"I think it's an indication of the emotional connection that many customers have with their bookstores. Every customer who buys a book at an independent could do it in a different way, a cheaper way. A lot of customers position us in their head like the nonprofits they support, like a humane society or a park."

Books Kinokuniya commemorated 30 years in Singapore on Saturday with a gala dinner attended by local luminaries such as Monsoon Books publisher Phil Tatham, poet Alvin Pang and author Ovidia Yu, as well as 70 representatives from Japanese publishers, distributors and content creators, including Kodansha, Shogakukan, Tohan and Sony. Kinokuniya's managing directors from Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney and Dubai also attended.

In an interview beforehand, Masashi Takai, president of Kinokuniya Company, and Keijiro Mori, senior director of international business development, discussed the company's history (with Hiroshi Sogo, Kinokuniya's group managing director for Asia Pacific, translating).

According to Takai-san, Books Kinokuniya arrived in Singapore at a time many Japanese companies were starting operations there. Liang Court was chosen as the site for the first store because the mall already catered to Japanese expatriates, the company's original target market. Mori-san, who had come from the first overseas Kinokuniya in San Francisco to help start Singapore operations, added that the store was only 4,000 square feet and devoted to Japanese culture and lifestyle. Half of the books were in Japanese, and while the other half were in English, they were mostly about Japan. Gradually, Kinokuniya found that other English books also sold well and expanded their selection.

Books Kinokuniya Singapore stuff, with Kenny Chan in the front row wearing the yellow tie.

Until 1997, Books Kinokuniya was happy to compete against what Mori-san called "Asian players in Asian games," including bookstore chains like Popular, Times and MPH. Then "Olympic level competitor" Borders came to Singapore, and Kinokuniya had to up its game. Kinokuniya did not copy Borders, but combined its own style of bookselling with an international emphasis, and opened its flagship store of 42,000 square feet at Ngee Ann City on Orchard Road. (See profile below.) It is affectionately known as Singapore Main Store (SIMS), and has served as the model for every overseas Kinokuniya flagship store since, including stores in Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Jakarta and Bangkok, the mega store in Dubai, and even the revamped store overlooking Bryant Park in New York City. (New York store manager Koichiro Satomi is a "graduate" of SIMS.) Takai-san said SIMS is the best-performing Kinokuniya overseas store out of 25 total, and fourth overall, out of 89 total.

Singapore has served as the "control center" for all Kinokuniya stores in Southeast Asia, as well as Sydney and Dubai. Asia Pacific merchandising director and Singapore store director Kenny Chan and his team have helped set up and open the other stores in the region and audit them annually.

In the future, Takai-san said, Kinokuniya plans to beef up academic and professional book sales to universities and laboratories around the world as well as its publishing initiatives. He also wants to expand Books Kinokuniya's role as a place where different cultures can meet, especially in the Middle East. For now, there is not enough time for reading in the region, let alone publishing, because of political unrest and sectarian violence. When peace does finally come to the Middle East, however, he said he has no doubt reading and publishing will flourish, and he wants Kinokuniya to help the process.

In a speech at the celebration dinner, Takai-san said that Books Kinokuniya's continued overseas expansion was important, particularly because book sales in Japan have declined for 17 years. He also spoke about the recently unveiled e-commerce and e-book selling initiative that will start next year. The Kinoppy app, an e-reader and e-bookstore application currently available only in Japan, will be at the forefront of this initiative, as well as an e-commerce platform to rival that of Amazon.com's. Kinokuniya already boasts a BookWeb service in every country where it operates a bricks-and-mortar store. Singapore will be the regional headquarters and control center for the e-initiative.

Professor Tommy Koh, Singapore's ambassador-at-large, lauded the mutually beneficial relationship Singapore and Books Kinokuniya have had for 30 years, and noted that Books Kinokuniya was one of the first big bookstores to feature and promote Singaporean writers.

Comics creator and 2011 Young Artist Award recipient Troy Chin, creator of The Resident Tourist and Loti, agreed that if not for Books Kinokuniya, his comics would likely never have been sold in any Singaporean bookstore.

In his toast, Japanese Ambassador to Singapore Yoichi Suzuki said he had made a small contribution to Kinokuniya's sales during his three years in-country, and most of the books he purchased were by Singaporean authors he would have never encountered otherwise.

Observing that bricks-and-mortar bookselling is about an encounter between a book and a reader in a place designed for just such an event, Peter Schoppert, president of National University of Singapore Press, said that e-bookstores and e-commerce sites were disrupting that dynamic. He said he hoped that bookstores can take advantage of that encounter, even if it leads to a sale elsewhere, because "we cannot be a city without bookshops."

