Shelf Awareness for Monday, August 21, 2006


Park Row: Last Twilight in Paris by Pam Jenoff

Tor Books: Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin

Zest Books:  A Deathly Compendium of Poisonous Plants: Wicked Weeds and Sinister Seeds by Rebecca E Hirsch

Palgrave Macmillan:  Scotus 2023: Major Decisions and Developments of the Us Supreme Court (2024) (1ST ed.) edited by Morgan Marietta and Howard Schweber

Berkley Books: The Seven O'Clock Club by Amelia Ireland

Quotation of the Day

'Everything Theater Obsessives Need'

"The Drama Book Shop, an independent bookstore, has everything theater obsessives need, and several things they probably don't (say, a William Shakespeare action figure and Northern Irish dialect CDs)."--The complete mention
of one of our favorite bookstores in yesterday's New York Times travel section in a piece about Times Square.


Ivy Kids Eco: The Bison and the Butterfly: An Ecosystem Story by Alice Hemming, illustrated by Leschnikoff Nancy


News

Notes: Price Pressures--and One College Store's Solution

The high price of gasoline and slowdown in housing is leading many middle class consumers to trim "upscale buying," as today's Wall Street Journal put it. For at least 10 years, many Americans have grown comfortable paying for "$4 cups of coffee and $400 handbags," the paper wrote, but now a variety of retailers--from Williams-Sonoma, Starbucks and Whole Foods to restaurant chains--are reporting sales slowdowns.

According to one retail consultant, low-income households are becoming more likely to stick to dollar stores and supercenters and middle-income families are visiting more mass merchants and grocery stores than specialty outlets.

Households earning as much as $75,000 a year are changing their habits. Types of spending most often reconsidered are fashion accessories, home décor, electronics and entertainment. Wealthy shoppers' spending seems unaffected so far.

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At a time of year when students are most upset about the price of textbooks, the San Diego State University Bookstore is increasing the number of used books it stocks to 75,000 and lowering prices by 4%-15%.

"We are lowering the prices on 40 of the most widely used titles by a full 15%," Todd Summer, course materials director for Aztec Shops, said. "The 40 titles represent 20% of the textbooks we sell. These are the books for high-enrollment classes like Spanish 101, Chemistry 200 and IDS 290."

He added that research showed students believe they can save 20%-50% on textbooks by buying them online while the reality is closer to 5%-10%. The SDSU approach makes the store, he said, "competitive with other brick-and-mortar stores as well as business-to-consumer web retailers."

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The Indianapolis Star surveys new and established independent stores in the Indianapolis area, saying, "Now a new breed of independent store is beginning to rechallenge the chains and discount online retailers. The new stores are smaller; they cater to a niche clientele. Their mantras are customer service, community relationships and giving book lovers something different."

The stores sampled:

  • A Shade of Gray, Indianapolis, which opened two months ago and whose books "cater to women, people of color and the gay community."
  • The Mystery Company, Carmel, whose owner Jim Huang said, "I think our future is to become not just a bookstore but some kind of a community center, providing experience that one can't find at amazon.com."
  • The Wild, Noblesville, which in addition to selling books, offers art, ukulele and Spanish lessons. Owner Jane Mills said, "I want my customers to feel that this [store] belongs to everyone, not just me."


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Founded in the late 1930s, Readmoor Books in Grand Junction, Colo., is going out of business after a prospective buyer and the store's landlord couldn't agree on a new lease for the building, the Daily Sentinel reported. Marco Weber, who has owned the store with his wife, Dana, since 1989, said that the loss of several "mutually advantageous downtown businesses," including the Sundrop Grocery, hurt sales. He also blamed chain bookstores.

Weber, who is originally from Switzerland and has kept a carpet-cleaning business, Swiss Pro, in operation since before he bought the store, will continue that business.

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The Book Blues bookstore, which Todd and Jacqueline Wilson opened in June in Marine City, Mich., has become affiliated with Books-for-Soldiers, which provides a way for people to send books and other items to armed forces members.

Book Blues will set up a system for customers to buy and donate books; it will also handle packing and shipping. In addition, the store is creating a Books-for-Soldiers T-shirt and will donate 20% of the profits to Books-for-Soldiers.

Book Blues, which stocks some 10,000 new and used titles, is also involved in an independent effort to revitalize the downtown area.

Book Blues is located at 102 Broadway St., Marine City, Mich. 48039, 810-765-8111; TheBookBlues.com.

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Bookselling This Week offers a column by Amy Stewart about the new owner of Northtown Books, Arcata, Calif., a column that originally appeared in the August 3 issue of Humboldt County, California's North Coast Journal. A longtime employee, Dante DiGenova bought the store on June 1 from Art Burton and Barbara Turner.

