Barnes & Noble is "making a big push in home furnishings," an effort that features an exclusive partnership with designer Jonathan Adler and selling Mitchell Gold furniture, according to the June 18 issue of Home Furnishings News. (For now at least, the full story is not available online.) Bill Miller, B&N's v-p of gift, said that the retailer aims to expand "home business" to 10%-15% of company revenues, up from about 6% today. "Because books [are sold everywhere], we're trying to make a stake in the non-book business," he told HFN.

Among elements of the change:

• The Jonathan Adler line of pottery, frames and more will make its debut in September "front and center" in some 500 B&N stores.
• The company has begun selling Mitchell Gold leather reading chairs in the seating areas of 10 stores--along with copies of Gold's book, Let's Get Comfortable.
• A test of framed art in 18 stores that began last fall and was particularly successful in urban areas is being expanded to 65 more stores this month, including many in the Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle markets. The selection of framed art will grow from black-and-white photographs from the Getty archive, National Geographic and Life magazine, among other sources, to artwork and prints, too.
• The Botanique "seasonal home décor program with floral, archival images reminiscent of [B&N's] greeting card collection" has passed its test with flying colors, and another seasonal home program will make its debut in the fourth quarter.

B&N is also considering adding or increasing picture frames, mugs, lighting and storage and organization products in many of its stores.

Below is the Mitchell Gold reading chair now available in a leatherbound edition at 10 B&N stores: 

Ron Sher, a real estate developer who also co-owns Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, Wash., and Ravenna Third Place in Seattle, is negotiating to buy an old J.C. Penney building in Bremerton and plans to redevelop the site in a way so that it would likely include another Third Place Books, a grocery store, a health club, restaurants as well as residences, the Kitsap Sun reported.

The possible third Third Place would open at the earliest in 2009.

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The New York Times tills new literary ground: farmers who write. " 'We're in a farm phase,' said Maria Guarnaschelli, an editor at W.W. Norton. Given the success of recent books about the food chain like The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, she said, it made sense that readers would go straight to the source and start reading the works of farmers."

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The Diane Rehm Show has chosen Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (Algonquin, $13.95, 9781565125605/1565125606) as the next pick for its book club, Reader's Review. On Wednesday, July 18, the show will spend an hour focusing on the book. The circus will include a panel of authors, professors and booklovers and listener calls.

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Sue Steel, co-owner of Simply Books, Bramall, Cheshire, told the London Telegraph she has defied the odds (and the discount gods) by ordering 300 copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to sell at full price. "There's no point discounting," she said, "So let's celebrate and I hope we'll break even."

Harry and the vanishing profit margin have become headline news internationally. The Telegraph sampled bookseller opinions to support its contention that "the only people likely to make any money . . .  are J. K. Rowling and her publishers."

Tim Robinson, manager of Muswell Hill Bookshop, north London, planned to order "a couple of dozen" copies for loyal customers, but said, "The price war is ludicrous because we could all be making money on it."

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Debra Galant, author of Rattled (St. Martin's, $13.95, 9780312366582/0312366582), now out in paperback, offers an amusing essay about a new novel, Addled, that not only rhymes with her book but contains similar elements. Get Rattled and Addled here.

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Where will Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp buy books now?

The closing of world-renowned Heritage Book Shop in West Hollywood, Calif., has not been blamed on familiar villains like increased competition, rising rents or diminishing profits. According to the Los Angeles Times, "business continues to boom, [but] the bookstore has been made an offer it cannot refuse. . . . This spring, the building was sold to a local businessman, and the ink is still drying on a separate sale of the $10 million or so in inventory to an as-yet-undisclosed auction house."

The Times reported that owner Ben Weinstein, whose clientele included many celebrities as well as international collectors, "saw no clear way to unload the store in a way that would keep it running. 'The people who have the money don't have the knowledge. And the people who have the knowledge don't have the money, and if they did they would probably do something else with it.' "

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For a summary of testimony yesterday by Laura Albert, aka JT Leroy, about how and why she adopted "not only a pseudonym, but another personality, to write," see the New York Times.

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Amy Baker is being promoted to marketing director for Harper Perennial. She joined the HarperCollins Audio group in 2000 and has worked in the marketing departments of HarperCollins, Ecco and Harper Perennial.  

 

A Mighty Heart, directed by Michael Winterbottom and written by John Orloff, opens in theaters tomorrow. Starring Dan Futterman and Angelina Jolie as Daniel and Mariane Pearl, it follows the Wall Street Journal reporter's disappearance in Pakistan and his shocking death in 2002. The movie is based on A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband, Danny Pearl by Mariane Pearl (Scribner, $14, 9781416551249/1416551247).

Today the Rachael Ray Show re-airs an episode with Kristin Armstrong, ex-wife of cyclist Lance and author of Happily Ever After: Walking with Peace and Courage through a Year of Divorce (FaithWords, $16.99, 9780446579896).

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Today on KCRW's Bookworm: Lydia Davis, author of Varieties of Disturbance: Stories (FSG, $13, 9780374281731/0374281734). As the show put it: "Lydia Davis writes elegant prose pieces in which basic confusions are described with authority and clarity."

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Tal Ben-Shahar, Harvard happiness professor and author of Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment (McGraw-Hill, $21.95, 9780071492393/0071492399).

