BookExpo America plans to open its remainder pavilion on the trade
show floor a day early during the New York City show next spring. As
outlined in Bargain Book News,
on Thursday, May 31, the remainder pavilion will be open from 11 a.m.
to 5 p.m. for remainder dealers and any attendee with a BEA badge. The
rest of the show floor will open for business on Friday, June 1.
The move was made in part in an effort to hold costs down for remainder
exhibitors. At remainder shows like CIROBE, for example, because of
limited stock and intense competition between buyers, many exhibitors
take off-site rooms and sell for several days before the official
opening of the show.
Show director Lance Fensterman said that the remainder pavilion has
become "increasingly more important to us . . . We would like to
embrace the industry and some of its unique issues by opening the
remainder pavilion a day early."
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The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
chronicles the disappointment of some Downtown residents in the closing
of a Barnes & Noble that has operated in the area for 12 years.
Manager Leann Sprinkles told the paper: "A lot of the customers we see
so often, we're on a first-name basis with them because most of them
have been coming in for a long time."
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John Niedhart joined DK Publishing yesterday as the Barnes &
Noble national accounts sales manager. For the past six years, Niedhart
has held editorial positions at O'Reilly Media and Addison Wesley.
Prior to that, he held several positions at B&N, including computer
book buyer, field merchandiser and store manager.
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LibraryThing.com is the Web site on which more than 100,000 bibliophile
members catalogue their books, either what they're reading or their
personal libraries or both (Shelf Awareness,
May 23, 2006). Much like Amazon.com, B&N.com and other online
retailers, LibraryThing makes book suggestions for members, based on
their interests. Unlike online companies, LibraryThing has begun what
founder Tim Spalding called "a humorous service" named the UnSuggester that turns the algorithm of "people who read Book X read Book Y" on its head.
Some examples of UnSuggester in action, according to LibraryThing: the program has found that people who read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason likely are not fond of Kinsella's Shopaholic. Readers of The Mists of Avalon probably do not enjoy John Piper's Desiring God. Anyone with a copy of Lauren F. Winner's pro-chastity Real Sex usually doesn't have Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Spalding added that "it's actually a little scary, as certain
sub-cultures--particularly evangelical Christian Living books--are so
persistently in opposition to contemporary literary fiction."
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More about The Unbearable Lightness of Being comes from Agence France-Presse via the New York Times. Now available in the Czech Republic in a new edition, the book is for the first time
a bestseller in the author's home country. Luxor Book Palace, Prague,
has been selling about 100 copies a day; owner Jiri Bilek wrote to the
publisher, Atlantis, warning that low stock would lead to "the anger of
its clients."