Congratulations to Senator Barack Obama, who won a Grammy for best spoken word album for the audio edition of Dreams From My Father (Random House Audio) and to Marlo Thomas and friends, who won best spoken word album for children for Marlo Thomas & Friends: Thanks & Giving All Year Long, produced by Christopher Cerf and Thomas (Warner Strategic Marketing).
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Cool, fertile idea of the day: Chapter 11, the Atlanta, Ga., area bookseller, is selling gardening, landscape design, outdoors titles and more at the Southeastern Flower Show at the Georgia World Congress Center through Sunday. It's also coordinating book signings by more than 20 gardening authors.
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Federal prosecutors have charged that Abdulrahman Farhane, a U.S. citizen born in Morocco who runs the House of Knowledge bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y., aided terrorists, the New York Times reported. Farhane's lawyer said that the government's charges rest on accusations from the informer who set himself on fire in the front of the White House in November 2004 in a dispute with the FBI over pay. Farhane said, "I'm not guilty, I didn't do anything. This is my country, I love this country, I work hard."
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Between November 15 and December 15, Borders and Walden encouraged customers to donate more than $450,000 to benefit First Book, the program that provides books to children in need. The money has been converted to Borders and Walden gift cards, which are being distributed to organizations affiliated with First Book, including Head Start and Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Borders had made a kickoff donation of $50,000, which brings the total donated to $500,000.
The groups will work with local Borders and Walden stores, which will host story times and other events and help children select titles. For many of them, it will be their first trip to a bookstore and first time picking out a new book.
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Eugene and Springfield, Ore., take a slight twist on the one book, one city program. Appropriately for the Pacific Northwest locale, the cities' annual event--one book, two cities?--is called Readin' in the Rain. The 2006 iteration will shine attention on Crescent, the novel by Diana Abu-Jaber about a love affair set in the Iraqi expatriate community in Los Angeles.
The Umbrella Opening event last Friday featured a bellydancer, live Turkic and Arabic music by the Ala Nar band and a talk about the book. On Thursday, Feb. 23, Abu-Jaber will stage a free reading, and the following Saturday, she will sign at a dinner fundraiser. During the month, book discussions will take place at libraries and bookstores in the area.
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In Other Words, the nonprofit feminist bookstore in Portland, Ore., has moved to a new location, at 8 N.E. Killingsworth, the Portland State University Vanguard reported. The 13-year-old store is paying less rent but has nearly twice the floor space. The store hopes to use the extra space for lectures, community readings and other events. It also has begun partnering with neighboring businesses, including the Talking Drum Bookstore.
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Bantam aims to try a proven technique for building buzz among booksellers on consumers: in ads in the current New Yorker, it's offering free ARCs to the first 100 people who visit the Web site for The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist, a September thriller.
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The Baltimore Sun shed some light on Basset Books, a used and antiquarian bookstore that sells a lot of children's and military books and has substantial sales online. Founded in 1998 by Jan and Dan Riker, who now have Geoff Gibson, a former HarperCollins rep, as a partner, the store is in the Savage Mill marketplace in Savage, Md. Basset Books is named after the Rikers' dog, and is cheerfully reminiscent of Waldenbooks's brief experiment in superstores--Basset Book Shops--in the early 1990s.
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Cool, fertile idea of the day: Chapter 11, the Atlanta, Ga., area bookseller, is selling gardening, landscape design, outdoors titles and more at the Southeastern Flower Show at the Georgia World Congress Center through Sunday. It's also coordinating book signings by more than 20 gardening authors.
---
Federal prosecutors have charged that Abdulrahman Farhane, a U.S. citizen born in Morocco who runs the House of Knowledge bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y., aided terrorists, the New York Times reported. Farhane's lawyer said that the government's charges rest on accusations from the informer who set himself on fire in the front of the White House in November 2004 in a dispute with the FBI over pay. Farhane said, "I'm not guilty, I didn't do anything. This is my country, I love this country, I work hard."
---
Between November 15 and December 15, Borders and Walden encouraged customers to donate more than $450,000 to benefit First Book, the program that provides books to children in need. The money has been converted to Borders and Walden gift cards, which are being distributed to organizations affiliated with First Book, including Head Start and Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Borders had made a kickoff donation of $50,000, which brings the total donated to $500,000.
The groups will work with local Borders and Walden stores, which will host story times and other events and help children select titles. For many of them, it will be their first trip to a bookstore and first time picking out a new book.
---
Eugene and Springfield, Ore., take a slight twist on the one book, one city program. Appropriately for the Pacific Northwest locale, the cities' annual event--one book, two cities?--is called Readin' in the Rain. The 2006 iteration will shine attention on Crescent, the novel by Diana Abu-Jaber about a love affair set in the Iraqi expatriate community in Los Angeles.
The Umbrella Opening event last Friday featured a bellydancer, live Turkic and Arabic music by the Ala Nar band and a talk about the book. On Thursday, Feb. 23, Abu-Jaber will stage a free reading, and the following Saturday, she will sign at a dinner fundraiser. During the month, book discussions will take place at libraries and bookstores in the area.
---
In Other Words, the nonprofit feminist bookstore in Portland, Ore., has moved to a new location, at 8 N.E. Killingsworth, the Portland State University Vanguard reported. The 13-year-old store is paying less rent but has nearly twice the floor space. The store hopes to use the extra space for lectures, community readings and other events. It also has begun partnering with neighboring businesses, including the Talking Drum Bookstore.
---
Bantam aims to try a proven technique for building buzz among booksellers on consumers: in ads in the current New Yorker, it's offering free ARCs to the first 100 people who visit the Web site for The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist, a September thriller.
---
The Baltimore Sun shed some light on Basset Books, a used and antiquarian bookstore that sells a lot of children's and military books and has substantial sales online. Founded in 1998 by Jan and Dan Riker, who now have Geoff Gibson, a former HarperCollins rep, as a partner, the store is in the Savage Mill marketplace in Savage, Md. Basset Books is named after the Rikers' dog, and is cheerfully reminiscent of Waldenbooks's brief experiment in superstores--Basset Book Shops--in the early 1990s.