Filmmaker Eric Khoo said that his animated film Tatsumi would not have been made if not for SIMS shop floor staff displaying Yoshihiro Tatsumi's autobiographical comic A Drifting Life prominently. He had read every other translated work by Tatsumi-san available at the time and was already a big fan, but it was not until he read A Drifting Life that he felt inspired to create his first animated feature.

In a final burst of enthusiasm and cultural exchange, the dinner ended with Sogo-san and the Japanese regional directors, as well as Chan--whom Sogo-san introduced as Books Kinokuniya's merchandiser-at-large--leading a traditional Japanese rhythmic hand clapping called sanbon jime, which consists of three sets of three claps and one final clap, done three times (3-3-3-1, 3-3-3-1, 3-3-3-1). This adds up to 30 claps total, to mark 30 years of Books Kinokuniya in Singapore. --Adan Jimenez

Retailers "had a difficult start to the second half of the year and critical back-to-school season, as July sales came in below expectations," the Wall Street Journal reported. For the month, Thomson Reuters said that sales at stores open at least a year increased 3.3% for the nine companies that reported, compared to 6.4% a year ago. Analysts had anticipated a 3.9% gain.

"Mall traffic trends overall were just weak in July," said Matthew McClintock of Barclays. He noted that the month was "highly promotional as retailers tried to entice what shoppers there were."

Effective September 1, Amazon.com will begin collecting sales tax in Georgia, which passed a bill last year seeking to compel Internet retailers to collect 4% sales tax from customers residing in the state. The Wall Street Journal reported that the law went into effect in January, but "it wasn't clear why it took until September for Amazon to be affected." 

Although Amazon owns a small Georgia-based website called Fabric.com, a spokeswoman for the online retailer said there were no plans to build warehouses there, as the company has in some other states where it bartered warehouse jobs for tax incentives.

Byrd's Books, which opened in Bethel, Conn., in late 2011, is moving and expanding into new space that will, the store said in an e-mail to customers, allow it "to bring more titles, more programs and more gift items to you, as we make the store handicap accessible." Later this month, the store plans to close for a week for the move and re-open in early September in the new space.

Byrd's Books has been on the second floor of a Victorian, a spot it liked, but "it became apparent that we need a ground floor location in order to expand."

The store will continue to offer children's books, deep discount books, greeting cards and bestsellers but will specialize more in "Connecticut authors, illustrators, poets, publishers, books about Connecticut and local fine crafts. Also, we will add a section of self-published books on consignment from Connecticut authors." Byrd's will also expand events and add some evening hours.

Byrd's Books is owned by Alice Hutchinson, who was the manager and buyer for many years at Pymander Bookshop, Westport, Conn. (Pymander was owned for 30 years by Hutchinson's mother, Nancy Ivison.)



The new address for Byrd's Books will be 126 Greenwood Ave., Bethel, Conn. 06801.

Activist and writer Gloria Steinem was one of 16 people named by President Barack Obama to receive the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is presented to "individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors." This year's recipients will be honored at the White House later this year.

Steinem was praised as "a renowned writer and activist for women's equality. She was a leader in the women's liberation movement, co-founded Ms. magazine and helped launch a wide variety of groups and publications dedicated to advancing civil rights. Ms. Steinem has received dozens of awards over the course of her career, and remains an active voice for women's rights."

President Obama observed that the medal "goes to men and women who have dedicated their own lives to enriching ours. This year's honorees have been blessed with extraordinary talent, but what sets them apart is their gift for sharing that talent with the world. It will be my honor to present them with a token of our nation's gratitude."

Artist Kristin Roeder recently donated this sculpture, called e Books, to Green Apple Books in San Francisco. The artwork is constructed of discarded books, steel mesh, steel rod and zip ties, and is mounted in the store's main staircase. 

Alex Meriwether has been promoted to marketing manager at the Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, Mass. He has worked at the store since 2004, and for the last several years has been in the marketing department in charge of social media. In that position, he increased the store's number of Twitter followers from a few thousand to more than 28,000, and most recently created a graphic for Stephen King's event at the store that went viral on Facebook, with more than 290,000 views in two weeks.

Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson by Jeff Guinn (Simon & Schuster).

This morning on Imus in the Morning: Peter Gethers, author of Ask Bob: A Novel (Holt, $25, 9780805093315).

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Today on NPR's Fresh Air: Piper Kerman, author of Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison (Spiegel & Grau, $16, 9780385523394), basis of the Netflix hit series.

