Asked
what he is currently reading, Makin replied, "a lot of book reviews and
publishers' catalogues. As a good friend of mine, who's been in the
book business for years, warned me early on: If you want to cure
yourself of the habit of reading, open a bookstore. Actually it isn't
all quite that bad, but opportunities to read for pleasure are not what
they were."
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Harvard Square is alive and well, according to the Boston Globe,
which observed that "booksellers represent the authentic retail
identity of a district that serves Cambridge's confederacy of scholars
and intellectual aspirants. The book trade has suffered some attrition
in recent years, but you can still climb the granite steps into tiny
Grolier Poetry Book Shop, where slender volumes of verse ascend the
shelves toward the heavens.
"Just around the corner, Harvard
Book Store, whose only relation to the university is its proximity,
remains one of the nation's leading independent booksellers. . . .
Wandering through Schoenhof's Foreign Books is a little like trekking a
giant map . . . And for readers who still get all fuzzy inside over
Marx, Engels, and Lenin, Revolution Books manages to keep the
proletarian polemical flame lighted in these deeply capitalist times."
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Even in the face of an uncertain holiday season for retailers, "some bookstores aren't going to give up without a fight," the Los Angeles Times
reported in an article headlined "To Live and Buy in L.A." The piece
featured Vroman's Bookstore, Pasadena, Skylight Books, Los Angeles, and Brand
Bookstore, Glendale.
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The New York Times Book Review has listed its 100 "notable books" of 2008. Not to be outdone, Michiko Kakutani and Janet Maslin, book critics for the New York Times, shared their picks for favorite books of 2008. Also featured were "Gift Books Worth Buying a Coffee Table For" and "Art and Architecture Books."
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Our review of A Great Idea at the Time last Wednesday had an incorrect note about St. John's College, which has campuses in Annapolis, Md., and Santa Fe, N.M. The school indeed adopted a Great Books curriculum in 1937, but was founded in 1696 and is "the third-oldest college in the country," Robin J. Dunn, director of the St. John's College Bookstore, wrote.
Dunn also noted an amusing, unrelated IndieBound phenomenon: "We've been fielding regular requests for the 'Snack. Nap. Read.' poster. Could it be connected with the fact that, in the local argot, 'Naptown' means Annapolis? Slightly, perhaps. But really, people just like the poster. And it presents a sublime opportunity to introduce customers to the IndieBound website and let them dive into a whole new river (as it were) of books."
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Congratulations to DIESEL: A Bookstore, which is holding a grand opening party this coming Sunday, December 7, 1-4 p.m., for its new store in the Brentwood Country Mart in Santa Monica, Calif. The event will feature "complimentary refreshments while we chat about books and writing with people who share our passion for books."
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Ouch.
Larry Robin, owner of Robin's Bookstore,
Philadelphia, Pa., who is closing the street-level part of his business
at the end of January (Shelf Awareness, November 18, 2008), told the local Fox station
that the store's sales were down between 10% and 15% the last three to
six months. "If I thought it was a short term problem, I would've tried
to hang in there," he said. "But I don't think it's a short term
problem."