Robert D. Hale, author, bookseller and former American Booksellers Association officer and staffer, died on October 21. He was 85.
As noted by Bookselling This Week, Hale began his bookselling career in 1956 at Westwinds Bookshop in Duxbury, Mass. He worked for a time as a newspaper editor, then, in 1961, created a bookstore at Connecticut College. In 1969, he became general manager of Hathaway House Bookshop, part of Wellesley College. He joined the ABA board in 1974, was president from 1976 to 1978, and in 1978 left Hathaway House Bookshop to become associate executive director of ABA, a position he held for six years.
Hale was dean of the ABA Booksellers Schools, was editor of the fourth edition of the ABA's Manual on Bookselling and mentored many booksellers.
Judi Baxter, who owned Judi's Bookstore, Twin Falls, Idaho, for years and is a former president of the Association of Booksellers for Children, said of Hale: "Bob was my mentor, friend and one of the finest, funniest and passionate people I've had the privilege of knowing. His contributions to the ABA, children's books and the bigger book world cannot be measured. And his novel The Elm at the Edge of the Earth (Norton) remains one of my all time favorites."
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Joseph Rosizk, former co-owner of Horizon Books and a Doubleday rep, died September 29, the Washington Post reported. He was 90.
Between 1962 and 1983, Rosizk co-owned Horizon, which once had six stores in Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia. He also was a Doubleday salesman for Doubleday from 1960 until he retired as Mid-Atlantic regional sales manager in 1979.
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Susan Bachrach, co-founder and former co-owner of Moby Dickens Bookshop, Taos, N.Mex., died October 21 "after a lengthy debilitation," according to the Taos News. She was 79.
Bachrach and her late husband, Art Bachrach, founded Moby Dickens in 1984. Jay, Carolyn, Blake and Cole Moore bought the store last year. Bachrach was also a nurse practitioner.