Lori Kauffman, a buyer at Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, Mass., has won the 2007 Isaac Epstein Scholarship, a $1,000 award sponsored by the New England Independent Booksellers Association honoring the late owner of Huntington's Bookstore, Hartford, Conn., and past treasurer of NEIBA. The award is for professional development, whether attending BEA, an ABA school, the Paz Workshop or the Winter Institute.

In part of her application letter, Kauffman wrote: "I am now in my first buying season, and I love learning more everyday. . . . This past spring I attended BEA; I paid my own way and used vacation days, but I had to go! At the Booksmith I feel like I am now in a position to implement ideas that I have learned through my attendance at BEA and NEIBA educational seminars. But I know I still have so much more learning to do, and I know this award could help me further my education in the business of bookselling."

For her part, Brookline Booksmith manager and co-owner Dana Brigham wrote, "If ever there was an 'emerging leader,' Lori is it. . . . Her energy and creativity are amazing. In our efforts to reach as many customer demographics as possible, she has been wonderful addressing the 20-30 somethings. She does this in her book buying choices and in generating terrific ideas for marketing to them. Her interest in all things related to independent bookselling is huge."

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Patrons of southern Oregon's Jackson Country library system, which closed last week, have migrated to local bookstores, the Mail Tribune reported. As Bruce Budmayr, the manager of a Barnes & Noble, put it: "They're going to the next-biggest place with a lot of books and they tend to gravitate to us." The libraries were "one of our best customers," Budmayr added.

"People have been checking us out both by foot and phone," Judy Stoddart, co-owner of H Q Books, told the paper. "We were getting inquiries about our trade policies. Some of our old traders who have been making use of the library are dipping their toes back into the used business."

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Costco book buyer Pennie Clark Ianniciello has chosen Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin' (S&S, $25, 9780743292856/0743292855) as April's book pick. She has highlighted the title in the current issue of Costco Connection, which goes to many of the warehouse club's members.

Ianniciello said that she has always enjoyed Deen's cookbooks, "but I never knew about her beyond the smiling face you see in her cookbooks and on [the Food Network]. Now that I have read her memoir, I am more in awe of her than before. She overcame a variety of obstacles--inflicted and self-inflicted--to become the successful, vibrant person she is today."

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Robert Löhr's The Chess Machine, translated by Anthea Bell, which will be released in July by Penguin Press ($24.95, 9781594201264/1594201269), is the German Book Office's April book selection. The GBO called the book "another success in the recent progression of German fiction that is not only thought-provoking, but also entertaining. Based on a true story, this well-researched historical novel captures a more frivolous side of the Age of Enlightenment, all while laying out fundamental arguments about Man vs. Machine and Man vs. God."

Penguin described the book this way: "Vienna 1770: Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen unveils a strange and amazing invention, the Mechanical Turk, a sensational and unbeatable chess-playing automaton. But what the Habsburg court hails as the greatest innovation of the century is really nothing more than a brilliant illusion. The chess machine is secretly operated from inside by the Italian dwarf Tibor, a God-fearing social outcast whose chess-playing abilities and diminutive size make him the perfect accomplice in this grand hoax.

". . . But when a beautiful and seductive countess dies under mysterious circumstances in the presence of the automaton, the Mechanical Turk falls under a cloud of suspicion, and the machine and his inventor become the targets of espionage, persecution, and aristocratic intrigue."

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Destination not New York. BEA has cancelled the Saturday night Book Industry Foundation benefit concert, after its star, Jon Bon Jovi, said he could not perform. Refunds will be issued to those who have bought tickets. In addition, Bon Jovi's publisher, Flying Dolphin Press, said that his book, Believe, is being postponed. It was originally schedule to be published in November.

 

Several sessions at the NACS meeting in Orlando, Fla., last month focused on rental textbook programs, covering both established ones, some of which have been in existence for more than a century, as well as a possible new business model that would involve publishers renting textbooks to college bookstores, which would in turn rent them to students. Schools, stores and students are interested in rentals as a way of lowering textbook costs for students.

At one brainstorming session, several publishers canvassed booksellers in attendance about the concept of renting textbooks to college stores, which as Tom Hoffa of Pearson Education said, is "merely at the idea stage."

Publishers are considering textbook rentals, participants said, because "the biggest hurdle to a traditional rental program is startup costs," Hoffa said. Research done in connection with a decision by the University of North Carolina board of governors to mandate either a buyback guarantee or text rental for large introductory courses estimated that start up costs for a full-scale rental operation would be $8 million. Another estimate figured that establishment of a text rental program costs $1 million per 1,000 students. Among those costs, of course, are the textbooks themselves as well as storage space.

David Serbun of Houghton Mifflin emphasized that publishers are interested in renting textbooks because it would be better to "sell more units on a lower price even on a recurring basis. It's a different kind of business model that flattens things out for us."

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Mike Coston, director of the university bookstore at Appalachian State in North Carolina, outlined the store's textbook rental program, which began in the 1930s and is a university policy. Under the fee-based program, which costs a full-time undergraduate $82 per semester, last year the store rented out more than 800 titles (including some old editions) and estimated it saved about $5 million for students. The store sells texts, too. The value of the store's rental inventory is about $3 million compared to a little more than $2 million three years ago.

Coston said that space has been an issue and emphasized that the store's model of selling and renting textbooks in the same place made it "the most difficult model of renting to get into." Other stores with rental programs have separate sales and renting facilities.

"Rush" is not as dramatic as one would think, Coston said, observing that "it's amazing how many students don't come in to pick up a rental book until just before final exams."

