The Bookstore at the University of Montana has bought Fact & Fiction, Missoula, Mont., Bookselling This Week
reported. The Bookstore, a not-for-profit corporation run by a board of
faculty and students, may rebrand its university trade book department
into a Fact & Fiction and may open a third Fact & Fiction in a
building to be constructed in a residential area.
Fact & Fiction owner Barbara Theroux will continue working at the store for two years. "It is exciting," Theroux told BTW.
"What else can you ask for? I sold the business, kept my job, and will
be able to work" on expanding the Fact & Fiction brand. Theroux
noted that before founding Fact & Fiction 21 years ago, she worked
at the University bookstore for seven years. "So I'm being rehired by
the same place I used to work for."
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BTW
celebrates the 30th anniversary of St. Mark's Bookshop, New York City,
which on November 13 will give away a $30 gift certificate every 30
minutes. The store has also celebrating in a different way: it recently
signed a 10-year lease on its space. In other, somewhat understated St. Mark's news, the closing at the end of the
year of a Barnes & Noble at Astor Place two blocks away "is
definitely not going to hurt us," co-owner Bob Contant told BTW.
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Books-A-Million is opening a 15,500-sq.-ft. store in Nashville, Tenn., at 6718 Charlotte Pike in Nashville West. This is the company's 16th store in Tennessee and the fourth in the Nashville area.
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Mint edition of town vs. gown. Like many bookstores in the U.S.,
Becky Dayton's Vermont Book Shop, Middlebury, Vt., sells mints produced
by the Unemployed Philosophers Guild. The sugary bestsellers,
featuring caricatures of George W. Bush, include Indictmints,
Impeachmints and Embarrassmints.
According to an op-ed piece posted at Middleburycampus.com,
Frederick Fritz, chair of the Middlebury College board of trustees,
took exception to the counter display and called Dayton, asserting
"that bookstores are held to higher standards, that they are a higher
class of retailer that promotes the free exchange of ideas. In short,
an independent bookstore is no place for a political statement (even if
in a box of mints)."
The student who wrote the piece called
the bookstore "a shining example of a space ripe for College and town
interaction. . . . What is first so disheartening about Mr. Fritz's
actions is that, despite his position as one of the most powerful
members of the College administration, he has a fundamentally skewed
notion of what role an independent bookshop such as this plays in the
community."
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Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen stayed
in character for his appearance Wednesday at a Borders bookstore in Los
Angeles, Calif. According to USA Today,
"He even turned his new status as a published author against
[Kazahkstan]. 'It give me great pleasurings to announce that
Kazahkstan, after many years of secret research, we are now able to
produce our own book!' he declared to the crowd, opening the cover as
all the pages fell out of the binding."
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Effective January 1, Taschen America will be
distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Ingram Publisher Services.
Taschen is currently distributed by Perseus.
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Effective November 28, Amanda Tobier will become marketing director for Avery and Viking Studio. She has been working at Dutton and Gotham as marketing manager and earlier was assistant marketing director at Hyperion. Before that, she was a buyer for Third Place Books and Elliott Bay Book Company, both in Seattle, Wash.
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Borders Group has promoted two executives to v-p, merchandising.
- Beryl Needham, who has been director of field marketing and events, will be responsible for fiction, bargain, diversity and proprietary publishing.
- Kathryn Popoff, who has been director of merchandising for adult trade books in the nonfiction category, will be responsible for all nonfiction.
Needham has 25 years of publishing and retail experience. Before
joining Borders last year, she was v-p of sales and liaison to Borders for
Random House and worked at Little, Brown and Time Warner Audio
Books. Early in her career she worked at Waldenbooks in a variety of
positions, including director of buying and divisional merchandise
manager.
Popoff joined Borders in 2002 as director of multimedia and managed all
buying, merchandising and marketing for the company's music and DVD
categories. Before that, Popoff worked for Albertsons/Jewel-Osco and
Bloomingdale's.