Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, Mass., won over an Amazon customer last week when the store "paid ransom" for two books stolen from the customer's apartment house lobby, as reported on WCVB (we highly recommend the video version, but there is an old-fashioned "print" account).
Realizing the two obscure anthropology books might be sold as used to a bookstore, the grad student-customer alerted local stores, including Harvard Book Store, which indeed was offered the two books. Harvard quoted a "lowball" price and got the books. As with all such used book sales, the store took information about the customer, which it forwarded to the police.
The customer was delighted and said he will shop at the store now. Harvard Book Store manager Mark Lamphier commented: "Internet sales are what's driving independent book stores out of business, but here the local independent bookstore saved the day in the end."
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We're sorry to report that Gary Hunt, co-owner of Iconoclast Books,
Ketchum, Idaho, died in a car accident last Friday night, according to SunValleyOnline, which encouraged people "to share their memories of Gary on the blog Gary Hunt Remembrances."
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A week late but the story's aged well: the May 4 Sunday New York Times Magazine profiled Louise Hays, author of You Can Heal Your Life and founder in 1987 of Hay House, Carlsbad, Calif.
"Today the company turns out books, CDs, calendars and card decks by many of the titans of the large world that booksellers are now calling 'Mind/Body/Spirit,' a category that includes the literature of psychics/intuitives, angel therapy, positive thinking, New Thought, water therapy and motivational speaking. Wayne Dyer, Suze Orman, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Sylvia Browne and Doreen Virtue are all Hay House clients. Last year, Hay House--which is owned jointly by Louise Hay and the company president, Reid Tracy, 45--sold 6.3 million products, taking in $100 million, 8 percent of which was profit."
The long feature emphasizes the importance of Hay House's "platform" for authors, which includes huge events such as the recent four-day I Can Do It! meeting in Las Vegas that drew 7,200 people to hear 30 Hay House authors. Another part of the platform: Hay House Radio, an Internet radio station with 30 hours of programming a week.
Nancy Levin, Hay House's event director, commented: "The old book-tour model, with authors stopping at 10 Barnes & Nobles, that's all these other publishers know how to do. I often think: When are they going to catch on?"
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What would Karl Rove read? Glad you asked because the Wall Street Journal listed five books recommended by the "political sage," who "casts his vote for these books about presidential campaigns."
Of The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008 by
Mark Halperin and John F. Harris, Rove suggested that the authors
"explain it all. Take notes and you may have a head start on your
winning strategy for 2012." But he cautioned that "much of what
they write about me is exaggerated and misleading."
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Doris Lessing said winning the Nobel Prize has been a "bloody disaster"
because of the increased media attention, according to the BBC. The author has said she "would probably now be giving up writing novels altogether."
"All
I do is give interviews and spend time being photographed," Lessing
said, adding she "also recalled that, in the 1960s, she had been
informed that the Nobel Academy's judges did not like her and she would
never win."
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"I'm a slow, deep browser in book stores," suspense author John Sandford told the Birmingham News,
"so I get books that are recent but might not be absolutely current and
available." In the interview, Sandford shared some of his favorites.