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Today on NPR's Diane Rehm Show: Tana French, author of Broken Harbor (Penguin, $16, 9780143123309).

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Tonight on the Daily Show: Senator Rand Paul, author of Government Bullies: How Everyday Americans Are Being Harassed, Abused, and Imprisoned by the Feds (Center Street, $15, 9781455522774). He will also appear on Hannity today and tomorrow on CBS This Morning, Kilmeade & Friends, Erin Burnett OutFront and Your World with Neil Cavuto.

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Tonight on Nightline: Bethenny Frankel, author of Skinnygirl Solutions: Your Straight-Up Guide to Home, Health, Family, Career, Style, and Sex (Touchstone, $25.99, 9781451667394).

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Tomorrow on Your World With Neil Cavuto: Mark R. Levin, author of The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic (Threshold Editions, $26.99, 9781451606270).

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Tomorrow on CBS's the Talk: Sara Gilbert, author of The Imperfect Environmentalist: A Practical Guide to Clearing Your Body, Detoxing Your Home, and Saving the Earth (Without Losing Your Mind) (Ballantine, $18, 9780345537584).

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Tomorrow on Fox Radio's Alan Colmes Show: Amanda Ripley, author of The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way (Simon & Schuster, $28, 9781451654424).

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Tomorrow night on the Colbert Report: Congressman John Lewis, co-author of March (Top Shelf Productions, $14.95, 9781603093002).

A trailer has been released for Philomena, based on Martin Sixsmith's book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and a Fifty-Year Search. Indiewire noted that the movie, directed by Stephen Frears and starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, is "designed as a hopefully awards-grabbing vehicle for an older British actress" and the trailer suggests "she might well be in with a shout when Oscar season nears." Philomena will be unveiled at the Venice Film Festival August 31, with a U.K. release November 1 and "a U.S. bow that's yet to be announced, but should come before the end of 2013."

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Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal and Charlotte Le Bon will star in Lasse Hallstrom's The Hundred-Foot Journey, adapted from the novel by Richard C. Morais. Disney will release the film, which is produced by Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey and Juliet Blake, in the U.S. August 8, 2014.

The longlist has been announced for the £30,000 (about US$46,519) Dylan Thomas Prize, which honors the author of a novel, play, poetry or travel book in the English language who is under 30. A shortlist will be announced in September, with the winner named in November. For the first time in the award's history, a playwright has made the longlist, which includes:

Prose
How To Be A Good Wife by Emma Chapman
The Last King Of Lydia by Tim Leach
The Gurkha's Daughter by Prajwal Parajuly
Call It Dog by Marli Roode
Dear Lucy by Julie Sarkissian
Beneath The Darkening Sky by Majok Tulba
Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins
Ballistics by D.W. Wilson
Poetry
Sins Of The Leopard by James Brookes
The Shape Of A Forest by Jemma L. King
Our Obsidian Tongues by David Shook
Drama
No Quarter by Polly Stenham

With The Story of a New Name, Elena Ferrante picks up where she left off in My Brilliant Friend, following the lives of her two protagonists, Lila and Elena, from adolescence into their 20s. The novel, the second volume in a trilogy, is a treatise on Naples: the place of women, the economy and daily life in a part of Italy that has nothing in common with Rome, Florence or Milan. Even the language is barely the same. Anne Goldstein's excellent translation notes when the women are speaking in dialect or speaking "school Italian." In all ordinary or familial exchanges, dialect prevails, especially for cursing.

The two girls have a complex, intense relationship, with Lila leading the way and Elena trying to accommodate--at least at first. Lila has pulled herself out of the abject poverty of her childhood with an early marriage to a grocer's son, whom she hates. Elena has continued studying, graduating from high school and going to university in Pisa. She knows she is a misfit, not well dressed, too loud, ill-informed about the world--she brings Naples with her everywhere she goes.

Elena has been in love with Nino for what seems like her whole life. She orchestrates visits to the beach where he will be and, in a particularly poignant and heart-rending scene, allows herself to be deflowered by his father. In a cruel twist, Lila becomes sexually obsessed with Nino, and he with her. Their affair causes scandal all around, results in the birth of a child and drives a wedge between Lila and Elena that may be irreparable.

So far, this sounds like the stuff of soap opera, but it truly is not. The situations detailed in the novel feel strongly autobiographical, and Ferrante's writing is convincingly real. By the end, Lila is living in poverty again and Elena has just had a book published. The book is a recollection of her childhood, her friendship with Lila, her school experiences and the people they know. Are there echoes here of a story within a story? (The author is reclusive; indeed, there is speculation that "Elena Ferrante" is someone else entirely.)

