Shelf Awareness for Wednesday, February 15, 2006


William Morrow & Company: Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

Del Rey Books: Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid

Peachtree Teen: Romantic YA Novels Coming Soon From Peachtree Teen!

Watkins Publishing: She Fights Back: Using Self-Defence Psychology to Reclaim Your Power by Joanna Ziobronowicz

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

News

Notes: Rent Problems Fell Two Booksellers; E-Textbooks

Because of high rent, RJ Julia at Elm Street Books in New Canaan, Conn., is closing, the Connecticut Post reported. A group of 16 investors who had hoped to create a self-sustaining store has decided to give up its effort, and RJ Julia Booksellers, Madison, Conn., which has managed the store since last June, has not exercised an option to buy the store--because of the rent problem.

Founder Susan Rein told the paper that rent takes up 25% of sales and that taxes on the property, not a landlord decision, accounted for the high rent. Rein hopes to reopen in a smaller space. The store will close in its current location on March 12.

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Victor Kamkin Inc., the huge Russian book wholesaler and bookseller that had moved to its current location in Gaithersburg, Md., four years ago, has been evicted after being more than five months behind in rent, according to the Maryland Business Gazette. In an ugly turn, the owner of the property has literally thrown out about 400,000 of the company's 600,000 volumes, leading book lovers to rummage through trash bins outside the building.

Kamkin was founded in 1952 and bought the old Four Continents Bookstore in Manhattan in 1982. The company is now owned by Igor Kalageorgi.

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Gift card redemptions and unusually mild weather helped boost January general retail sales 2.3% over December and up 8.8% compared to January 2005, according to the Commerce Department. In addition, a decline in oil prices, a net gain in jobs and improved consumer confidence in January led observers and Wall Street to predict a stronger year than they had earlier. The downside: these trends will likely result in the Federal Reserve Bank pushing up interest rates another notch.

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Shades of the talk about CD-ROMs a decade ago!

College students aren't flocking to e-textbooks because the e-books haven't taken full advantage of the new technology, according to an AP story via the Kansas City Star.

"It's like taking a book and . . . trying to turn it into a movie just by trying to read pages," Alexander Pereira, chief operating officer of Xplana Learning, told the AP. "It's a different medium."

Among titles that might be more attractive to students: "a biology e-book showing video of DNA's double helix coming to life" or "a math book with a built-in calculator or spreadsheet so students can try out formulas as they read."

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Titles Inc., the "much-loved rare bookstore" in Highland Park, Ill., has moved three blocks, to 1821 St. Johns Avenue, after 29 years in its current location, the Chicago Tribune reported. Owner Florence Shay called each of the 10,000 books, "to me, a treasure."

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Oscar host alert:

Via his Publishing Insider blog, Carl Lennertz reminds us that before Jon Stewart became one of the famous people, he wrote a book of short stories, Naked Pictures of Famous People ($14, 068817162), that HarperCollins "happily published" and sells more of each year.

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Lights, camera, joint venture action. . .

Random House Films and Focus Features have done their first two joint deals since announcing the partnership last November to make feature movies together based on Random House titles. One of the pair is a French novel, The Attack by Yasmina Khadra (the pen name of Mohammed Moulessehoul, a former Algerian army officer), to be published here in May by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, about an Arab surgeon in Israel "who learns a shattering secret about his wife in the aftermarth of a suicide bombing."

The other is Curveball by Bob Drogin, the Los Angeles Times reporter who broke the store about the Iraqi informant code named Curveball whose erroneous information about weapons of mass destruction was used by the Bush administration to justify the war against Iraq. The book is scheduled for publication in fall 2007 by Random House.

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The Christian Science Monitor explores book-sharing Web site PaperBackSwap.com, whose members exchange used paperbacks, usually paying just the cost of postage.

The site lists more than 300,000 paperbacks and audiobooks. Members mail 1,500-2,000 books a day. The typical member is a woman who loves to read, is bored by TV and owns many paperbacks.

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Bookworld has added six publisher-clients. The four that will be sold by Bookworld Trade are Healthful Communications, Transpersonal Publishing, Jones & Williams Publishing and Living Life Publishing. The other two--Avery Stafford Ministries and M2 Music--will be sold by Bookworld Music.

Bookworld now has 150 publisher-clients.


Now Streaming on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME: A Gentleman in Moscow


December Bookstore Sales Even; 2005 Down 1.85%

December bookstore sales were $2.09 billion, up just .05% from $2.089 billion in the same month in 2004, according to preliminary estimates from the Census Bureau. This was only the fifth month during 2005 that sales rose compared to the same period in 2004.

For all of 2005, bookstore sales were $15.924 billion, down 1.85% from bookstore sales of $16.224 billion in 2004, according to preliminary estimates. In the early part of 2005, sales were down even more compared to 2004, but through the latter part of the year, the gap between 2005 and 2004 sales narrowed.

By comparison, total retail sales in December were $379.4 billion, up 5.3% from $360.4 billion in December 2004. For the year, total retail sales were $3.8 trillion, up 7.2% from $3.5 trillion.

