RiverRun Bookstore, Portsmouth, N.H., is "the city's bookstore," Seacoastonline said, and owner Tom Holbrook "loves [books] and his community with dedication and active commitment."
According
to Holbrook, "Right from the start, when people came in they were going
to see books, books and more books, and they were going to be serious
books and they were going to be good books, and anyone who walks
through our door is going to think, 'This is the real deal.'"
---
At
Bonnie Slotnick's Cookbooks, New York City, the owner "would rather you
didn't buy a book from her, than buy for the wrong reasons," the New York Sun
reported, adding that "people who want to purchase to impress others
are not welcome in the store, and that can be a frequent source of
consternation for book dealers."
Slotnick, whose 350-sq.-ft.
vintage cookbook store in the West Village will celebrate its 10th
anniversary soon, said, "I love when people find that book from their
childhood. I try to help people get to where they want to be."
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Why doesn't Johnny read? The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
reported on the difficulty of getting boys interested in reading. "I would say
there is a crisis," said children's book author Walter Dean Myers. "Too
many parents have walked away from this idea . . . that education is a
family concept, is a community concept, is not simply something that
schools do."
According to Pamela LaBorde, children's librarian
at the Seattle Public Library's Ballard branch, "A lot of times, when
boys get to middle school they are feeling sort of disenfranchised from
the educational experience."
Publishing more titles
specifically for the market is suggested as one solution. "The real
requirement is that there is a male protagonist," said John Martin, a
novelist who started BoysRead.org. "Boys will not read books that have a girl protagonist."
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In October 22's PNBA: Picks of the Reps article, we accidentally omitted George Carroll's pick, What God Hath Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press, $35, 9780195078947, November 5, 2007). Carroll of Redsides Publishing Services sums it up this way: "In 1815, we were basically a third world country and by 1848 we were on our way to becoming a major player on the world stage." History is not his favorite subject ("My high school history teacher doubled as the football coach. He did a little pro wrestling under the name of Gentleman Jack Garfano. I sat in the back row reading Captain America."), and Howe's book is almost 1,000 pages long; still, Carroll found it fascinating, even page-turning. In the October 29 New Yorker, reviewer Jill Lepore calls it "both a capacious narrative of a tumultuous era in American history and a heroic attempt at synthesizing a century and a half of historical writing about Jacksonian democracy, antebellum reform, and American expansion."
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Effective immediately, Midpoint Books has signed sales, marketing and distribution agreements with:
- David Bauer Press
- Pentatonic Press
- Regal Publishing International
- Pamela Kelly Communications
- Dailey Swan Publishing (formerly with Bookworld)
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From the front pages of Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth by the Onion (Little, Brown, $27.99, 9780316018425/0316018422), "A Note to Barnes & Noble Browsers":
"What do you think you're doing? Seriously, what does this look like to
you? Some kind of library? Did you really think you could just come in
here and spend the afternoon reading this book for free? The line to
pay is over that way, buddy. What's that? Just trying to decide whether
or not you want to buy the book? You don't think we're really that
stupid, do you? You know what? Fine. Why don't you just make yourself
at home. Pull up a chair. They don't close until 10 p.m., after all.
"You [expletive] prick.
"Do you know how hard people worked to write this book? No, of course
you don't. Maybe you should check out the Self-Help section once you're
finished leafing through this. That's right, we said it. You need help.
And you know what else? You don't even deserve this atlas. You heard
us--we don't want your money. Honestly, just put it back on the shelf
and get out. Get the [expletive] out of here. . . . Now!