Cool idea of the day: an item, in its entirety, from the newsletter of the Wild, Noblesville, Ind.:

"Ukulele lessons start up again tomorrow night at 6:00 (Tuesday the 3rd). Holler if you want to join in. They are 45 minutes long, four Tuesdays in a row and 50 bucks gets you the uke AND the lessons! It's more fun than you can shake a stick at! (Open to 3rd-ish graders through adult.)"

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The Seattle Times has a long profile of Jackson Street Books, a tiny bookstore owned by Dan and Tammy Domike (she also manages the Seattle Mystery Bookshop) that opened in 2004. In the economically and racially mixed Central District, the store has an emphasis on African-American titles.

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North Gate News Online, put out by UC Berkeley's Journalism School, features Libreria Coyoacan, a small store in the Fruitvale section of Oakland owned by Ivan Hurtado, who earned an international business degree in Mexico and is a former broker and investment planner. Hurtado opened the store earlier this year.

Besides many Spanish-language books, Hurtado sells Mexican handicrafts and paintings. In addition, he has begun, the service said, "experimenting with free in-store events: book debates, movie nights, and children's story time. An evening dedicated to Aztec culture has been the most successful so far. A dozen people spent the evening talking about the Aztec calendar and mathematics."
 

Booksellers took a turn behind the camera as part of a contest orchestrated by Clarion Books to promote the publication of Flotsam by Caldecott Medal-winner David Wiesner ($17, 0618194576). Currently at #4 on the New York Times children's books bestseller list, the imaginative tale is the story of a young boy who goes to the beach to collect flotsam (anything floating that washes up on shore) and finds an underwater camera with a plethora of pictures on it.

Some 53 booksellers from coast to coast took part in the contest, with two to three sharing each camera. The amateur photographers were asked to take four pictures, enter brief descriptions of the photos in a logbook and then send the camera on to the next bookseller. The publisher originally planned to limit the promotion to 30 participants but expanded the number after receiving an enthusiastic response from booksellers eager to try their hand at snapping photos.

The winners (selected by Wiesner) were announced on Friday on the Web site www.thefishknowthesecret.com. Top honors went to Katie Eyre and Pat Rutledge of A Book for All Seasons in Leavenworth, Wash., for their photograph "Waterproof Words." Wiesner wrote on the site's blog, "It was initially overwhelming to think I could pick just one out of all those photos." Eyre and Rutledge's picture, he added, "had caught my eye from the beginning, and in the end it had a simplicity and magical quality that captured the wonder of reading." The prize is a store event with Wiesner to take place in spring 2007, along with a signed set of the author's books and an original piece of artwork. Retha Davis of Kid's Center in Tucson, Ariz., and Katrina Pearson of Hearthside Books in Juneau, Alaska, each garnered an Honorable Mention.

Along with the winning photos, the Web site includes a list of participating bookstores and maps tracing the paths of the cameras. More Flotsam-inspired pictures will be posted in the coming days.--Shannon McKenna

"It's not the first place you'd think you'd run to set up a bookstore, but there's something about this place," said Jamie Kornegay, who with his wife, Kelly, runs Turnrow Book Co., which opened at the end of August in Greenwood, Miss.

Roughly halfway between Oxford and Jackson and with a population of 18,000, Greenwood is a former cotton trading center that fell on hard times in the '60s and is being slowly revived in large part by one man, native son Fred Carl, the founder and CEO of Viking Range, the high-end kitchen stove company, who also studied city planning. "We need to renovate buildings, not just for our company but also for our town," Carl said in a recent profile in Inc. Magazine. "My aim is to bring life back downtown 24-7." Carl and the company have bought many of the old buildings in downtown Greenwood, refurbished them and used some for company operations but also helped set up such businesses as a hotel and bakery. Carl also wanted a bookstore. As Kornegay put it: "He had the foresight to know a good bookstore could the linchpin of a strong cultural town."

Jamie Kornegay had worked seven years at Square Books in Oxford, when he and his wife, who has a graphic design background, visited friends in the rejuvenating downtown of Greenwood. "We were looking for something different," he said, and he found it in Greenwood. The town, he said, is "progressive but also frozen in time. The old buildings were not torn down, and although it had a dark turbulent period during the civil rights era, it also has an inspiring cultural history." Kornegay called the Delta landscape "mesmerizing. It's flat with lots of cotton fields and looks almost like the savannah."

In January, the Kornegays took over the Dancing Rabbit Bookstore, which mostly sold used books. During the year, they worked on the new store, creating a new name, "scrapping everything and starting over" in the new location in August.

Carl is the "silent partner" in Turnrow, which has nearly 4,000 square feet in the former Fountain's Department Store, including a mezzanine with a café that is, Kornegay acknowledged with a laugh, "well outfitted." The Kornegays had "access to Viking resources" in the design and construction of the store.

Turnrow is a general bookstore, with new books in "all categories," but has an emphasis on regional, Mississippi and cooking titles. Between the many restaurants that have opened in Greenwood, the Viking Range cooking school and the many foodies that Viking attracts, "there's a lot of interest in cookbooks," Kornegay said. The store also stocks music CDs, with an emphasis on blues. "We're a big Delta blues mecca," Kornegay said. "There are a lot of Highway 61 blues tours." The store aims to riff into other musical genres.

The Kornegays and two other people work full time in the store, and another four or five work part time.


Turnrow already has attracted some big name authors, in part, Kornegay said, because of Greenwood's fortuitous location between Oxford and Jackson, homes of highly regarded bookstores Square Books and Lemuria Books, respectively. "We're getting many authors who those stores attract." Among the authors appearing this year at Turnrow or its predecessor, Dancing Rabbit: Greg Iles, Sebastian Junger, Steve Yarbrough, Rick Bragg, Edward P. Jones, Dennis Lehane, Paula Deen, Tom Franklin, and for the grand opening William Gay, Ashley Warlick and Jack Pendarvis.