Note: under Census Bureau definitions, bookstore sales are of new books and do not include "electronic home shopping, mail-order, or direct sale" or used book sales.


GLOW: Greystone Books: brother. do. you. love. me. by Manni Coe, illustrated by Reuben Coe


NAIBA Hits the Road Again

The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association is staging its second day-long trunk show. Like last July's, this will be held in Syracuse, N.Y., and allows booksellers who don't usually see reps to hear reps as a group and also meet with publishers, rep groups and wholesalers individually. The event will be held on Tuesday, June 13. Publishers will have one-hour slots to review frontlist titles and report on promotional programs.

Last year's show drew nearly 50 booksellers. Because some publishers had to be turned away, this year NAIBA is taking more space. Rob Stahl, general book manager at the Colgate Bookstore, Hamilton, N.Y., who has been working with NAIBA executive director Eileen Dengler on the project, told Shelf Awareness that he is "cautiously optimistic that we can get more booksellers to attend," particularly following last year's success.

In another change, this year's trunk show may add some gift vendors, depending on space. "Cross merchandising is one of the things we as booksellers need to do to stay viable," Stahl said.


BINC: Apply Now to The Susan Kamil Scholarship for Emerging Writers!


Media and Movies

This Weekend on Book TV: Powerful Presidents; Conspiracy?

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's Web site.

Saturday, February 18

7 p.m. Encore Booknotes. In a segment first aired in 1999, Richard Shenkman, commentator, founder of HistoryNewsNetwork.org and author of Presidential Ambition: Gaining Power at Any Cost (Harper Perennial, $16.95, 0060930543), asserted that the most successful American Presidents found ways to expand their power and manipulate both the press and the general public.

11 p.m. History on Book TV. In an event hosted by the New York Society for Ethical Culture, Temple professor Joan Mellen, author of A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History (Potomac Books, $29.95, 1574889737), said she believes that the government's response to President John F. Kennedy's assassination was insufficient and that both the FBI and CIA were involved in the murder.

Sunday, February 19

7 p.m. Public Lives. In an event that took place at a Borders in Philadelphia, Pa., Michael D'Antonio talks about the subject of his new book, Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams (S&S, $25, 0743264096). D'Antonio sweetly argues that although the businessman and philanthropist could be controlling, his kindness and compassion were sincere.


Media Heat: Kevin Baker on Strivers Row

Today on ABC's World News This Morning, Jane Bryant Quinn quickly discusses her new book, Smart and Simple Financial Strategies for Busy People (S&S, $26, 0743269942).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show, Michael Kazin, author of A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (Knopf, $30, 0375411356), tries to tone down the image of the legendary fundamentalist, racist and populist.

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Today on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show:

  • Kevin Baker talks about the last in his City of Fire trilogy, Strivers Row (HarperCollins, $26.95, 0060195835).
  • Morgan Entrekin, publisher of Grove/Atlantic, memoirist/poet Mary Karr (Sinners Welcome) and Marie Arana, editor of the Washington Post Book World, address the James Frey mess and what impact it will have on the publishing industry.
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This evening Lehrer NewsHour talks with one of its own contributors, Roger Rosenblatt, whose new book is his first novel, Lapham Rising (Ecco, $23.95, 0060833610).

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Tonight the Late Show with David Letterman goes one on one with Charles Barkley, whose new book is Who's Afraid of a Large Black Man?: Race, Power, Fame, Identity, and Why Everyone Should Read My Book (Riverhead, $14, 1594482055), a series of interviews by the former basketball star with public figures on the subject of race in the U.S.

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Yesterday Fresh Air spoke with bioethics expert Christopher Thomas Scott, author of Stem Cell Now: From the Experiment That Shook the World to the New Politics of Life (Pi Press, $24.95, 0131737988).


The Bestsellers

Unveiled: Mystery Booksellers' January Bestsellers

The following are the bestselling titles in January at member stores of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. For more information, go to the association Web site.

Hardcover

1. Blindfold Game by Dana Stabenow
1. A Long Shadow by Charles  Todd
3. Nothing But Trouble by Michael McGarrity
4. Sunstroke by Jesse Kellerman
5. The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell by Lillian Jackson Braun
6. Delete All Suspects by Donna Andrews
7. Death Dance by Linda Fairstein
8. Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter by Blaize Clement
8. Gentleman and Players by Joanne Harris
10. Got the Look by James Grippando
 
Paperback
1. In a Dark House by Deborah Crombie
2. Wedding Rows by Kate Kingsbury
3. The Delilah Complex by M.J. Rose
3. Edge of Evil by J.A. Jance
5. Death in the Garden by Elizabeth Ironside
6. The Wooden Overcoat by Pamela Branch
7. A Killer Collection by J.B. Stanley
8. Lion in the Cellar by Pamela Branc
8. The Trouble with Magic by Madelyn Alt
10. Most Wanted by Michelle Martinez



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