena
Kalytiak Davis, whose Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, and Other Off and Back
Handed Importunities (Tin House/Bloomsbury) is a Spring 2004 Book Sense
Poetry Top Ten Pick. Davis' responses, sent via e-mail from her home in Alaska, show the same kind of exploration of, and inventiveness
with, language characteristic of her poetry. |
|
Speaking of Audio: The Dreaded Summer Reading List
April 20, 2004 - The dreaded Summer Reading List arrives like clockwork every June. Kids, however, wish it would just disappear.
But savvy booksellers make plans now to help out. |
|
A Candyfreak Shares His Sweet Obsession
April 05, 2004 - Steve Almond hates coconut and despises Twizzlers, but he loves every
other type of candy. And in his new book, Candyfreak: A Journey Through the
Chocolate Underbelly of America (Algonquin), which is the number one May Book Sense Pick, Almond recounts his fascinating
and sweet-laden tour of eight American candy factories, from Idaho to San Francisco,
Vermont to Tennessee. Much to the author's delight, he was able to taste candies
right off the assembly line -- and take a closer look at the history and future
of the candy business in America. |
|
The Perfect Book Club
March 30, 2004 - Novelist Karen Joy Fowler "cannot fix on the hour, or
the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation" of her
love for Jane Austen's novels. Like many other writers she has a hundred reasons
for loving Austen, but she particularly responds to the power and invention
of Austen's narrative voice. Fowler's own distinctive narrative voice, which
has been attracting devoted fans since the publication of her first novel in
1991, will soon be heard in The Jane Austen Book Club, to be published
this month by Putnam. |
|
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Profiles Bookseller David Schwartz
March 17, 2004 - This profile of A. David Schwartz, owner of the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops
in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was written by Jim Higgins and originally appeared
in the February 22 edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. |
|
Hot Plastic Burns Bright
March 16, 2004 - Peter Craig's neo-noir Hot Plastic (Hyperion trade paper), a March/April
Book Sense 76 pick, has been described by Emery Pinter of Atlanta's Chapter
11 as "hip, funny, painful, intriguing, and filled with dry wit."
BTW recently had the opportunity to talk to Craig about his growth as
a writer and the influence of his early years growing up in California, the
child of a Hollywood star. |
|
Name All the Animals: A Memoir of Grief and Redemption
March 11, 2004 - Given Alison Smith's background -- she hails from a long line of devout
Catholics, who were blue-collar workers and teachers -- she was expected to
become an educator herself, get married, keep her faith. She wasn't supposed
to become a writer. To complicate things further, in her finely crafted memoir,
Name All the Animals (Scribner), she writes about her brother Roy's accidental
death, a subject the family rarely discussed, and her first lesbian experiences
at Our Lady of Mercy School for Girls. Smith
also broke with family tradition when she traded her religious faith for the
temple of knowledge, preferring Jane Austen to Jesus. |
|
America's Test Kitchen Serves Up Baking Illustrated
March 04, 2004 - For all those amateur bakers who have wondered why their efforts
to produce perfect results succeed only about 20 percent of the time, Baking
Illustrated: The Practical Kitchen Companion for the Home Baker With 350 Recipes
You Can Trust (America's Test Kitchen) provides welcome reassurance. The
new cookbook, by the editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine, shows that
it's not just you -- every baker suffers through the same frustration and failure
-- and, better yet, that there can exist "foolproof baking." |
|
The Good Word: A Recurring Reflection
March 03, 2004 - In this column, which originally appeared in the February issue of
Footnotes, the newsletter of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, Scott Foley of Grass Roots Books & Music in Corvallis, Oregon,
muses on what can happen when a passion becomes a vocation. |
|
Mile High Mayor Sees Independent Businesses From Both Sides
February 26, 2004 - John Hickenlooper, a successful, popular restaurant owner and developer,
has become the successful and popular mayor of Denver. Hickenlooper recently
spoke to BTW about his continuing commitment to the creation of a thriving
downtown featuring local, independent retailers. |
|
Speaking of Audio: The Freedom of Choice
February 17, 2004 - Robin Whitten, editor of AudioFile magazine, takes a look at the mix of cassette and CD audiobooks in bookstores and offers a list of some her audiobook favorites. |
|
Paul Auster: From Poetry to Novels With a Side Trip Out to Sea
February 17, 2004 - Paul Auster was 15 years old when he found the book that made him decide
to become a writer. "I was a sophomore in high school," said Auster