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Chuck Kissel, director of the Titan Shops at Cal State Fullerton, which has 36,000 students, described the school's two-year-old textbook rental program. "We believe we are the first university of our size to roll out a text rental program," he said.

The program has a prominent position in the store and is title-based, meaning that the student pays when he or she selects the book. For books offered, students are given four options: they can rent the book, buy a new copy, buy a used copy or buy the e-text. On most titles, the store saves 65% for students and on some titles the savings are 75%. The store offers the rentals unbundled but does sell bundled material separately. It aims to rent out only new editions.

In the fall of 2006, Cal State Fullerton offered 17 rental textbooks; 3,592 were rented and brought $117,138 in rental income and resulted in $227,542 in savings to students.

For books that are part of the program, the store has gotten commitments from the faculty to use the text for at least two years. As is usually the case with rental programs, the greatest demand is for texts for introductory and major core classes.

Kissel said his store was interested in the possibility of renting textbooks from publishers "because coming up with capital [for a traditional rental program] is challenging." He added that he liked it that the model "involves bookstores. This is key to both stores and publishers as we move forward."

The rental program has had several major benefits for the Cal State Fullerton bookstore, Kissel continued. For one, "For the first time in a long time, the campus and students see us as doing something about the price of textbooks."

In addition, in contrast to general trends, overall textbook unit sales are increasing at the store, which Kissel attributed to the rental program. "Many students visit us online and build textbook purchases around the rentals."--John Mutter

Today Good Morning America hears from David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, authors of Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home (Knopf, $19.95, 9780307263643/0307263649).

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Today on the Today Show and the View: actress Victoria Rowell, author of The Women Who Raised Me (Morrow, $25.95, 9780061246593/006124659X).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Betty Rollin, former NBC reporter and author of Here's the Bright Side: Of Failure, Fear, Cancer, Divorce, and Other Bum Raps (Random House, $14.95, 9781400065653/1400065658).

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Tonight on the Charlie Rose Show: Walter Isaacson, whose new biography is Einstein: His Life and Universe (S&S, $32, 9780743264730/0743264738).

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Tonight on the Colbert Report: Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future (Norton, $25.95, 9780393062113/0393062112).

 

This is the final article about three Penguin paperback titles that have benefited from exceptional bookseller efforts.

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During a visit in February to Naperville, Ill., Greg Mortenson spoke to some 2,000 residents. The occasion: his Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time was chosen as part of Naperville Reads (co-sponsored by Anderson's Bookshop). In addition to addressing a crowd participating in the citywide reading program, he talked to students at two local high schools and a college. (The book received a rave review from Marilyn Dahl in Shelf Awareness in March 2006.)

On April 20, Mortenson is heading back to Naperville, where he will appear at Anderson's, which has already sold more than 1,100 copies of the paperback since its January publication. Why a second visit in three months? "We have many more people to reach," said Anderson's buyer Mary Yockey, who is on the Naperville Reads committee and, along with colleague Barb Fessler, suggested the book as a 2007 selection.

Mortenson is the founder of the Central Asia Institute, a nonprofit organization that provides education and literacy programs in rural areas of Central Asia. The institute, which places an emphasis on education for girls, has built nearly 60 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Anderson's staffers have embraced this mission. "The majority of our employees are women," said events and publicity coordinator Gail Wetta, "and it really struck a chord with us."

Fundraising efforts during Mortenson's first visit (including a giant knit hat passed at the Naperville Reads event) resulted in a $5,300 donation to the Central Asia Institute. Part of the money came from schoolchildren who participated in the Institute's "Pennies for Peace" campaign, which strives to involve kids in the organization's mission. "When you hear Greg say a penny buys a pencil," Yockey said, "it makes you stop and think what a difference the change in our pockets can make."

Another of Anderson's endeavors resulted in a live-action exhibit. Knitters in the community came out in force to support a staff-sponsored knit cap drive, initiated by Fessler and dubbed Kapz for Kidz. Knitters plied their craft while sitting near the store's front window to attract attention to the cause, and they created 200 caps that have been sent to a girls' school in Central Asia.

In-store promotion efforts continue at Anderson's, where copies of Three Cups of Tea are stacked on a table near the entrance. The book is also featured in a Book Sense bestseller display and in a nonfiction section. A second Anderson's location in Downer's Grove, Ill., is promoting the book as well as Mortenson's upcoming appearance.

"Area students and adults have truly taken Greg's work to heart," commented Wetta, who expects an enthusiastic response to Mortenson's encore appearance. "We're hoping it will be standing room only."--Shannon McKenna

For more information about the Central Asia Institute, visit threecupsoftea.com and ikat.org.

Tim Maleeny is the author of Stealing the Dragon, a novel set in Hong Kong and San Francisco that Lee Child called "a perfect thriller debut." His short fiction appears in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Death Do Us Part, a recent anthology from Mystery Writers of America that was edited by Harlan Coben. He currently lives in San Francisco, where he dreams of murder and mayhem.

On nightstand now:

The Song Is You by Megan Abbot

Favorite book when you were a child:

Anything by Edgar Rice Burroughs or Isaac Asimov

Top five authors:

Only five?! Loren Estleman, Robert Crais, Elmore Leonard, Ken Bruen and Lee Child

Book you've "faked" reading:

Cold Mountain, until I realized that everyone who'd asked me if I'd read it was faking, too.

Book you are an "evangelist" for:

The Killing of the Tinkers by Ken Bruen

Book you've bought for the cover:

Moist by Mark Haskell Smith

Book that changed your life:

Amazing Spider-Man #121, June 1973

Favorite line from a book:

There are people who can be happy anywhere. I am not one of them. (Opening line from A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read)

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman