Happy birthday to Studs Terkel, who turns 95 today! The New Press--founded by Terkel's longtime editor and friend, Andre Schiffrin--is celebrating with a series of parties and tributes. Among them:

• From 11 a.m.-1 p.m. today, a skywriter is flying over Chicago and will repeat the message "Happy 95th B-Day Studs Terkel."
• The Chicago Historical Society is hosting a birthday celebration at which guest emcee Rick Kogan reviews some of Studs most memorable works.
• The Chicago radio station 98.7 WFMT is dedicating the day's programming to Terkel, including a broadcast at noon from the Chicago History Museum's birthday program that features a live interview with Terkel.
• The public is encouraged to post tributes to Terkel at thenewpress.com/studsbirthday and to read suggestions for throwing a party in his honor. The page has links to his favorite martini recipe and an online shop for red socks like the ones he wears every day.
• Bookstores across the country--who were sent invitations to host birthday parties--are invited to post photos at thenewpress.com/studsbirthday afterwards.
• Last but not least, New Press is publishing The Studs Terkel Reader ($16.95, 9781595581778/1595581774) today and Terkel's memoir, Touch and Go ($24.95, 9781595580436/1595580433), in November.

Again, happy birthday, Studs!

What's worse than editing by committee? Apparently it's editing by estate, according to an account in today's New York Times of the saga of the second sequel to Gone With the Wind. "It's taken 12 years, three authors and one rejected manuscript" to get to Rhett Butler's People, which St. Martin's is publishing this fall. The biggest snags have been edicts from the estate of Margaret Mitchell which in at least one contract specified that the author refrain from including "acts or references to incest, miscegenation, or sex between two people of the same sex." This time around, the estate gave author Donald McCaig some slack, and he ran a little with it. Rhett Butler's People includes, as the Times put it, "a minor interracial affair and one suggestion of closeted homosexuality (not Ashley Wilkes's). More controversial, though, were sprinklings of a racial epithet within various characters' dialogue."

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Barnes & Noble's board of directors has approved another stock buyback program, which will result in the purchase of up to $400 million of the company's shares. B&N's current $200 million share repurchase program, announced in September 2005, has led to purchases of about $173 million of stock. 

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Borders plans to open a 22,012-sq.-ft. store in the Sandusky Mall in Sandusky, Ohio, in November. When the store opens, the 2,700-sq.-ft. Waldenbooks in the mall will close. 

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More on MetroCards in New York City:

To celebrate Frommer's 50th Anniversary and the 200th anniversary of John Wiley & Sons and to make travel between Hotel ABA--the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge--and the Jacob Javits Center easier, Wiley is sponsoring New York City subway MetroCards for all Hotel ABA registered guests and available to booksellers at the welcome desk at Hotel ABA.

Each MetroCard will be loaded with six trips (three round-trip fares) and will be packaged with another card that includes subway directions to and from the Javits Center. Hotel ABA is located across the street from a subway stop, and the trip for ABA member booksellers who are staying at other BEA hotels should take only about 15 to 20 minutes by subway. (For more information concerning the complimentary MetroCards, please click here.)

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Oprah will announce her next book club pick, a Picador title, on Tuesday, June 5.

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This Saturday, Sensational Minds, a new African-American bookstore in Savannah, Ga., celebrates its grand opening, the Savannah Morning News reported. The store offers titles in a range of categories, including history and politics, social science/ethnic studies, medical, health and fitness, Christian reading and children's books. Sensational Minds is located in the Oakhurst Shopping Plaza at 129 E. Montgomery Crossroad, Savannah, Ga. 31406-4730.

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The Boston area emerging leaders group (which continues to seek a new name) is meeting on Monday, May 21, 8-10 p.m. at the Middlesex Lounge, Central Square, 315 Massachusetts Ave., in Cambridge. Food will be provided by NEIBA; there is a cash (or credit card) bar. The group is for people who are "new to the book industry and still trying to figure it out," especially booksellers, publicists and publishers. The agenda for Monday: "meet other booksellers, learn about other stores, and find out what's coming up in the bookselling world."

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The Book Industry Study Group is moving, and as of Monday, May 21, its new address is:

370 Lexington Ave., Suite 900
New York, N.Y. 10017
Phone: 646-336-7141
Fax: 646-336-6214

E-mail addresses remain the same.

The office will be closed from Friday, May 18, through Tuesday, May 22.

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The former Ballard Library building--currently the location of Abraxus Books--in Seattle, Wash., has ducked the demolition ball . . . for the time being. The Ballard News-Tribune reported that Pryde Johnson Developments, which owns the property, will probably "make a move toward developing the library site within the next three years."