DiGenova said that he doesn't expect to change much at the store. "Art and Barbara knew what books the community was interested in, and I think I have a good feel for that too," he told Stewart. "We'll keep our lefty/political slant. That's just right for this town. We'll keep doing the special orders, and we'll try to do more author events when we can."

One change on the horizon, however, involves "the quirky titles that Art and Barbara might have ordered just because they liked them. Those were the books that just sat on the shelves for four years, but we liked having them around. Now there will be a different little set of quirky books that nobody buys, but they'll be the ones I'm interested in."
 


Pajama Press:  Mystery at the Biltmore: The Vanderhoff Heist (Mystery at the Biltmore #1) by Colleen Nelson, Illustrated by Peggy Collins


June Bookstore Sales Up 4.2%; B&N, BAM Sales Down, Profits Up

Bookstore sales in June were $1.176 billion, up 4.2% from $1.129 billion in the same month in 2005, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Total retail sales rose 5.3% to $337 billion from $320 billion in June 2005.

The Census Bureau revised May bookstore sales up slightly, to $1.118 billion, from $1.111 billion.

For the year to date, bookstore sales are $7.470 billion, up 0.8% from $7.411 billion in the same period a year ago.

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.

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Tough comparisons to July last year, when Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince sold many millions of copies, affected sales at the chains in the second quarter.

Sales at Barnes & Noble fell 1% to $1.2 billion in the second quarter ended July 29, but net earnings rose 23% to $16.6 million.

Sales at B&N stores were $1 billion, the same level as last year, while sales at B&N stores open at least a year were down 2.6%. Sales at B. Dalton Bookseller dropped 31% to $21.9 million, in large part because of store closings, and sales at Dalton stores open at least a year were down 9.1%. Sales at B&N.com fell 14% to $82.7 million.

Bestselling titles during the quarter included Kim Edwards' The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, Fannie Flagg's Can't Wait to Get to Heaven and Anderson Cooper's Dispatches from the Edge.

The company declared another quarterly dividend of 15 cents per share, payable on September 29.

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Net sales at Books-A-Million fell 0.7% to $121.2 million in the second quarter ended July 29, compared to the same period a year ago. Sales at stores open at least a year fell 1.2%. Net income rose 47% to $2.5 million in the second quarter.

BAM president and CEO Sandra B. Cochran said that the company was "pleased" with results for the quarter despite "challenging comparison. . . We were able to exceed our sales and profit objectives for the quarter. An aggressive merchandising and marketing plan, good execution in the stores and continued discipline in controlling inventory and operating costs contributed to an impressive increase in net income."

In related news, on September 14 Books-A-Million is paying another quarterly dividend of eight cents a share.


Disruption Books: Our Differences Make Us Stronger: How We Heal Together by La June Montgomery Tabron, illustrated by Temika Grooms


Global: New Nummer 1 in Germany; World's Longest Bookstore

Hugendubel and Weltbild are combining their bookselling operations to become Germany's largest book retailer, Bloomberg reported. The new DBH Buch Handels will be owned 50% by each company; DBH Buch Handels will also buy stakes in two other bookselling companies, Buch Habel in Darmstadt and Weiland in Luebeck.

DBH Buch Handels's 2005 revenue of 672 million euros (about $861.9 million) makes it larger than Thalia, the Douglas Holding subsidiary with sales of 332 million euros ($425.8 million).

"We will benefit from our pooled resources," Hugendubel and Weltbild said in a statement.

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Here's one of the more unusual bookstore boasts: the world's longest underground bookstore--one kilometer (six-tenths of a mile) long--has opened in an underground street in the Taipei subway in Taiwan, according to the China Post. The retail area had clothing stores, then restaurants, but neither approach was successful. Bookseller Lu Chin-cheng has rented the whole space and is selling books from all the country's publishers and plans to add books published in China, Japan, Korea and Western countries for tourists.

Taipei has several areas with high concentrations of bookstores.

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In one of the odder stories we've found on the Internet lately, the Mehr News Agency in Iran debates window displays in bookstores, particularly in Tehran's Enqelab St., where some bookstores don't display books and others are "only somewhat concerned about the issue." Many stores have a variety of reasons for not displaying books, from a lack of effectiveness to problems agreeing on displays with co-owners. Some stores prefer to use barkers to advertise titles. Stores in the shopping mall, some of which are owned by publishers, do a better job of displaying books, the service said. It added: "Iran has very few avid readers. Most people buy books because they are told to do so or because of a necessity in their careers."
 