"The town has really responded" both to the store and its events, Kornegay said. "People are really excited about the new big bookstore that is not a chain. Mississippians have been trained to respect a high standard of bookstore because of Lemuria and Square Books." Kornegay said that Richard Howorth of Square Books "provided my inspiration" and that "pretty much everything I know about bookselling I learned from Richard." And John Evans, owner of Lemuria, "helped a lot with encouragement and advice." He noted happily that both Howorth and Evans came to the store's grand opening.

Turnrow Book Co. is located at 304 Howard St., Greenwood, Miss. 38930; 662-453-5995; www.turnrowbooks.com.--John Mutter

Directed by Geoffrey Sax, Alex Rider: Operations Stormbreaker, which opens this coming Friday, October 6, is the first movie adapted from Anthony Horowitz's bestselling series about the 14-year-old who becomes a spy for MI6. Alex Pettyfer plays Alex Rider. Other cast members include Mickey Rourke, Ewan McGregor, Bill Nighy, Alicia Silverstone.

The original U.S. hardcover edition of Stormbreaker (Philomel, $17.99, 0399236201) came out five years ago. Other titles related to the movie are:

• Alex Rider: Stormbreaker: Behind the Scenes by Anthony Horowitz (Puffin, $8.99, 0142406554)
• Alex Rider: Stormbreaker: The Official Script by Anthony Horowitz (Puffin, $7.99, 0142407305)
• Stormbreaker: The Graphic Novel by Anthony Horowitz, illustrated by Antony Johnston, Kanako and Yuzuru (Philomel, $14.99, 0399246339), which will be released October 19.

This morning on the Today Show: Bob Woodward, author of State of Denial (S&S, $30, 0743272234).

Also on the Today Show: actor Morgan Freeman serves up Morgan Freeman and Friends: Caribbean Cooking for a Cause (Rodale, $35, 1594864241).

And finally on the Today Show: Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver and Priscilla Warner, authors of The Faith Club: A Muslim, a Christian, a Jew--Three Women Search for Understanding (Free Press, $25, 074329047X).

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Today on Good Morning America: Mark Halperin and John F. Harris, authors of The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008 (Random House, 1400064473). They pair will also be on the Charlie Rose Show tonight.

Also in the lineup today on Good Morning America: New York Giants running back Tiki Barber, author of Teammates (S&S, $16.95, 1416924892). Barber will also make an appearance today on Fox and Friends.

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Today on the Early Show: Mitch Albom, whose new book is For One More Day (Hyperion, $21.95, 1401303277), whose big pub day is today.

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This morning on Imus in the Morning: Doro Bush Koch, whose new book is My Father, My President: A Personal Account of the Life of George H.W. Bush (Warner, $29.99, 0446579904). 

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Today on the View: Tyler Florence, whose latest culinary companion is Tyler's Ultimate: Brilliant Simple Food to Make Any Time (Clarkson Potter, $35, 1400052386).

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Today on Fox News: Laurie David, whose new book is Stop Global Warming: The Solution Is You! (Fulcrum, $9.95, 155591621X), part of the publisher's Speaker's Corner Series.

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Today on WAMU's Diane Rehm Show: Jon Katz, author of A Good Dog: The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life (Villard, $21.95, 140006189X).

Also on the Diane Rehm Show: Michael Weisskopf, author of Blood Brothers: Among the Soldiers of Ward 57 (Holt, $25, 0805078606). Weisskopf is also on NPR's Fresh Air and CNN's Situation Room today.

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Today on the Tavis Smiley Show: John Danforth on Faith and Politics: How the Moral Values Debate Divides America and How to Move Forward Together (Viking, $24.95, 0670037877).

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Today on the O'Reilly Factor: former Attorney General John Ashcroft, author of Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (Center St., $24.99, 1599956802).

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Tonight working the Colbert Report: Andy Stern, author of A Country that Works: Getting America Back on Track (Free Press, $24, 0743297679).

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Tonight on the Late Show with David Letterman: Keith Olbermann, author of The Worst Person in the World: And 202 Strong Contenders (Wiley, 22.95, 0470044950).

The following are selected significant titles appearing next week. The first three appear on Monday, October 9; the rest appear on Tuesday, October 10.

Short Straw by Stuart Woods (Putnam, $25.95, 0399153683). Defense lawyer Ed Eagle, introduced in Santa Fe Rules, returns.

Echo Park: A Novel by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown, $26.99, 0316734950). Harry Bosch continues working in LAPD's Open Unsolved Unit.

Why We Want You to Be Rich: Two Men--One Message by Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Press, $24.95, 1933914025). Two rich men share the idea of wealth in a book from an aptly named publisher, part of Kiyosaki's ventures.

Act of Treason by Vince Flynn (Atria, $25.95, 0743270371). A candidate for president is attacked, apparently by al-Qaeda, and wins the election, but CIA operative Mitch Rapp follows a trail that leads through contract killers back to Washington.

The Real Deal: My Life in Business and Philanthropy by Sandy Weill with Judah S. Kraushaar (Warner Business, $32, 0446578142). The former head of American Express and Citigroup tells his story.

Tough Choices: A Memoir by Carly Fiorina (Portfolio, $24.95, 159184133X). Talk about ripped from today's headlines. The story of the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, who was fired by the same board of directors that investigated itself for leaks having to do, in part, with her dismissal.

Paula Deen Celebrates!: Best Dishes and Best Wishes for the Best Times of Your Life by Paula H. Deen and Martha Nesbit (S&S, $26, 0743278119). From the Food Network star.