Abraxus Books owner Tony Topalian said he "hopes to stay in the building for the next several years," though he knows the developers may have other plans for the site. "We came to this property to sell books and that's what we are going to do."

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Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris did not become a national sensation, and the New York Sun wondered why. "Part of the problem may be that bookstores don't pay close enough attention to reviews," the article suggested, adding that "bookstores place all their marketing muscle behind bestseller lists, meaning that prize positions get awarded to those who've already won the horse race. Even movie theaters operate according to more democratic principles than that. Shouldn't good bookstore placement go to good books? Just a thought."

Author Ferris and publisher Little, Brown did not escape unscathed: "In the case of Little, Brown and Mr. Ferris, some attention to the novel's cumbersome title might have helped. Was Then We Came to the End really the best title for this wonderful novel? I doubt it."

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Besides two full-time authors, Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world (mentioned here yesterday) includes several people very active in other fields who have written important books. They include:

Lisa Randall, the physicist and author of Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions. The mag wrote: "She's not the first person to theorize that the universe has hidden dimensions, but she revolutionized the field by suggesting that an extra dimension could be infinitely large and that we might be living in a 3-D sinkhole in a higher-dimensional universe. Far from posing idle brain teasers, her research might solve one of physics' great mysteries--namely, why gravity is so weak in contrast to electromagnetism and other forces. (Note how a small magnet can pluck up a paper clip despite the gravitational pull of the entire planet.)"

Concerning Rhonda Byrne, editor of The Secret, Chicken Soup for the Soul's Jack Canfield, a contributor to the bestseller, wrote "I am often asked why The Secret has been such a phenomenon--more than 2 million DVDs sold in a year and almost 4 million books in less than six months. It is primarily because Byrne's love and joy permeate every frame and every page. Her intention was pure and simple--to uplift as much of humanity as she could reach, and so far she has reached millions. And I believe she has only just begun."

In his eighth book, Primates and Philosophers, Frans de Waal, the Dutch primatologist who teaches at Emory University, argues that "morality is not a high trait we acquired late but is etched into our instincts."

Malcolm Gladwell writes about Chris Anderson's long tail theory: "Here is what the idea says: Many of us see the same movies and read the same books because the bookstore can store only so many books and the movie theater can play only so many movies. There isn't enough space to give us exactly what we want. So we all agree on something we kind of want. But what happens when the digital age comes along, allowing the bookstore to store all the books in the world? Now, it doesn't sell 1,000 copies of one book that we all kind of want; it sells one copy of 1,000 books each of us really wants."
 
In a strange pairing by Time, Michael Behe profiled Richard Dawkins, writing that of the evolutionary biologist's "nine books, none caused as much controversy or sold as well as last year's The God Delusion. The central idea--popular among readers and deeply unsettling among proponents of intelligent design like myself--is that religion is a so-called virus of the mind, a simple artifact of cultural evolution, no more or less meaningful than eye color or height."
 

Effective immediately, PGW/Perseus is the exclusive representative for Key Porter's sales and distribution in the U.S. The deal includes 40 Key Porter spring 2007 titles, 35 fall 2007 titles and several hundred backlist titles. The Canadian publisher puts out about 125 original titles a year in a range of areas and publishes such authors as Margaret Atwood and Dennis Lee. It aims to sell about 50 titles a season in the U.S. and has been emphasizing purchasing North American rights to its titles to allow that.

In a prepared statement, C. Jordan Fenn, publisher of Key Porter Books Ltd., said that the PGW deal "allows us the opportunity to broaden our publishing program, expand our market, and introduce our many talented Canadian writers to a U.S. audience. . . . As well, the increased print runs will allow us to offer larger advances to the authors and more competitively priced titles for both the American and Canadian markets."

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In September, PGW will begin distributing JGR Productions, the new publishing company founded by Andrea Robins, author of the Andrea Robinson's Wine Buying Guide for Everyone annual series, previously published by Broadway. Her first titles will be the 2008 wine buying guide and Andrea Robinson's Complete Wine and Food Pairing Guide, which is a companion to her Fine Living TV Network television show, Pairings with Andrea.

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PGW will be U.S. distributor for the In Easy Steps computer guides of Computer Step, the U.K. computer book publisher. Computer Step will launch here in the fall with 16 titles previously unavailable in the U.S., including Computing for Seniors in Easy Steps and Windows Vista 2007 in Easy Steps.

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PGW is becoming distributor of Whereabouts Press, the Berkeley, Calif., publisher of the Traveler's Literary Companions.

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PGW will distribute Aslan Publishing titles into the international market. The Fairfield, Conn., publisher specializes in self-help and inspirational books.
 

