Shelf Awareness for Tuesday, December 6, 2005


Del Rey Books: The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Dial Press: Whoever You Are, Honey by Olivia Gatwood

Pantheon Books: The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera

Peachtree Publishers: Leo and the Pink Marker by Mariyka Foster

Wednesday Books: Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber

Overlook Press: How It Works Out by Myriam LaCroix

Charlesbridge Publishing: If Lin Can: How Jeremy Lin Inspired Asian Americans to Shoot for the Stars by Richard Ho, illustrated by Huynh Kim Liên and Phùng Nguyên Quang

Shadow Mountain: The Orchids of Ashthorne Hall (Proper Romance Victorian) by Rebecca Anderson

News

Notes: B&T for Sale; Bookstore Cats and Dogs

It's semi-official: Baker & Taylor is for sale, according to the Book Standard. Bought by investment house Willis Stein in 2003 for $255 million, the wholesaler has an estimated $1.5 billion in sales. About two-thirds of that amount is said to be books; video and music are the company's other major lines.

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Following up on Seattle being named the "Most Literate City" in the U.S. (Shelf Awareness, November 30), the Seattle Times's Nicole Brodeur talks with Matthew Mors and Gretchen Montgomery, the husband-and-wife owners of Square One Books in West Seattle. Mors called their customers "voracious" and showed a wonderful ability to handsell. For example, Brodeur wrote:

"Mors took my list of loves--David Sedaris' Holidays on Ice, James Frey's A Million Little Pieces and Laurie Colwin's Another Marvelous Thing--and presented me with a copy of Augusten Burroughs' Running With Scissors. ('It's as if A Million Little Pieces was written by Sedaris,' he told me. I'm game.)"

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Books-A-Million is opening a store in Cookeville, Tenn., about halfway between Nashville and Knoxville. The store will be in Jackson Plaza at South Jefferson Avenue and East Jackson Street. BAM has 14 other stores in Tennessee.

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Thanks to a $7,500 gift from the Costa Mesa, Calif., City Council, the Friends of the Costa Mesa Libraries is moving into a portable building that will house its headquartes and a new library bookstore, the Daily Pilot reported. Behind the Mesa Verde branch, it should open early next year.

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After a little over two and a half years--but long enough for three holiday catalogues and three trade shows--Nancy Fish has left the New England Booksellers Association as assistant executive director. NEBA executive director Rusty Drugan said that "the board and I very much appreciate Nancy's service to the association and wish her well in her future endeavors."

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Peggy Durbin and Michele Vochosky, longtime residents of Los Alamos, N.M., have bought the Otowi Station Bookstore in Los Alamos from Colleen and Bart Olinger, who have owned it since 1993, according to the Los Alamos Monitor. Earlier the store was known as the Ojo de Dios bookstore.

For the most part, the new owners plan to keep the store as is. "The staff is outstanding, the store has a wonderful reputation, scientists know where their books are; as the saying goes, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it,' " Durbin told the paper.

Besides adding a frequent reader's discount and bolstering e-commerce, the pair will install Ike as the new bookstore dog, replacing Bridget, who is trailing after the old owners.

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Internet Retailer magazine has named Powells.com one of the 50 best Internet retailers, the only bricks-and-mortar bookstore to make the list. The magazine cited Powells.com's "wealth of material designed to bring consumers back," including author interviews, essays, daily book reviews and podcasts. Created in 1994 and relaunched this past July, the site draws 70,000 visitors a day and 90% of its orders go to customers outside of Oregon. The magazine also mentioned Fup, the store cat, who keeps a highly popular journal on the site.

Concerning the redesign, Dave Weich, director of marketing and development at Powells.com, told the magazine, "It had grown up as Web sites tend to do. You leave them for two or three years and end up with these appendages that don't quite fit."

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Forbes.com looks at how book digitization by Google, Microsoft and Amazon might affect book retailers. Pete Mulvihill, co-owner of Green Apple Books, San Francisco, Calif., said, "There's still something wonderful about browsing in a book store compared with browsing online. There's a sense of possibility about walking into a store like ours."

