"Our customers rely on our advice. It does not matter to us whether more or fewer titles are published--we have to select carefully anyway."--Sylvie Loriquer, owner of l'Attrape-Coeurs bookshop, Paris, in a Bookseller.com article on the record-setting deluge of novels being released in France this autumn.

 

In contrast to his often enigmatic pronouncements while chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan has been loud and clear about his views in The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (Penguin Press, $35, 9781594201318/1594201315), whose pub date is today.

Greenspan appeared last night on 60 Minutes, and his observations about the Republican Party in the book made for front-page stories across the country over the weekend. According to the AP (via the New York Times), Greenspan, who calls himself a "libertarian Republican," faulted President Bush's lax fiscal policy. ''My biggest frustration remained the president's unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending,'' Greenspan wrote.

Concerning the 2006 election, he took the view that "the Republicans in Congress lost their way. They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose.''

As for Iraq, he wrote: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.''

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Effective today, eMusic, which has some 10% of the music download market (iTunes has 71%), begins to offer audiobooks for downloading, too, according to the New York Times. eMusic uses MP3 technology, which works on most any digital player but doesn't provide copyright protection. As a result, some audiobook publishers have shied away from participating. As Brian Downing, publisher of Recorded Books, told the Times, "I think it's a mistake. I think our obligation to protect the files and protect the authors is a big one."

On the other hand, Penguin Audio is making available on eMusic all the 150 titles it has available on iTunes. Random House Audio will test the service by selling some 500 titles through eMusic. Group publisher Madeline McIntosh speculated that piracy will be less of an issue for audiobooks, and "if we see that piracy of our products is increasing, we would stop."

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As textbook prices rise, so does theft, and many colleges, universities and even municipalities are taking measures to track sellers of used books or make reselling textbooks by non-students more difficult, according to USA Today.

The City Council of Madison, Wis., has gone so far as to pass an ordinance "requiring bookstores that buy used textbooks to keep detailed records on the sellers: physical descriptions and driver's license, Social Security or state ID numbers." Sandi Torkildson, owner of A Room of One's Own, told the paper that she objects to keeping the personal data for six months and sharing it with police at their request without search warrants. "It's an issue of readers' privacy."

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Congratulations to Broken Trail, which won three Emmys last night, one for best mini-series. In addition, Robert Duvall won best actor, mini-series or movie, and Thomas Haden Church won best supporting actor, mini-series or movie. The mini-series ran in June 2006 on AMC. Alan Geoffrion, the film's screenwriter, wrote the book based on his screenplay--the first novel published by Fulcrum Publishing ($14.95, 9781555916053/1555916058) (Shelf Awareness, June 19, 2006).

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Fensterman, Hermans, Juenemann . . . 

The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association's Emerging Leaders group will step out in a big way opening night of PNBA's tradeshow, which starts this Wednesday, in Bellevue, Wash. Via shuttle, the group will go to Third Place Books's Ravenna store in Seattle. At 8 p.m., "some light bookselling business" will include an introduction by Third Place's Wendy Manning as well as an appearance by BEA show director Lance Fensterman, who will talk briefly (and amusingly, we imagine) about BEA. At 9 p.m., the group will adjourn to the Pub in the basement, where the Hermans, a Missoula, Mont., band, will play and support its fall title, The Hermans: Stalking America: The Journal of an Unknown Rock and Roll Band (Running Press, $17.95, 9780762427727/0762427728). The event is free for "the tradeshow crowd and friends."

[Thanks to Brian Juenemann, PNBA's marketing director, for bringing this to our attention.]

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Bookazine, Bayonne, N.J., is underwriting membership for the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association in the American Independent Business Alliance as well as presentations by AMIBA to local business alliances and up to $500 for the first eight NAIBA-member bookstore alliances that host an AMIBA orientation in their towns.

"The survival of independent wholesalers is absolutely and irrevocably linked to the survival of independent booksellers," Bookazine executive v-p Richard Kallman said in a statement. "I am proud to support the work that NAIBA has embarked upon in this important movement."

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Authors who will be the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance show September 28-30 in Atlanta, Ga., are guest blogging on SIBA's website at Fat Show. So far, SIBA has posted messages from Tim Green, Carol Marsh, Jennifer Moses and Louise Shaffer. More will come from Darnell Arnoult, Allan Wolf, Joshilyn Jackson and others.

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"What's Not Coming to a Bookstore Near You" was the headline for a Christianity Today report on a dilemma for Christian publishers as they resist--or succumb to--the temptation of paying large advances for potential bestsellers at the expense of more serious theological titles. The piece linked to an essay written by Tyndale House president Mark D. Taylor for the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.

Taylor described a classic agent-publisher negotiation scenario for a "can't miss" manuscript: "So we get the deal. We pay the advance. The manuscript comes in. We begin to wonder why we paid so much for this average manuscript. We edit it and market it and sell it and process the returns. And at the end of the day we take a huge write-off. If we're lucky, the book earns a net contribution to overheads. But in most of these scenarios, the book generates a loss even apart from overheads. Competition (and perhaps some greed) has nearly killed us."

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"I want people to come and say, 'Wow, I've never seen that book before,' " Ben McNally told the Globe and Mail in an article about the opening of his new Toronto bookstore, Ben McNally Books.

A bookseller for 30 years, including the past 16 at Nicholas Hoare Books, McNally will now oversee a 2,700-sq.-ft. bookshop featuring dark wood fixtures and high ceilings, a pale-blue and butter-yellow color scheme, and "an elegance and serenity that will be familiar to Mr. McNally's former customers."

