Tower Records is in deep financial trouble, which became public last week at a meeting of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers. The big news: at least four major music producers have stopped shipping to the 89-store chain because of non-payment of bills. At least a few book publishers have joined in putting Tower on hold.

The Hollywood Reporter guessed that the outstanding bills may amount to $100 million, and rumors are that the company will have to file for bankruptcy, possibly even a Chapter 7 liquidation.

Only two weeks ago, Tower named a new interim CEO whose main goal is to sell the company, which still operates two bookstores and sells a limited selection of books in its other stores (Shelf Awareness, July 31).

The University of California library system, consisting of about 100 libraries, has joined Google Book Search, the program under which the company is scanning books from libraries at Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, Michigan and the New York Public Library. According to many reports, the California library system will allow copyrighted titles to be scanned--a major bone of contention between Google on one side and publishers and authors on the other.

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In the runup to its annual meeting and trade show in Valley Forge, Pa., Sept. 16-17, the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association is sponsoring informational meetings about the American Independent Business Alliance aka AMIBA--the alliance of local business alliances--in several member stores Wed., Sept. 13, and Thurs., Sept. 14. The association will also sponsor a session about AMIBA at the trade show.

NAIBA and AMIBA are offering discounted memberships for members' local business alliances. The first 11 local alliances to join pay a fee of $200.

The store meetings will be held on Wednesday evening at the Clinton Bookshop, Clinton, N.J., Thursday morning at the Tudor Bookshop & Café, Kingston, Pa., and Thursday evening at Womrath's Bookstore, Tenafly, N.J. For more information, contact NAIBA.

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On October 27, Nebraska Book Company will close its warehouse in Cypress, Calif., and move all of its operations to its other warehouse, in Lincoln, Neb., its headquarters. Mike Kelly, senior v-p of the textbook division, said that "one aspect of a recent review included an extensive analysis of how we manage our warehouse operations to determine its effectiveness." This led to the decision to close the warehouse, which had been known as the College Book Co.

Some 33 jobs will be eliminated; 17 employees have been offered positions to work as account service reps, continuing to service College Book Co. clients, either from California or the Lincoln headquarters.

The closing will cost between $1.5 million and $2 million. However, the company expects to save $1 milliont to $1.5 million a year in operating costs.

Hudson Booksellers, part of the Hudson Group, which operates more than 500 newsstands, bookstores and specialty retail shops in 66 airports and other transportation terminals in North America, has made two appointments.

Ed White has been named senior buyer. A bookseller for more than 20 years, White has held a variety of jobs in independent bookstores; was a book buyer and then merchandise manager in the buying department at Baker & Taylor; and was most recently director of book operations for Hastings Entertainment.

Justin Hennequant has been promoted to marketing manager and buyer. He was formerly manager of three Hudson Booksellers stores in the Pittsburgh airport and has been part of Hudson's Pittsburgh operations since 1998. The company praised him for "his positive attitude, team spirit, and attention to detail. His efforts are visible in the exceptional employee moral and impeccable customer service we find consistently in the Pittsburgh bookstores."

White and Hennequant will join buyer and sales analyst Anne Krinkie and v-p of book purchasing and promotions Sara Hinckley in the new Hudson Booksellers corporate office in Marietta, Ga.

Today on KCRW's Bookworm: Carlos Fuentes, author of The Eagle's Throne (Random House, $26.95, 1400062470). As the show put it: "Carlos Fuentes casts a satiric eye on Mexican politics and, by extension, on global politics, skewering the art of politics in its entirety. Fuentes takes it all on, from Mexico City to Washington, D.C."

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Kate Berridge, author of Madame Tussaud (Morrow, $25.95, 0060528478).

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In a repeat, Oprah today will feature Anderson Cooper, the CNN star whose memoir is Dispatches From the Edge (HarperCollins, $24.95, 0061132381).

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, August 12

2 p.m. General Assignment. Senator Byron Dorgan (D.-N.D.), author of Take This Job and Ship It: How Corporate Greed and Brain-Dead Politics Are Selling Out America (Thomas Dunne, $24.95, 031235522X), argues that free trade practices are slowly draining away U.S. prosperity. (Re-airs at 10 p.m. on Sunday and 7 a.m. on Monday.)

3:30 p.m. History on Book TV. Frederick Kagan, author of The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801-1805 (Perseus, $40, 0306811375), and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol discuss whether Napoleon's reign can offer examples of how the U.S. might deal with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Re-airs at 10 p.m.)

6 p.m. Encore Booknotes. In a previously aired segment, Fran Grace talks about her biography, Carry A. Nation: Retelling the Life (Indiana University Press, $21.95, 0253217342).
 
9 p.m. After Words. Michael Eric Dyson, professor and author of Is Bill Cosby Right: Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind (Perseus, $14, 0465017207), interviews Juan Williams, senior correspondent for NPR, Fox News political analyst and author of Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure that Are Undermining Black America--And What We Can Do About It (Crown, $25, 0307338231).  (Re-airs Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.)

Sunday, August 13

7:30 a.m. Public Lives. Alvin Felzenberg, who served as director of communications for the 9/11 Commission, discusses his latest book, Governor Tom Kean: From the New Jersey Statehouse to the 9/11 Commission (Rutgers University Press, $29.95, 0813537991), and argues that former Governor Kean's spirit of bipartisanship enabled him to lead the commission in spite of deep political divisions. (Re-airs at 4 p.m.)

8 p.m. In The Detonators: The Secret Plot to Destroy America and an Epic Hunt for Justice (Little, Brown, $24.99, 0316734969), Chad Millman tells the story of a 1916 German attack in New York that caused extensive damage in lower Manhattan. German saboteurs bombed an ammunition depot on Black Tom Island--next to Liberty Island--to undermine U.S. attempts to assist the British during World War I. (Re-airs at 1 a.m. on Monday.)

Two days ago John Grisham's The Innocent Man, which will be published October 10, was a popular man, reaching No. 1 on the overall B&N.com list. Michael Connelly's Echo Park (due out on October 9) and Mitch Albom's One More Day (whose pub day is September 26) have been in the top 10 this week and last.

The following are the bestselling books to be released after September 4, based on orders received by Barnes & Noble.com from July 1 to August 5:

1. The End (Series of Unfortunate Events #13) by Lemony Snicket (October 13)
2. The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events) by Lemony Snicket (September 5)
3. Dark Celebration: A Carpathian Reunion by Christine Feehan (September 5)
4. An Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town by John Grisham (October 10)
5. For One More Day by Mitch Albom (September 26)
6. Lover Awakened: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood by J. Ward (September 5)
7. Motor Mouth by Janet Evanovich (October 3)
8. Dear John by Nicholas Sparks (October 31)
9. Born in Death by J.D. Robb (November 7)
10. Blizzard of the Blue Moon (Magic Tree House Series #36) by Mary Pope Osborne (September 26)