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Borders's Upcoming Openings

Borders announced five store openings in the next few months:

  • A 24,000-sq.-ft. store in Albany, N.Y., on August 26, in the Crossgates Mall.
  • A two-level, 24,418-sq.-ft. store in Burlington, Mass., in the middle of September. The store will be in Wayside Commons.
  • A 22,000-sq.-ft. store in Manhattan Beach, Calif., this October. The store will be in the Plaza El Segundo, at the intersection of Rosencrans Avenue and Sepulveda Boulevard.
  • A 22,000-sq.-ft. store in Riverdale, N.J., this October. The store will be on the second level of the Riverdale Crossing shopping center, located at the intersection of Route 23 and Interstate 287.
  • A 22,000-sq.-ft. store in Denver, Colo., in October. This store will be in the NorthField at Stapleton lifestyle center, located at the intersection of Interstates 70 and 270.

Media and Movies

Media Heat: Rahm Emanuel and His Former Boss

Today on Imus in the Morning, Patrick J. Buchanan talks about his new book, State of Emergency: How Illegal Immigration Is Destroying America (Thomas Dunne, $24.95, 0312360037).  He will also appear on the Today Show and Fox's O'Reilly Factor.

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This Morning on Good Morning America: Jared Fogel, author of Jared, the Subway Guy: Winning Through Losing: 13 Lessons for Turning Your Life Around (St. Martin's Press, $22.95, 0312353588).

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Today on WAMU's Diane Rehm Show: Lawrence Wright, whose new book is The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Knopf, $27.95, 037541486X).

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Today on NPR's Talk of the Nation: Sarah Chayes, author of The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban (Penguin, $25.95, 1594200963). 

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Tonight on the Charlie Rose Show: Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D.-Ill.), co-author with Bruce Reed of The Plan: Big Ideas for America (PublicAffairs, $19.95, 1586484125). President Clinton is expected to call in. Emanuel will also be on MSNBC's Hardball and the Al Franken Show today.

Also scheduled for Charlie Rose: Roger Rosenblatt, author of Lapham Rising: A Novel (Ecco, $23.95, 0060833610).

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Tonight on the Colbert Report, Fresh Air commentator Geoffrey Nunberg talks about his new book, Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism in a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show (PublicAffairs, $26, 1586483862). 

 



Books & Authors

Tribune Awards: Oates Wins Top Prize

Joyce Carol Oates has won the Chicago Tribune Literary Prize. Quoted in a Tribune story about the prize, editor Ann Marie Lipinski called Oates "a writer with very deep roots in American literary and intellectual traditions. She has a great eye for contemporary culture. She's joyfully readable--reading her is fun and exciting--and she's got this very unusual range, from profoundly violent and somber to laugh-out-loud funny."

In addition, the Tribune awarded its 2006 Heartland Prizes to At Canaan's Edge by Taylor Branch, for nonfiction; and The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich, for fiction.

The Tribune Young Adult Book Prize went to Kate DiCamillo, author of Because of Winn-Dixie, among other titles.


Book Sense: May We Recommend

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

Paperback

Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead: Stories by Alan DeNiro (Small Beer Press, $16, 1931520178). "This is a great debut collection of loopy, off-the-wall, and still-somehow-packing-emotional-weight stories; DeNiro can weld words into some mighty strange configurations."--Caleb Wilson, Davis-Kidd Booksellers, Nashville, Tenn.

Hardcover

Second Burial for a Black Prince by Andrew Nugent (St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95, 0312327617). "In Dublin's close-knit Little Africa, 23-year-old Jude, a Nigerian of the Igbo tribe, has recently arrived to join his older brother, Shadrack. When Shadrack is murdered in a particularly brutal way the police are left with no leads. Nugent, who was formerly a missionary in Africa, brings the inhabitants of Little Africa to life in this highly recommended mystery."--Karen Spengler, I Love A Mystery, Mission, Kan.

Microthrills by Wendy Spero (Hudson Street, $21.95, 1594630194). "Spero is a stand-up comic, and a former knife salesman. (There's a picture in her new memoir to prove it.) She is also an absolutely hilarious 30-something woman who cares nothing about her calorie intake, just her collection of stuffed animals."--Melissa Lion, Diesel, A Bookstore, Oakland, Calif.

For ages 9 to 12

The Fairies of Nutfolk Wood by Barb Bentler Ullman (Katherine Tegen, $15.99, 0060736143). "This gentle, charming tale of Willa and her mom trying to put their lives back together after divorce is surprising and fresh. Neighbor Hazel Wicket shares her stories about the Nutfolk, her pies, and the ability to believe! Realistic fiction with the kind of fantasy that makes readers want to believe, too."--Margaret Brennan Neville, The King's English, Salt Lake City, Utah

[Many thanks to Book Sense and the ABA!]


Ooops

Someone Please Send Us an Atlas

Shelf Awareness suffered a rare geographic meltdown last Thursday. For one, the new Book Hunters Used & Rare store that opened July 1 was and remains in Carmel, Ind., not in California. And Eyes on Austin, the African-American community center that has opened a small bookstore, is looking at Austin, Ill., not Austin, Tex.

Our apologies for the confusion! 


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