(born in Newark, New Jersey, and living now in Brooklyn), "when I read
Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. And I was so overwhelmed by the book,
I said to myself: 'If this is what a novel can be -- then I want to do it, too.'" |
|
A "True and Outstanding" Epistolary Tale Is a Book Sense Bestseller
January 21, 2004 - "She's somewhat of a mistake that really worked," said Elisabeth
Robinson, referring to Olivia Hunt, the rambunctious and loveable protagonist
of her first novel, The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters
(Little, Brown), a January/February Book Sense 76 Top Ten pick and a Book Sense
bestseller. Olivia is a Hollywood producer who has been fired, yet doesn't completely
know why. She's also been dumped by her boyfriend, yet is still in love with
him. Then suddenly, she learns that her pregnant sister, Maddie, has been stricken
with leukemia. |
|
The Man Who Would Be Gollum: LOTR's Andy Serkis
January 15, 2004 - Lord of the Rings movie fans who assume the character Gollum is simply
the creation of some software, a man at a keyboard, and a group of animators
are in for a bit of a surprise: Gollum is more human (and hobbit) than might
be imagined. The magic behind the on-screen Gollum is detailed in a new title
from Houghton Mifflin, Gollum: How We Made Movie Magic by actor Andy
Serkis, aka Gollum,
in The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. |
|
14 Retail Tips to Attract New Shoppers
January 12, 2004 - As Barracks Row in Washington, D.C., approached the end of a major streetscape
improvement project, William McLeod, executive director of Barracks Row Main
Street, a nonprofit organization working to revitalize 8th Street S.E. between
Pennsylvania Avenue and M Street, decided it was time to remind merchants to
keep up appearances. McLeod's tips are presented here as a reminder to booksellers
of the need to make sure their bookstores are inviting to customers. |
|
76 Pick Speaks the Language of Booklovers
January 06, 2004 - Sara Nelson considers herself a maniacal reader -- you know, the sort
of person who reads two to three books at once, thinks about books countless
times each day, and is always being asked by friends and associates to recommend
something good to read. Thus, those of you who already have pages-long "To
Read" lists and yards of books piled in your abodes and offices
should beware: Nelson's So Many Books, So Little Time (Putnam) will inevitably
result in making your list even longer, and those piles even higher. |
|
The Good Word: A Recurring Reflection
January 06, 2004 - In this column, which originally appeared in the December 2003 issue
of Footnotes, the newsletter of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association,
bookseller Scott Foley of Grass Roots Books & Music in Corvallis, Oregon, muses on the opportunity "to tout the small press,
the regional, or the first time author" when NPR's Susan Stamberg calls
… or even if she doesn't. |
|
Fascinating History of Stage Magic Appears on the January/February 76
December 30, 2003 - To some, "stage magic" means a man in a sequined vest doing
a series of cheap tricks one after another, to the accompaniment of fast and
repetitive music. But to Jim Steinmeyer -- a professional "illusion designer"
for nearly three decades, and now the author of the January/February 2004 Book
Sense 76 pick Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible
and Learned to Disappear (Carroll & Graf) -- stage magic is one of the
legitimate performing arts, with a fascinating history and a surprising integrity. |
|
African-American Elders Share Their Wisdom
December 16, 2003 - "A Wealth of Wisdom: Legendary African American Elders Speak
(Atria Books) is like having your grandmother in the room with you," said
Renee Poussaint, executive director and co-founder of the National Visionary
Leadership Project and co-editor of the collection of oral histories that tell the first-person
stories of African-American elders, both the nationally notable and the unsung heroes in local communities. "You can leaf through the pages and see how these visionaries overcame
challenges." |
|
Erin Hart Talks About Ireland, Music, and Haunted Ground
December 11, 2003 - From the moment a farmer's hoe digging turf unexpectedly reveals the
perfectly preserved, severed head of a beautiful young red-haired woman, Erin
Hart's debut novel, Haunted Ground (Scribner), captivates with its parallel
tales of two women -- one recently mysteriously missing and the other executed during the 17th century. BTW recently spoke to Hart about
Ireland, music, and, of course, the inspiration and challenges involved in writing
Haunted Ground. |
|
Orson Welles Stars in Book Sense 76 Top Ten Pick
December 02, 2003 - Robert Kaplow has recently returned from Carnegie Hall. And no, he didn't
get there by practicing -- well, an instrument, anyway. For the last 20 years,
however, Kaplow has been writing and performing for NPR, teaching high school
English, and authoring six books. Kaplow's most recent literary endeavor --
November/Dec | |
