Tomorrow (or today, depending on where you're reading this) is the Australian Booksellers Association's National Bookshop Day. Hundreds of booksellers nationwide "will be focusing on their uniqueness, inviting local authors and members of the community to participate in readings, conversation about books and other activities."
"We just thought this would be a really good thing for us to do in Australia with books," ABA CEO Joel Becker told the Herald Sun." We are trying to get across that these bookshops are part of the community."
Pages & Pages Booksellers, Mosman, NSW, will celebrate National Bookshop Day by hosting a Book Busking event: "Book a 15-minute slot at Pages & Pages to sit outside the front of our store and read aloud from your favorite book. Get your friends and family to sponsor you and the money you raise Book Busking will go to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation." (Here's a book busking sample from last year)
Check out the ABA's National Bookshop Day's Facebook page for updates.
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"The small, independently owned bookstore is staging a modest rebirth amid a killer economy," the Washington Post observed in a piece showcasing indie booksellers. 
"It's going well, we're in a great neighborhood," said Eileen McGervey, owner of One More Page Books, Arlington, Va., which opened in January. "Where else do you get to meet such fun people?"
Bill Skees, who opened Well Read, Hawthorne, N.J., 10 months ago, said, "From a financial perspective, it was a step down to open a bookstore, but it's the fulfillment of a lifelong dream."
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New York Press explored some "bookstores with nooks, not a Nook" and praised "the feeling you get in tiny bookshops that smell like paper and dust and feature leaning towers of good reads. And it's the feeling on which the owners of those bookstores count to stay in business."
"There's a synergy that goes on in a brick and mortar bookstore," said Bonnie Slotnick, owner of Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks. "You're in a place that means a lot to you. And you make connections with other people who share your passion.... People have other ways to get old cookbooks. But they come to my store because they enjoy the experience."
Toby Cox, owner of Three Lives & Company, noted that there are "still people like me who want to come in and look at a book and have that sense of discovery. And there's something about a locally owned business, where the workers know the name of your dog or that your mom is in the hospital.... I feel that the Three Lives experience begins when you walk through the front door. I'm a brick and mortar store. That's our strength."
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Textbook rental company Chegg is going digital, and will be "steadily rolling e-textbooks on its platform with goal of offering millions of e-textbooks to students by the end of the year," TechCrunch reported.
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Happy birthday to Winnie the Pooh, who turns 90 on Sunday, but certainly doesn't look it.
Last month, the New York Public Library invited children to write birthday greetings to Pooh, but Gothamist reported that "kids, what with their cyberbullying ways these days, have taken the opportunity to remind the bear he's old and alone. Click through for a sampling of the 'well wishes' these little terrors have put in Winnie's mailbox. As one kid reminds us, Winnie is trapped in a prison of glass at the library... but should we put him on suicide watch anyway?"
Classics Rock: Books Shelved in Songs explored the unofficial Pooh songbook and wished every reader's favorite literary bear "a happy birthday (or as the denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood might put it, hipy papy bthuthdth thuthda bthuthdy)."
Unfortunately, there was some bad birthday news, too. The Harbour Bookshop, Dartmouth, is closing its doors, BBC News reported. Co-owner Rowland Abram said, "We are devastated because this bookshop was opened by Christopher Robin Milne [the inspiration for the character in his father’s stories] and I have the duty of closing it because we cannot carry on. It will have been open for 60 years this week."
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Question: What literary quality do Jon Hamm, Alan Alda, Maureen Dowd, Jodie Foster, Tommy Lee Jones, Stephen King, Paul Newman, Joan Rivers, Sting, Helen Thomas, Barbara Walters, Sigourney Weaver, Tom Wolfe, Bob Woodward and Renée Zellweger have in common?
Answer: They were all once college English majors.
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Edinburgh Book Festival video of the day: Neil Gaiman talks with the Guardian's children's site member Patrick "about writing a Doctor Who episode, and why he finds writing fantasy so interesting. He also discusses The Simpsons; the weirdest thing a fan has ever said to him; and how he collaborates with other writers, including Terry Pratchett."
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Cool idea of the day: Portlandia stars Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, who play daft, humorless, hilarious booksellers at the fictional Women & Women First Bookstore, are appearing at a fundraiser tomorrow evening for In Other Worlds, the real-life store where the Women & Women First scenes are filmed. According to the Oregonian, the items being auctioned include a walk-on role in season two of Portlandia; tickets to see Brownstein's band, Wild Flag; and a voicemail greeting from Armisen.
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Book trailer of the day: The Smartest Portfolio You'll Ever Own: A Do-It Yourself Breakthrough Strategy by Dan Solin (Perigee).
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The Independent Book Publishers Association has added the following members to its board:
- Tom Doherty, president of Cardinal Publishers Group and publisher of Blue River Press. He earlier worked in distribution at Time-Warner and the Hearst Corp.
- Peter Goodman, president and publisher of Stone Bridge Press. He lived in Japan for 10 years, where he worked as an editor for Charles E. Tuttle and Kodansha International, before founding Stone Bridge in 1989.
- MaryAnn F. Kohl, president of Bright Ring Publishing, an author and also an agent. She was formerly an elementary school teacher and began writing and publishing books as stay-at-home mom in order to stay involved in education.
- Christopher Robbins, CEO of Gibbs Smith, who has been in magazine and book publishing for 20 years.
- Janice Schnell, content acquisition account executive for Ingram Content Group. She joined Ingram in 2007.