The Seattle Times has a long piece about the Chuckanut Radio Hour, the variety show put on by Village Books, Bellingham, Wash., owned by Chuck and Dee Robinson. The third of the monthly shows aired on Saturday and included music by a local band called the Walrus; several songs from an a capella trio; and host Chuck Robinson talking with mystery writer Clyde W. Ford.

Robinson said the show is modeled on Thacker Mountain Radio, which is put on by Square Books, Oxford, Miss.

Incidentally the show's name is no comment on Chuck's sanity. It's named after mountains and a scenic drive near Bellingham.

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Buying products via text message is the key to ShopText, a company profiled in today's New York Times. Text messaging is extremely popular among people 18-24, and it's being used increasingly for more than conversations.

The article notes somewhat erroneously that ShopText "has received its copies of J.K. Rowling's last Harry Potter book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Rather than waiting in line when the book is in stores in July, Harry Potter fans can order the book now with their phones." :(

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The Times also had a story on the Anarchist Book Fair's inaugural show in New York City, which opened on Saturday and drew 1,000 people from around the world.

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In honor of Earth Day, April 22, Half Price Books, the used bookstore chain that has always stressed environmentalism, has launched a website called becomegreen.info, the Dallas Morning News reported. The site includes suggestions on ways people can "learn more about how their actions can have a huge impact on our environment."

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Webster's Bookstore Café, State College, Pa., is opening a second location, but without the used bookstore, the Centre Daily Times reported. Owner Elaine Meder-Wilgus aims to create another "cozy and comfortable place to hang out, meet with friends and get some work done," the paper wrote. Like the original, the new café offers free wi-fi and emphasizes health and personal wellness. While patrons at the new cafe won't be able to browse books, they'll have one consolation prize: Webster's will "tremendously expand" its food selection at both locations.
 

Barnes & Noble, which is closing its 380,000-sq.-ft. Memphis, Tenn., warehouse, announced earlier this year, is shipping some $3.5 million of books and gifts from the warehouse to U.S. soldiers stationed overseas, according to the Memphis Business Journal.

The project started last Friday and should be completed today. With help from several shippers and trucking companies, the material is being transported in 24 trailers to the Army National Guard's 164th Airlift Wing in Memphis. B&N is spending $7.1 million to close the warehouse.

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The landlord of the Barnes & Noble on Astor Place in New York, which is closing, said that he offered to renew the 27,000-sq.-ft. store's lease at its current rent of $1.15 million a year, but that B&N wanted a 25% reduction, the New York Times reported. "Not all landlords are greedy," he added.

Robert Contant, co-owner of St. Mark's Bookshop, which is near the Astor Place B&N, told the paper that the store had difficulties in the first three years after B&N opened but created a niche by offering poetry, critical theory and graphic design titles. "It was a struggle for us to survive, but we did," he said. 

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Barnes & Noble is replacing yet another superstore. In March 2008, it will open an outlet in Morrison Place at Sharon Road and Colony Road in Charlotte, N.C. The day before, the B&N at 4720 Sharon Road in Charlotte will close.

This morning on the Today Show: Julie Andrews Edwards, author of Thanks to You: Wisdom from Mother & Child (Julie Andrews Collection, $14.99, 9780061240027/0061240028). She gives thanks, too, on Live with Regis and Kelly.

Also on the Today Show: William D. Cohan, author of the inside story The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres & Co. (Doubleday, $29.95, 9780385514514/0385514514).

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This morning on the Early Show: Kenneth Bock, M.D., co-author of Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies: The Groundbreaking Program for the 4-A Disorders (Ballantine, $25.95, 9780345494504/0345494504).

Also on the Early Show: Keri Glassman, author of The Snack Factor Diet: The Secret to Losing Weight--By Eating More (Crown, $19.95, 9780307351470/0307351475).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Richard Preston, author of The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring (Random House, $25.95, 9781400064892/1400064899).

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Today on the Tavis Smiley Show: Jabari Asim, author of The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why (Houghton Mifflin, $26, 9780618197170/0618197176).

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Tonight on the Charlie Rose Show, David G. Nathan, M.D., author of The Cancer Treatment Revolution: How Smart Drugs and Other New Therapies are Renewing Our Hope and Changing the Face of Medicine (Wiley, $24.95, 9780471946540/0471946540).

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Tonight on the Colbert Report: Senator John Kerry, co-author of This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future (PublicAffairs, $25, 9781586484316/1586484311).

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

Hardcover

The Life You Longed For by Maribeth Fischer (Touchstone, $25, 9780743293280/0743293282). "Maribeth Fischer tackles major family issues--the death of a child, infidelity and accusations of child abuse. Her prose is lucid, beautiful and thoughtful--you will want to savor every word and will find yourself thinking about the issues raised long after you put it down."--Susan McAnelly, Browseabout Shops, Rehoboth Beach, Del

A Pig in Provence: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France by Georgeanne Brennan (Chronicle, $24.95, 9780811852135/081185213X). "Get out the garlic and your best olive oil! This memoir of life in a stone cottage with pigs and goats and a quest to make good artisanal cheeses will inspire you to find the connections between neighbors and food fresh from the land. Recipes at the end of each chapter enable readers to recreate the savory and sublime in their own kitchens."--Sue Carita, The Toadstool Bookshop, Milford, N.H.

