With his usual humor and grace, ABA president Russ Lawrence of
Chapter One Book Store, Hamilton, Mont., opened the Celebration of
Bookselling Thursday evening by saying that the awards being presented
there might not have the same zip as the Oscars or National Book Awards
"but what we do changes lives." Bookselling, he continued, "is a
life-changing career, a life-changing service."
In a similar vein, Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books, Coral
Gables, Fla., which won the Lucile Micheels Pannell award for a general
bookstore selling children's books, said, "Our highest calling is to
develop the next generation of readers. We're developing the next
generation of booksellers as well."
A humbled and emotional Gayle Shanks, co-owner with her husband Bob
Sommer and Susie Brazil of Changing Hands bookstore, Tempe, Ariz.,
winner of PW's bookseller of the year award, thanked "all those
who so generously taught me this business." She also acknowledged Cindy
Dach and Brandon Stout, "a new generation. I'm so proud to call them,
and all of you, my colleagues."
Kate McCune of HarperCollins, winner of PW's rep of the year
award, said she had a "passion for books and systems and efficiency"
and added, "I walked into bookstore for a part-time job and never
looked back."
Book Sense Book of the Year children's winner Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief
(Knopf), thanked booksellers for selling his title, "a children's book
set in the Holocaust, narrated by death, and 500 pages long," and
thanked them for "loving books and actually reading them." He said he
didn't take it for granted that he went "from a suburb in Sydney to New
York City and a publisher named Chip."
Nora Ephron, wearing a low cut black top revealing a rather elegant neck, won the nonfiction award for I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
(Knopf). She recalled her early bookstore experiences after her family
moved from New York to Beverly Hills when she was four years old. The
family shopped regularly at Martindale's Bookstore--"all New Yorkers
living in Beverly Hills went there." As a teenager, Ephron had her
first job at Martindale's, where she was paid 75 cents an hour. She and
the store parted ways, she said, when, after two years, she couldn't
get a 10-cent-an-hour raise.
Ephron thanked the booksellers for their help since her book appeared:
"It's been 42 weeks of pleasure. Next winter I'll be able to buy many
many more turtlenecks."
Craig Hatkoff and his daughter Isabella won the Book Sense children's illustrated award for Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship
(Scholastic). Craig Hatkoff told the group that he had been at "award
shows with more famous people but not more important people." Isabella
added that she was really excited and happy about the award.
A deeply touched Sara Gruen, who won the adult fiction award for Water for Elephants
(Algonquin), exclaimed, "What a difference a year makes." She
remembered meeting booksellers at the first Winter Institute in Long
Beach, Calif., in January 2006, and having her book named a Book Sense
Pick, which was followed by the "the holy-mother-of-god tour" to 35
bookstores. "I am incredibly grateful to the ABA and independent
booksellers and Algonquin," she continued. "I really do get what you
all did for me. Elephants never forget and neither will I."--Susan L.
Weis