This weekend be sure to catch Shelf Awareness publisher and co-founder Jenn Risko, who talks on C-Span 2's Book TV about several noteworthy titles being released in the fall, ranging from memoirs by George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice to the personal papers of Nelson Mandela and presidential diaries of Jimmy Carter. Her segment first airs on Saturday at 7 p.m. The show re-airs Sunday at 6 a.m. and 4:15 p.m., and Monday at 2:30 a.m.
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Trading Pages, Lyman, S.C., opens today and owner Betty Tourville said, "I really feel excited about this. This is a new adventure. I'm very optimistic that this will be successful." The Spartanburg Herald-Journal reported that Trading Pages currently has an inventory of more than 5,000 books, of which 80% are used. Plans call for adding "a tea room with cafe seating outside and wifi Internet service."
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Google, which has the self-imposed task of digitizing every book in the world, has counted them: 129,864,880. Read about the company's reasoning and definitions on Inside Google Books.
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What do people buy books?
Here are just a few of the reasons given by friends to publicist and writer Arielle Ford, as detailed on the Huffington Post:
• I am a back cover kind of gal! If it reads well, I buy it.
• At my local bookstore, I read the shelf talkers (written by the staff) on which books they enjoyed and why.
• I'm influenced by cross-promotion campaigns, like Amazon's, where they keep track of book reviews I write and leave on their site, and so I get e-mails promoting new books coming out in that genre.
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Bookselling This Week profiled the Little Read Book, Wauwatosa, Wis., which just celebrated its 25th anniversary. The store is very active in the community and has always carried sidelines, which have included llama manure from a llama farm run by owner Linda Burg's sister.
Some customers use e-readers, but, Burg thinks, BTW wrote, "the store is well-positioned to meet the needs of its core customers: 'The people that come here... want referrals, want to talk books, want to buy books.' "
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BTW served up a story about the "old (and profitable) mix" of books and booze. The stores include the Spotty Dog Books & Ale, Hudson, N.Y., I Know You Like a Book in Peoria Heights, Ill., and Taylor Books, Charleston, W.Va.
The distilled wisdom: "Installing a bar can be a moneymaker, even if just a modest selection of wines and beers are sold."
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BTW surveyed several publishers and distributors--including Candlewick, Perseus Books Group and Workman--that are offering some programs and terms designed "to help booksellers weather the stalled economy and shrinking credit access."
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In a literary celebration of U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker striking down of California's Proposition 8, the Los Angeles Times Jacket Copy
blog showcased 20 classic works of gay literature "that have provided a
richer understanding of the joys and challenges particular to gay
life."
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In a q&a in Heyday's blog, Luan Stauss of Laurel Book Store in Oakland, Calif., was asked, "What is the hardest part about working at a bookstore?"
Her response: "The public's perception that there are no independent, neighborhood book stores around. We're here, we're just often overlooked. And the perception that online sellers can do more than we can. Indies can do so much more than put a book in your mailbox, or we can do just that if that's what you want. Many don't realize how much we support our local economies and how little the others do."
Heyday Books is now officially Heyday, a reflection of changes at the Berkeley, Calif., publishing house that has marked several milestones recently. Last year the press had its first $1 million year. In 2008 it moved to a larger building. It's also expanded the list and hired new staff.
Heyday now sees itself as "an independent, nonprofit publisher and unique cultural institution" whose mission is to "promote widespread awareness and celebration of California's many cultures, landscapes, and boundary-breaking ideas. Through our well-crafted books, public events, and innovative outreach programs we are building a vibrant community of readers, writers, and thinkers." Those events and programs include nature walks, city-wide celebrations and meetings in Heyday offices to discuss the future of California. (Heyday's tagline is "into California.") It also is working with more organizations, including the Oakland Zoo, Yosemite and Santa Clara University, on books, has a digital component to its catalogue and will publish its first e-book next year.
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BBC News
reported that a "life-sized bronze statue of poet Philip Larkin for the
Paragon Interchange in Hull has been given the go-ahead by the city
council." Larkin lived in Hull for 30 years, combining "a celebrated
writing career with his role as librarian at Hull University."
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Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, Grady Smith of Entertainment Weekly's Shelf Life
blog offered another serving of beach reads with a literary twist:
"Common logic seems to suggest that the best kind of book to read during
your summer vacation is one with as much complexity as a bucket of
sand--you know, chick-lit, celebrity memoirs, James Patterson novels.
Why think when you can tan? These sorts of books have never really
worked for me, though. Don't get me wrong, I understand the
turn-off-your-brain appeal of such titles, but I think I'm just a
different breed of vacationer. When I'm sitting on the beach, looking
out at the ocean, I don't feel dumb and lazy--I feel profound!"
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Debating the chick-lit label. In the Guardian, Michele Gorman responded to D.J. Connell's
previous assertion that the chick-lit label is offensive by writing
that she is "proud to be a chick-lit author. I write the kind of novel
that gets spattered with margarita and suncream rather than soaked in
Booker-type praise. You know the books I mean. You need only look for
their pastel covers, or follow the trail that leads to one of their many
detractors-- for they make some women spit with gender-bashing venom."
Gorman
took issue "with those who dismiss all chick-lit as poorly-written
fodder for the dim-witted reader. There are some appallingly bad books
(as I discovered), but that's true of every single genre. And there are
some dim-witted readers, and that's also true across the genres. But
saying that chick-lit can't be well-written is a little like saying that
pretty girls can't be smart. It's ludicrous. And it's wrong. There are
some very good writers of very funny chick-lit and, as a writer, to
purposely distance yourself from these talents isn't only short-sighted,
it's insulting."
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For your listening pleasure. Beautiful Books will publish an audiobook version of the Kama Sutra, the Washington Post
reported. Simon Petherick, the British publisher's managing director,
said, "Now there's no need to feel embarrassed by reading a copy of this
wonderful and important book in public--simply download it on to your
mp3 player and liven up your commute to work."
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Two writers differ on whether independent bookstores will benefit from the travails of Barnes & Noble, now up for sale, and Borders. On Portfolio, news editor Kent Bernhard, Jr., cited the example of record stores: "They're still around, but many of the ones that are thriving are the small mom and pop shops that have carved out a special niche, namely selling used CDs or that old stand-by vinyl."
He continued: "As small businesses, [indies] are generally better at responding quickly to economic trends than their larger brothers. They've also been used to competing with players who might have more pricing power than they do, thanks, ironically, to the longstanding presence of the chains like Borders and Barnes & Noble."
Hut Landon, executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, told Portfolio that among indies' advantages is the shop local movement, "something we've got that Barnes & Noble and Amazon don't have."
On the other hand, writer, critique and former bookseller Sven Birkerts wrote in the Wall Street Journal that he doubts a revival of independent bookstores will happen. "Not only because books are rapidly changing their status as products, ceding primacy to electronic files, but because the idea of the independent bookstore has been tagged in the public mind as quaint, as retro. Book emporia have been banished to the margins. Of cities and towns: condemned to low-rent thrift store-like venues. Of people's awareness: they have a sepia-tinge of then about them already.
"This grieves me. This is a loss far bigger than a loss of a particular kind of access to books. It marks the effective removal of what is finally a symbolic representation. Less and less will it seem right and natural, expected and desirable, that people should gather in appealing public spaces for the sole purpose of catering to, and perhaps flaunting, their mental (their inner) lives. Less and less is it already happening that this thread unexpectedly leads to that with the counter clerk, or even another customer, suddenly blurting, 'Oh, if you haven't read--' That species of retail adventure is already being replaced by preference algorithms: the Pandorification of America."