Paperback

The Fortune Quilt by Lani Diane Rich (NAL, $12.95, 9780451220271/0451220277). "When Carly gets a quilt from a stranger, things start happening that the stranger said would happen, as Carly's life is turned around. A great story full of humor and warmth."--Barbara MacDonald, Great Northern Books and Hobbies, Oscoda, Mich.

Young Adult

Tamar: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal by Mal Peet (Candlewick, $17.99, 9780763634889/0763634883). "Upon her grandfather's death, a teenage girl finds a box he left for her filled with clues and secret codes about his life of espionage during WWII. A thoughtful account of the lives of those in Holland who clandestinely fought the Nazis' overwhelming presence and power, this is a tragic story of love, betrayal, and the madness of war."--Diane Capriola, Little Shop of Stories, Decatur, Ga.

[Many thanks to Book Sense and the ABA!]

 
More than three thousand years ago, Egyptian King Akhenaten inherited an empire at the peak of its power and wealth, at "a time of astonishing sophistication and beauty, but also of vanity and brutality." He and his Great Royal Wife, Nefertiti, began a period of extreme change, particularly in religion. They rejected the old gods, challenged the powerful priesthood and instituted the worship of the One God, the Sun, the Aten. They built a magnificent city, Akhetaten, to underscore these changes and to create a place untainted by other gods. It was a magnificent artifice, where status and power were laid out with an astonishing precision, where dogs did not bark and buildings were painted and polished to perfection. Against this backdrop, Rai Rahotep, the youngest chief detective of the Thebes Medjay division, is called by the king to journey to Akhetaten to investigate a mystery.
 
He knows he's living in extraordinary times, but for him they are filled with danger and misery, and his thoughts are tormented by his work. "Things grow worse. I see it in my work: in the ever-increasing numbers of tormented and mutilated bodies of murder victims; and in the robed and desecrated tombs of the rich and powerful, with the Nubian security guards grinning from ear to ear through their slit throats. I see it in the ostentation of the rich and the endless misery of the poor . . . I see it in the imposition of the strange new god . . . in the eccentric conception and extravagant expense of the mysterious new temple city Ahketaten." As he travels down the river to his meeting with Akhenaten, he narrowly misses being killed by an arrow shot in the night, an arrow with an unusual silver tip, whose shaft is marked with the hieroglyphs for Cobra and for Seth, the god of chaos and confusion. Rahotep doesn't know if he survived by chance, or if the shot was a warning. He thinks, "I must be sober as the great serpent of water carries me away from all I know, and all I love, on its blackness, its perpetual glittering scales, with its sightless memory of a long journey from high in the unknown stones of Nubia, down through the great cataracts, and into the fields, into the fruits and vegetables, into the wine, into the sea; and somewhere into snow."
 
He soon learns the nature of the mystery from the king: Nefertiti, the Perfect One, has disappeared 10 days before a great celebration to inaugurate the new regime. Without the popular and charismatic queen, his divine imprimatur for the new order will be seen as compromised. If Rahotep does not find her, not only will he die, but his family with him, and not quickly. When the detective questions the king about why he was chosen, Akhenaten says, "I have heard interesting things about you. You have new ideas. You can trace the clues of a mystery to their hidden source. You persuade criminals to confess without torture. You enjoy the dark and dead ends of the crooked labyrinth of the human heart." A short time later, Rahotep and his court-appointed assistant Khety discover a body that seems to be Nefertiti's, but perhaps it is a ruse. Much is at stake--not only the lives of his family, but the life of his country, and he realizes he has only begun his quest for the truth.
 
The Medjay detective is a delightful character--intelligent, thoughtful, passionate, a wine connoisseur ("a Hatti white is a rare opportunity") with a dry wit: "[Mahu's] fastidious appraisal of my own rather travel-worn clothing seemed to indicate any irony on my part would be cancelled out by the evident inadequacy, and therefore lack of self-belief, of my own appearance." The mystery is satisfying, as is the palace intrigue, especially since the basis of the story is true: Nefertiti did disappear from all official documentation at this time without an explanation. Equally pleasing is Drake's atmospheric writing, from splendid architectural descriptions to Nile bird-hunting scenes. The reader is easily transported to ancient Egypt of the sun-white glare, the dusty heat, the moon-lit desert, the starry sky presided over by the goddess Nut, and always the Great River: "They say the gods possess the river, and that the river is a god, but I think its owners are the Priests in the offices, and the rich with their villas and terraces where the cool water laps at their soft and lazy feet." One hopes this is the start of a long run for Nick Drake and Rai Rahotep.--Marilyn Dahl