Asked whether an online book search at one of the big online companies will lead customers to buy a book elsewhere, the frequently-quoted Dave Weich of Powells.com, responded, "Generally, in retail, the customer will take the path of most convenience. You're making an assumption that someone will go from Google and then out of their way to our site or our store. It's so hard to say what will happen, but it's hard to imagine how a small bookstore will benefit from this."


HarperOne: Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World by Craig Foster


Holiday Hum: Koen-Levy Sleighs Flying Again

Koen-Levy Book Wholesalers, Moorestown, N.J., officially opened on Halloween, October 31, although books didn't begin to pour into the warehouse until mid-November. "Seeing every shelf empty was amazing and scary at the same time," Jim DiMiero, senior sales and marketing manager at Koen-Levy, told Shelf Awareness. Now, after nearly a month of business, major publishers are heavily represented in the title base, and Koen-Levy is adding publishers continually, aiming to get back to "the Koen everyone knew," with a range of 50,000-60,000 titles in its inventory. Sheila Kowalsky, who is in charge of purchasing, is focusing on bringing back small presses, independent presses and university presses.

The company sent out several thousand credit applications to former Koen accounts and is offering what DiMiero called "a very generous 'welcome-back' " discount. Already, he continued, "a good majority of former Koen accounts who ordered regularly are back on board," and "10-20 forms are coming in every day. We've been warmly received." He noted that one New England bookstore commented happily to a publisher's rep that it was "great to place an order and have the books arrive the next day."

The return of Koen-Levy was aided by several factors, DiMiero said. For one, only a few months passed between the closing of bankrupt Koen Book Wholesalers in August and the opening of Koen-Levy in October. "If we had missed the holiday season and started up in January, it would have been tough," he noted. In addition, many of the old Koen team returned, and some important non-book assets, such as Koen's computer system, were bought by Koen-Levy, which was formed by Levy Home Entertainment and Bob Koen, the founder of Koen Book. "Luckily we were able to retain Chuck Lehman, the IT guy, who was even able to keep the old Koen phone numbers. For us to go out and say we have the same 800 numbers made things so much easier," DiMiero commented.

In the same way, most of the sales force remained intact. "Customers hear the same voice," DiMiero said, and the company is reestablishing its tradition of callouts: regular weekly sales calls "alerting accounts to what's come in, backorder status--a complete sales call."

Once the operation is up and running, Koen-Levy plans to "look at the changing model of wholesaling." The company may expand on the Koen tradition of having several reps in the field. As more and more orders come online and via EDI, the company aims to continue to interact with accounts, something that can be lost in the digital rush. It also will work on its new Web site, www.koenlevy.com, and revamp some of the old Koen publications, possibly merging the daily receiving report and weekly notes into "one, more concise" version sent via e-mail.

Already Koen-Levy is able to comment a bit on the holiday season. One hot title that is "gone"--again--is the $150 Complete Calvin and Hobbes. The story about Robert Sabuda's Winter's Tale is it may soon be in short supply. Some other major titles selling well include James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, The South Beach Diet Book by Arthur Agatston, Teacher Man by Frank McCourt, Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire, Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter, The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam about New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg and In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Marley and Me by John Grogan, a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter, has sold especially well because of the regional connection.


Park Street Press: An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey by Peter A Levine


New 'Kick-Ass' Stores in the Hudson Valley

Reflecting on the closing of Ariel Booksellers in New Paltz, N.Y., Chronogram magazine offers a long, interesting look at the difficulties of bookselling today and describes two new intriguing stores in the Hudson Valley:

"The Spotty Dog Books & Ale, which opened this July on Hudson's historic Warren Street, may set new standards for diversity: besides offering over 10,000 books, the former Victorian firehouse also sells art supplies, and its vintage bar serves artisanal beers including Kick-Ass Brown and Espresso Stout.

"Warwick's newly opened Baby Grand Café is another multitasker, combining an antiquarian book business with a coffeehouse music series, a gallery, and space for community events. Co-owner Ruth Siegel acknowledges that bookselling is 'a dying business,' but waxes eloquent about the tactile pleasures of browsing and handling books, and the importance of reading. 'Literature is about freedom of independent thought. Books have been banned and burned throughout history. It's so important to be there, especially in this cultural climate' says the new mother, who opened the store with her husband in spite of financial duress and a flood that decimated their stock. 'A bookstore is just a positive place. It really is.' "


G.P. Putnam's Sons: Take Me Home by Melanie Sweeney


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Blogs and the Brill Building

Today on WAMU's Diane Rehm Show, Dan Burstein, co-author of Blog: How the World of Blogs and Bloggers Is Changing Our Culture (CDS Books, $24.95, 1593151411), steps away from the computer.

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Today on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show:

  • Ken Emerson sings the praises of Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era (Viking, $25.95, 0670034568).
  • Lynn S. Chancer, high-profile author of High-Profile Crimes: When Legal Cases Become Social Causes (Univeristy of Chicago Press, $38, 0226101126).
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Tonight on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Rachael Ray, whose latest big book is 365: No Repeats: A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners (Clarkson Potter, $19.95, 1400082544). (See following item.)


Books & Authors

The Growing Hunger for Rachael Ray Titles

Because readers are just eating it up, some booksellers and wholesalers are reporting some difficulty in getting copies of Rachael Ray's new 365: No Repeats: A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners (Clarkson Potter, $19.95, 1400082544).

But the Food Network star has a full course of other items available that booksellers might serve to customers instead. Among them:

  • 30-Minute Meals (Lake Isle Press, $14.95, 1891105035).
  • 30-Minute Meals 2 (Lake Isle Press, $16.95, 1891105108)
  • Cooking 'Round the Clock: Rachael Ray's 30-Minute Meals (Lake Isle Press, $16.95, 1891105167)
  • Rachael Ray's 30-Minute Get Real Meals: Eat Healthy Without Going to Extremes (Clarkson Potter, $18.95, 1400082536)
  • Comfort Food: Rachael Ray's Top 30 30-Minute Meals (Lake Isle Press, $12.95, 189110523X)
  • Kid Food: Rachael Ray's Top 30 30-Minute Meals (Lake Isle Press, $12.95, 1891105221)
  • Guy Food: Rachael Ray's Top 30 30-Minute Meals (Lake Isle Press, $12.95, 1891105213)
  • Rachael Ray's 30-Minute Get Real Meals (Clarkson Potter, $18.95, 1400082536)


Book Sense Picks: January

As if there isn't enough to deal with right now, don't forget next year! Here are Book Sense's picks for January:

  • The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai by John Tayman (Scribner, $27.50, 074323300X).
  • Gentlemen & Players: A Novel by Joanne Harris (Morrow, $24.95, 0060559144).
  • The Brooklyn Follies: A Novel by Paul Auster (Holt, $24, 0805077146).
  • The Thinker's Thesaurus: Sophisticated Alternatives to Common Words by Peter E. Meltzer (Marion Street Press, $16.95 paper, 0972993797).
  • Arthur & George: A Novel by Julian Barnes (Knopf, $24.95, 030726310X).
  • The World to Come: A Novel by Dara Horn (Norton, $24.95, 0393051072).
  • The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons (Harcourt, $23, 0151012040).
  • Blindfold Game: A Thriller by Dana Stabenow (St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95, 031234323X).
  • A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich (Yale University Press, $25, 0300108834).
  • Leonardo's Swans: A Novel by Karen Essex (Doubleday, $21.95, 0385517068).
  • The People's Act of Love by James Meek (Canongate, $24, 1841957305).
  • The House of Paper by Carlos Maria Dominguez, illustrated by Peter Sís (Harcourt, $18, 0151011478).
  • The Accidental: A Novel by Ali Smith (Pantheon, $22.95, 0375422250).
  • Mademoiselle Benoir: A Novel by Christine Conrad (Houghton Mifflin, $20, 0618574794).
  • Love Walked In: A Novel by Marisa de los Santos (Dutton, $23.95, 0525949178).
  • The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor--and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car! by Tim Harford (Oxford University Press, $26, 0195189779).
  • The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan (Houghton Mifflin, $28, 061834697X).
  • The Masque of the Black Tulip: A Novel by Lauren Willig (Dutton, $24.95, 0525949208).
  • Life's Little Annoyances: True Tales of People Who Just Can't Take It Anymore by Ian Urbina (Times Books, $15, 0805080309).
  • Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (Vintage, $14.95 paper, 1400079276).



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