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Today on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross: Jeff Gammage, author of China Ghosts: My Daughter's Journey to America, My Passage to Fatherhood (Morrow, $25.95, 9780061240294/006124029X).

Also on Fresh Air, Jeff Goodell discusses Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future (Houghton Mifflin, $14.95, 9780618872244/0618872248).

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Tonight on Fox's O'Reilly Factor: Dick Morris and Eileen McGann on Outrage: How Illegal Immigration, the United Nations, Congressional Ripoffs, Student Loan Overcharges, Tobacco Companies, Trade Protection, and Drug Companies Are Ripping Us Off . . . And What to Do about It (HC, $26.95, 9780061195402/0061195405).

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Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Greg Bear, whose new thriller is Quantico (Vanguard Press, $24.95, 9781593154455/1593154453).

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Tonight on the Colbert Report: Vincent Bugliosi, former prosecutor and Warren Commission report defender whose new book is Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Norton, $49.95, 9780393045253/0393045250).
 

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 website.

Saturday, June 23

12 p.m. History on Book TV. Robert D. Hormats, author of The Price of Liberty: Paying For America's Wars (Times Books, $27.50, 9780805082531/0805082530), argues that the Bush administration has deviated from a longstanding American tradition of funding military actions.

6 p.m. Encore Booknotes. In a segment first aired in 1996, Rutgers University professor Louise Barnett talked about her book, Touched by Fire: The Life, Death, and Mythic Afterlife of George Armstrong Custer (Bison Books, $17.95, 9780803262669/0803262663)

9 p.m. After Words. Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief of Reason magazine, interviews Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (HarperCollins, $26.95, 9780066211701/0066211700). Shlaes contends that the fortitude of the individual citizen and not President Roosevelt's economic plan sustained people throughout the Great Depression. (Re-airs Sunday, June 24, at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.)

10 p.m. John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman (Plume, $15, 9780452287082/0452287081), talks about his follow-up book, The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption (Dutton, $25.95, 9780525950158/052595015X). (Re-airs Sunday, June 24, at 12 p.m.)

Sunday, June 24

10 a.m. History on Book TV. Paul Starr, author of Freedom's Power: The True Force of Liberalism (Perseus, $26, 9780465081868/046508186X), follows the development of the political theory of liberalism from its origins in the 17th and 18th century to its current state. (Re-airs Sunday, July 1, at 3 p.m.)

7:55 p.m. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Natalie Angier discusses her latest book, The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science (Houghton Mifflin, $27, 9780618242955/0618242953) as well as the works that make up the foundation for our understanding of science.

10 p.m. Robert Kurson, author of Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See (Random House, $25.95, 9781400063352/1400063353), shares the story of Mike May, a blind man who was offered the chance to undergo stem cell transplant surgery to regain the sight he lost at age three. (Re-airs Monday, June 25, at 12 a.m.)

 

Camp Half Blood Atlanta at the Little Shop of Stories, Decatur, Ga., convened this week. Based on Rick Riordan's series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the camp has 32 campers who will be introduced to all things Greek, including myths, language instruction, history, warrior training, astronomy, art and music. The first day featured a visit by Julia Prettie from Emory University, who led the group in an improvisation exercise of Heracles and his Twelve Labors. Cabins of Athena, Apollo, Ares, Hermes and Demeter also compete against each other in daily Capture the Flag games.

 

Lay aside the skepticism for a moment (and the cover, which is not the illustrator's strongest painting). Puybaret, a French artist making his American debut, allows us to experience the classic lyrics about a special friendship between a boy and a magic dragon as if for the first time. The title page acts as an invitation to the land of Honalee, an "autumn mist" clinging to the shoreline of a tranquil sea, broken by mountaintops ringed in clouds. A green-striped turret with an onion-shaped dome in the foreground suggests an exotic land. On the first page of text ("Puff the magic dragon, lived by the sea . . ."), Puff and Jackie Paper enter together, the dragon's head even with the boy's, establishing from the start their equality in friendship and adventure-seeking. Throughout, the landscape feels both foreign and familiar. Fairies dressed in full-length gowns and earth-toned tunics flit about; a flurry of candy-stripe dolphins sporting commencement caps circles the graceful schooner on which Jackie and Puff sail. Even the rocks and trees express joy as they observe the pair "frolick[ing]." Puybaret adheres to a child's sense of fairness as pirates bow to the duo with the same elegance as the "noble kings and princes." But the mist and the somber shades of fall create the sense of foreboding that leads to that "one gray night" when Jackie comes no more. To the artist's credit, Puff seems crestfallen but also possesses the sage look of a creature who knew this day would come. As a "dragon [who] lives forever," he has perhaps witnessed this scene before. Pirate, noble and a now-bareheaded dolphin come to Puff to share his grief; Jack's playthings rest on the floor of Puff's cave. Yet the artist ends the tale on a note of hope, as a girl enters a springlike landscape where blossoms bloom, Puff's face lights up and a man peeks contendedly from around a corner. Could it be Jack? It may well be. After all, a CD (enclosed in the back cover) includes a poignant version of the song recorded by Yarrow (sans Paul and Mary) and his daughter, Bethany. Don't we all want to introduce to the next generation the pleasures of our most treasured days of childhood?--Jennifer M. Brown