Net revenues at Hastings Entertainment in the quarter ended October
31 rose 2.2% to $122.3 million and net income was $100,000 compared to
a net loss of $2.2 million in the same period last year.
Sales of books at stores open at least a year rose 2.5%, "primarily
driven by strong sales" of Stephenie Meyers's vampire love titles, particularly
Eclipse, released in August, "as well as increased sales of used book offerings."
During the quarter, the company closed one of its stores in Lubbock,
Tex., and now has two in the Lubbock area. The company has 152
multimedia stores, most of which are in medium-sized markets.
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No surprise: yesterday Amazon.com unveiled its Kindle, an e-book reader with wireless access that will sell for $399 and hold 200 titles at a time, according to the New York Times. The Kindle weighs 10 ounces and uses electronic ink to imitate paper. Amazon has 90,000 titles available for download at $10 each or less. Newspaper subscriptions are also available.
Reuters noted that in a research note, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Scott Devitt said the device "has the capacity to recreate the e-book business, as well as several other long-term options. . . . With time, we believe Amazon Kindle could be Amazon.com's Trojan Horse into a complete 'always on' connection to all Amazon offerings."
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Fawzi Morrar, owner of Discount Books, Oroville, Calif., and his bookselling cat, Calvin, were featured in the Mercury-Register's "Oroville's Own" section.
"He's
been here for nine years," said Morrar. "He's a very popular cat.
Probably, the most popular cat in Oroville. People always come in here
looking for Calvin."
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Bogey's Books, Davis, Calif., is scheduled to close December 31 after 18 years in business, though owner Mark Nemmers told the California Aggie
that the bookstore, which primarily sells used books, "may stay open for a week or two following the
projected closing date depending on whether the store has significant
stock."
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Interest in the Persian-language edition of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, has increased since the Iranian government banned a second printing of the book. According to the AP,
after an initial press run of 5,000 copies, "the Ministry of Culture
received complaints from conservatives who believed the novel was
promoting prostitution."
The ban on the novel, whose Persian title is Memories of My Melancholy Sweethearts,
has also led to price inflation. Ahmad Abbasi, who paid $3.70--more
than double the list price--for a black market copy, said, "I don't
know what the book is about. But when the government bans a book, there
is something interesting in it. So, I'm buying the book out of
curiosity."
Calling the original permission to publish a
"bureaucratic error," culture minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi
"blamed the 'negligence' of his subordinates and said the official who
authorized the book's publication has been dismissed."
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"If
you're a book lover with groaning bookshelves at home, any store that
sells books is a dangerous place to step into because it's so difficult
to leave without buying an addition to those shelves," the Malaysia Star
reported in an article on the expansion of Kinokuniya Bookstore. "Well,
fellow book worms, it's with trepidation I report that the Kinokuniya
Bookstores in Suria KLCC has become even more dangerous than it used to
be: it's bigger! . . . And what's worse--oh, my poor credit card!--the
store is making it even easier to get your hands on reading material by
making customer service more efficient."
Abby Wong, the store's
merchandise manager, said that offering more books and better service
are only part of the solution to an increasingly challenging business:
"Apart from the potential challenge from e-books, I think the hurdle
for the next few years will be promoting books and, thus, encouraging
reading, in a more creative way. We have always been told to read to
improve ourselves. But books can do even more than that. Books have an
uncanny way of transporting readers to different cultures, places, into
different situations, different times. How do we better promote this
awesome power? That is the question that we should be asking ourselves
in the next few years."
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Great story of the day (with thanks to Larry Hughes at HarperCollins):
After a speech at the Society of the Cincinnati in Washington, D.C., last Friday, Thomas Fleming, author of The Perils of Peace: America's Struggle for Survival After Yorktown (Smithsonian) and president of the Society of American Historians, heard the following story from a member of the audience.
The man was finishing The Perils of Peace
on a train from Providence. As he got to the final pages, which
describe Washington's peaceful resignation as commander in chief of the
army, in spite of his anger and disillusion with Congress for letting
his soldiers go home unpaid, tears trickled from his eyes. The woman
sitting next to him asked: "Are you all right?"
He nodded and explained why he was so moved. "I've never heard of that," the woman said. "Could you read it to me?"
Across the aisle, a man said: "I'd like to hear it too."
"Me too," said a man in the seat behind him. "Ditto," said the man in the seat in front of him.
He wound up reading the three pages to an audience of seven or eight
people, all of whom marveled at the story. "Now I know why you cried,"
said the woman beside him, brushing at her eyes. "That makes me proud
of being an American."