This morning on the Today Show: Carmindy, author of The 5-Minute Face: The Quick & Easy Makeup Guide for Every Woman (HC, $19.95, 9780061238260/0061238260).

Also on the Today Show, Don Rickles touts his memoir, Rickles' Book (S&S, $24, 9780743293051/0743293053). The comedian's line-up also includes Live with Regis and Kelly and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
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This morning on the Early Show: Kevin Merida, whose new book is Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas (Doubleday, $26.95, 9780385510806/0385510802).

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This morning's Book Report, the weekly AM radio book-related show organized by Windows a bookshop, Monroe, La., features interviews with Nathan Englander, author of The Ministry of Special Cases (Random House, $25, 9780375404931/0375404937), and Jim Wilson, author of Poetic Justice: Meditations on the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C (OSL Publications, $24.95, 9781878009562/1878009567).

The show airs at 8 a.m. Central Time and can be heard live at thebookreport.net; the archived edition will be posted this afternoon.

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Today on WAMU's Diane Rehm Show, Rebecca Mead sells One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding (Penguin Press, $25.95, 9781594200885/1594200882).

The story of Aliens & Alibis Books in Columbia, S.C., is equal parts cautionary tale and tribute to entrepreneurial spirit, spiced with a generous dose of passionate bookselling.

The short version of the story goes something like this: In May of 2005, Deb Andolino and Gary McCammon opened Aliens & Alibis. "It was the result of my son's and my passion for reading," said Andolino, "and the frustration at not being able to find many books by the authors we like to read. Gary is the science fiction and fantasy guru and I am an avid reader of mysteries with some fantasy thrown in."

Their shop was located in a northeast Columbia shopping mall that "the owners were planning to bring back to life. Unfortunately their CPR for the mall didn't work."

A year later, the bookstore moved to a main road in southeast Columbia. There was more traffic, but it sped by at 60 mph. "Since we were set back from the road, it was difficult to see us at that speed," said Andolino. By the end of the year, "we weren't even coming close to breaking even." They closed last December.

That's the short story, but it is not the end.

Aliens & Alibis Books is still in business online, an ever-evolving venture and adventure for Andolino.

"After we closed the doors, we decided to keep our website active," she said. "We currently send out a newsletter every two or three weeks, listing new books and allowing a forum for new authors to talk about their books. We've had very good feedback about that. We also have an online inventory that includes collectible mysteries, such as early Perry Mason, Nero Wolfe, Dell Mapbacks and those wonderful Gothics--the ones with the pictures of the terrified woman standing in front of a mysterious mansion. Business is a little slow but is building--and our expenses are a lot less."

Her initial attempt at a website debuted in May 2005. "At first I thought that I would be able to create a website," said Andolino, who had spent more than 20 years as a computer programmer. "I neglected to remember that there is a big difference between a large, mainframe computer and PCs."

Fortunately, she found her ideal "Web Maven" in Kim Malo: "We were incredibly lucky to find Kim, who also does the web site for CrimeThruTime," said Andolino.

According to Malo, "Deb had posted to the CTT list about looking to get some pages online back in May 2005 and I volunteered to help. We had a basic website up about two weeks later. Just some pages of photographs of the cats, contact info and some links--basically the online equivalent of a birth announcement paired with a business card."

Inventory/shopping cart options were added later. Malo said the first step "was creating tables of inventory that were browsable, but also adding a site search function--no actual shopping cart yet, but instructions and a form to let people e-mail to buy. That got the bookstore up so it might appear on Google searches and to give people an idea of what Deb had, while allowing us breathing space to work out details about shopping cart (which one, how to handle shipping costs, etc). That was around January 2006."

A PayPal shopping cart and Constant Contact newsletters were integrated a few months later. "Constant Contact allows me to monitor whether the newsletter is being read," said Andolino. "I periodically post a request to email lists such as CrimeThruTime and DorothyL to remind authors to send me information to put in the newsletter. We usually get a few additional contacts at that time. Most of my e-mails have the website URL at the end in a .sig file--just to remind people that we're still around."

What is life like as an online bookseller? "I can sell books in my pajamas," Andolino joked, but quickly added, "Unfortunately we are not selling enough for me to do it as a full-time job. There are those pesky things like mortgage payments, phone bills, etc., that need to be paid."

If the online bookstore is a part-time effort thus far, Andolino doesn't regret the road she has traveled to this point: "It was a rough ride, but we met some awesome authors and a lot of great customers. Gary and I agreed that we would do it again--even knowing the outcome."

Next week, we'll explore the bricks-and-mortar lessons learned and virtual strategies being applied at Aliens & Alibis.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)