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BookExpo America and Miami Book Fair International have created the Translation Marketplace, a one-day educational forum limited to members of the trade that will take place on November 8 during the fair and address issues of translation, foreign rights and licensing for publishers, agents, scouts, translators, editors, right managers and others.

Organizers hope that the Translation Market may expand in the future to include a "commerce and business community area where buyers and sellers may exhibit and view titles, as well as meet individually for private business meetings."

BEA will produce podcasts of all events at the Translation Marketplace and set up a website with networking and show planning abilities. 

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Describing Russia as a "nation of readers," the Moscow News Weekly featured a brief look at the "bookshop troika" of Moskva, Dom Knigi and Biblio Globus, which were hailed as the city's "revered centers of modern writing, where the best of new publications are disseminated and assiduously promoted."

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Peter Clifton, most recently a senior v-p and president/CEO of several Ingram Book Group companies, including Ingram International, Ingram Library Services and Ingram Periodicals, has joined Parthenon Publishing's board of advisors and will focus on business and growth strategies. Clifton has more than 20 years of experience in printing and digital publishing, Internet technologies and distribution/wholesaling. Earlier he was founding CEO of PubEasy and worked at Wiley, HarperCollins and SEGASoft.

Barnes & Noble chairman Len Riggio has bought another 100,000 shares of company stock, on top of the 100,000 he purchased earlier this summer, his first purchases in two years (Shelf Awareness, September 9, 2007).

Riggio spent about $6.6 million on the 200,000 shares, which raised his stake to more than 13 million shares, representing more than 20% of the company, Barron's said. A B&N spokesperson told Barron's Riggio had made the moves "to show his support."

By contrast, in a five-month period ending in August, "a slew of Barnes & Noble executives and directors"  exercised options for $15.9 million and sold them for $43.5 million, Barron's said. An analyst did not consider this a bullish signal.

B&N insiders own about 31% of company shares while institutional investors hold the rest. At Borders, insiders own only 1.7% of the company, and more than half of the shares are "held by institutions . . . controlled by holders who consider the stock a longer-term sector play." Pershing Square Capital Management, the hedge fund run by William Ackman, owns 10.1% of B&N and 11.8% of Borders.

Bookstore sales in July were $1.189 billion, up 7.3% from $1.108 billion in sales in July 2006, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The July results reverse many months of negative comparisons for bookstore sales. For the year to date, bookstore sales have been $8.518 billion, down 3.1% from $8.794 billion in the first seven months of 2006.

By comparison, total retail sales in July were $339.2 billion, up 3.2% over July 2006, and sales for the year to date were $2.34 trillion, up 5.4% over the first seven months last year.

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.

Directed by Sean Penn from his screenplay based on the book by Jon Krakauer (Anchor, $13.95, 9780307387172/0307387178), Into the Wild opens this coming Friday. The movie features Emile Hirsch, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Jena Malone, Hal Holbrook, William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden and tells the tale of Chris McCandless, who in 1992 went to live by himself in the Alaskan wilderness but died after just a few months.

 

This morning on the Today Show, in a segment about women and friendship: Naomi Wolf, author most recently of The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Chelsea Green, $13.95, 9781933392790/1933392797).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: presidential candidate Senator Christopher Dodd, author of Letters from Nuremberg: My Father's Narrative of a Quest for Justice (Crown, $25.95, 9780307381163/0307381161).

Also today on the Diane Rehm Show: Nancy Horan, author of Loving Frank: A Novel (Ballantine, $23.95, 9780345494993/0345494997).

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Today on Oprah: Bob Greene, Oprah's personal trainer and author of The Best Life Diet (S&S, $26, 9781416540663/1416540660) and The Best Life Diet Daily Journal (S&S, $15.95, 9781416543145/1416543147).

From last week's Book Sense bestseller lists, available at booksense.com, here are the recommended titles, which are also Book Sense Picks:

Hardcover

Life on the Refrigerator Door: Notes Between a Mother and Daughter by Alice Kuipers (HarperCollins, $15.95, 9780061370496/0061370495). "These short notes between mother and daughter, which leave just enough to the imagination, keep you turning the pages of the story of 15-year-old Claire and her mother to the very end. It made me realize how easy it is to get too busy, even for family. I loved this book and couldn't put it down."--Emily Litke, Summer's Stories, Kendallville, Ind.

House to House by David Bellavia (Free Press, $26, 9781416574712/1416574719). "The author serves up a raw, gritty war memoir of a foot soldier's street warfare during the battle of Fallujah in November 2004. Sergeant Bellavia, a nominee for the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross, has crafted a narrative that grabs you by the gut and won't let go."--George Rishel, The Sly Fox, Virden, Ill.

Paperback

Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand by Fred Vargas (Penguin, $14, 9780143112167/0143112163). "Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, the chief of police in Paris's 7th Arrondissement, is sent on a training mission to rural Quebec, where he discovers who his true friends are when he finds himself framed for a murder. Prepare to be beguiled by the wit and ingenuity of the idiosyncratic characters and the ingenious plot."--Pat Burns Balmer, Annie Bloom's Books, Portland, Ore.

For Teens

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin (FSG, $17, 9780374349462/0374349460). "What would life be like if you developed amnesia and couldn't remember anything after your twelfth birthday? I found myself armchair-coaching Naomi as she tries to figure out just how she fits in. She discovers old friends and new friends, not to mention romance--and I got weird glances for talking to a book. It was worth it, though."--Beth Reynolds, Norwich Bookstore, Norwich, Vt.

[Many thanks to Book Sense and the ABA!]