At the beginning of The Story of a New Name, Elena, now in late middle age, receives a telephone call from Lila's son telling her that Lila has disappeared. What surprises will the next volume in Ferrante's trilogy bring? --Valerie Ryan

Shelf Talker: Volume two in Ferrante's clearly rendered, psychologically dense trilogy about two women coming of age in Naples.

As noted above, for the 14 years since it opened in 1999, Books Kinokuniya's huge, elegant flagship store in Singapore has been a template for many of the Kinokuniya stores outside Japan and North America: a cosmopolitan shop with most titles in English as well as smaller selections in Japanese, Chinese, French and German and an array of striking sidelines. As Kenny Chen, Singapore store director and director, merchandising division, said, "It's an international store with an international selection."

Coincidentally the store celebrated its 14th anniversary last week just as Books Kinokuniya celebrated its 30th anniversary in Singapore. (In a kind of early celebration, the company opened its fourth store in Singapore, in the Jurong East Mall, in June.)

Kinokuniya's international emphasis is evident immediately at the 43,000-square-foot Singapore flagship store, which is on Orchard Road, the retail and entertainment center of Singapore, in an elegant shopping mall featuring a Takashimaya department store.

The store has what it calls "a black path"--a walk of dark slate that leads through its many sections; Chua Gek Huay, division manager of the corporate relations division, said it was "influenced by the Silk Road, which was open to many cultures." It's a reflection of Singapore, too, a city state and former British colony that has a population that is largely Chinese, Malay and Indian and counts English as an official language--and the lingua franca among its many religions and cultures. (Another sign of the store's international identity: members of its loyalty program come from some 140 countries.)

In the store, the rich brown wooden shelving and other fixtures include "waterfall steps" of bookcases. The store also has many displays that Chan calls "pagoda-ish." The overall effect is to create many nooks and crannies that flow from one to the next. "It's all about discovery in this bookstore," Chua said. "We compete on the total experience," Chan added. "Our customers are book lovers; we're book lovers. We are a chain bookseller with an indie heart."

The design style also flows from store to store. The flagship store designer, Tan Kay Ngee (a published writer, too), also designed Kinokuniya stores in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Dubai; Sydney, Australia; the new Singapore store; and the Singapore pavilion at the Venice Biennale last year. The aim of the design is "a sense of continuity," Chua said.

Most of the 500,000 titles are in English, generally split evenly between U.S. and U.K. editions, but the store has Japanese and Chinese titles toward the back as well as a discrete section featuring French and German books and magazines.

The top four sections, which are "always fighting each other in terms of sales, space and attention," Chua said, are fiction, business, children's and graphic novels. (The stationery section is operated by another company and features fine Japanese products. The store also has a café.) The store is constantly in a process of "reworking and reinvention," Chan said. For many years, the company's main rival in Singapore was one nearby Borders, which is now a Marks & Spencer store. (The Borders name has been bought by Popular and is being resurrected by the book chain.)

Bestsellers at the flagship Singapore store include "anything" by former longtime Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yaw, whom Chan called "a franchise." Recently Inferno by Dan Brown was selling well. (The store stocked both U.S. and U.K. editions of the book. To display the more elaborate U.K. edition's binding better, the store sold the book without its jacket. Customers who bought Inferno then received the jacket at the counter.)

Not surprisingly for a Japanese company, Kinokuniya has "one of the widest range of comics in the world," Chan said, and strong selections in pop culture. "We've pushed graphic novels to the top here in the last five or so years," Chan said. "We are strong because we have so many multicultural and Japanese customers. And we know manga."

Many younger shoppers are especially interested in manga and anime, and the in-store experience is very important to them, Chua said, adding that computer game guides sell well, too. "We're very aware of what's happening online." English-language and Japanese-language comic books, graphic novels and manga are next to each other in the store.

The children's sections are discrete areas. The store's children's story time on Saturdays actually lasts for two hours, because, Chan said, he wants young readers of Singapore to consider Kinokuniya their bookstore. In fact, some of his staff had their first happy contact with the store at story times. (The Singapore main store has 120 to 140 full-time staff members and another 100 part-timers.)

Chan extolled the Kinokuniya approach, remembering that when he was interviewed for a job at the company, the chairman from Japan "had one question: 'Do you love books?' In all my life as a bookseller, I never had a boss ask me that. The second thing he said was 'bookselling is a calling.' " --John Mutter