A group of fans of Broad Vocabulary, the feminist bookstore in Bay
View, Wis., that closed last November, is seeking to bring the store
back to life, Decider Milwaukee reported. Called A Broader Vocabulary Cooperative, the group is holding a fundraiser this coming Saturday.
In a Q&A with the paper, board member Annie Weidert said that for
now the store aims to be "a community hub" and not rely on book sales
for support. "Broad Vocabulary has always been more than just a
bookstore," she continued. "It's a place that nurtures community,
learning, and dialogue. We would like to expand and strengthen the
kinds of opportunities the bookstore can provide as a supportive venue
that nurtures independent thought, the sharing of ideas, community
networking and project-organizing, and educational opportunities."
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The Capitola Book Café, Capitola, Calif, "changes gears to reinvent itself in tough times for the book biz," the San Jose Mercury News
wrote, adding that co-owners Richard Lange, Wendy Mayer-Lochtefeld,
Melinda Powers and Janet Leimeister "are playing the last, best card
they have: community."
This strategy will take the form of a
membership program, with five levels ranging from $25 to $250, which
will give members benefits including "free food and drink, shopping
sprees, tickets to events and other discounts," but are also needed to
keep the bookstore in business. "If we can't really rally our customers
around us," said Mayer-Lochtefeld, "then the store is absolutely at
risk."
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The St. Petersburg Times
called U.S. 41 Books, Spring Hill, Fla., "a browser's delight," noting
that owner Gary Le Blanc believes "the cost-cutting measures people are
implementing during the recession are helping keep the doors open at
the bookstore."
"A lot of people are coming because they don't
have cable," Le Blanc said. "They've watched all their DVDs and all the
Law & Order episodes they can. Now, they're coming here."
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Allegra
Wakest and Eddy Nix have expanded their online-only used books business
by opening a bricks-and-mortar bookshop, Driftless Books and Music,
Viroqua, Wis., according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
"We
have enough inventory for, well, forever," said Nix, who displays 8,000
books in the store and warehouses another 100,000 titles. "We can't
stop buying books. . . . That's our mission--to save every book, one at
a time. There's so much knowledge that will be lost if we dispose of
these books. People say, 'Oh, it's all online. I'm sorry, it's not all
online.'"
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On Sunday, March 15, the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association is holding its spring meeting at the Westin Pasadena in Pasadena, Calif. Events include the association's annual meeting; an ABA Forum with Len Vlahos, ABA's chief program officer; an authors & brunch meal that features, among others, Jennie Nash, author of The Only True Genius in the House, and Peter Lerangis, author of The Sword Thief (the third book in the 39 Clues series); a session on social networking; Martinis for the Mind (and Mashed Potato Bar) reception; and more. The meeting is free for members; RSVP by March 9 to Jennifer Bigelow.
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The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance has launched the Southern Traveling Authors Registration Service (STARS), an author directory designed to connect authors with readers and organizations via independent booksellers. STARS is part of Authors 'Round the South, the association's consumer website.
On STARS, authors have profile pages with links to their books, websites, press kits and publicity contacts, and they list their travel plans and tour dates by location. Readers, libraries, book clubs, civic groups and others can search STARS to see if and when an author will be near them and might be available for events. SIBA handles requests between authors and consumers.
Authors need not live in the South but may list only trips to the SIBA region. Authors can apply individually, or publishers, publicists and other literary groups can list authors on their behalf. So far, more than 200 authors have signed up for STARS.
For more information about STARS and other SIBA programs, contact executive director Wanda Jewell at wanda@sibaweb.com or STARS administrator Nicki Leone at nicki@sibaweb.com.
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An AbeBooks.com poll of British customers about the funniest books they've ever read yielded this laughable list:
1. Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (1933)
2. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
3. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)
4. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (1889)
5. Wilt by Tom Sharpe (1976)
6. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1980)
7. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (1954)
8. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse (1938)
9. Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding (1996)
10. Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall by Spike Milligan (1971)
For more information, click here.
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According to the Telegraph, the six finalists for the Bookseller's Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year are Baboon Metaphysics by Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth, Strip and Knit with Style by Mark Hordyszynski, Curbside Consultation of the Colon by Brooks D. Cash, Techniques for Corrosion Monitoring by Lietai Yang, The Large Sieve and its Applications by Emmanuel Kowalski and The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais by Professor Philip M. Parker.
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A reminder from Carl Lennertz, v-p for independent retailing, at HarperCollins, that in the tradition of Ecco's State by State, the company is soliciting essays about states from booksellers and librarians and will publish the best submissions in paperback in the next year. Part of the proceeds will go to the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.
Essays should be about 2,500 words and be Word documents. The deadline is March 1. Lennertz offered this advice: "Take a look at some of the pieces in the book now to see the flavor of what we're looking for, O.K.? Then warm up your Corona (typewriter not beer).
"As you'll see, some authors once lived in the state they wrote about, or do now, but some were sent to the state for a first, fresh look. I don't think you have time for the latter, but really, anything goes. Likewise, I'm open to pieces about parts of larger states.
"NOTE: These are NOT about bookstore life; you're Jane or John Citizen on this, but of course, working in the book life as part of the piece would be more than fine."
For more information, contact Lennertz at carl@harpercollins.com.
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Kaplan Publishing has made the following changes:
- Marcy Goot has joined the company as executive director of marketing. She was formerly v-p of marketing for National Lampoon and earlier was v-p of sales and marketing for Warner Books, helped launch Hyperion as v-p, sales and marketing, helped launch Inner Ocean Publishing and was director of marketing of TOKYOPOP.
- Don Fehr has been promoted to editorial director, trade. He joined the company last April.
- Ron Sharpe has been promoted to executive director of production and manufacturing. He was formerly director of production.
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Jeff Kinney (l.), who brought his Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Charles Kochman (r.), executive editor of Abrams ComicArts, at the very first ComicCon in New York, just published his third episode in the series, The Last Straw. (This count does not include the journal-like Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book, published last October, which Kinney said he modeled on Dr. Seuss's My Book About Me). Kinney created title character Greg Heffley for 
The heroine of Bone Crossed, Mercy Thompson, is a car mechanic and were-coyote; as if that weren't enough for excitement, she's also in a heap of trouble. In Briggs's previous book, Mercy killed a member of the local vampire queen's clan, and the woman is now out for Mercy's blood, literally. There's also a werewolf love interest, Adam; a vampire friend, Stefan; and Zee, a fae--standard plot fare, but with a richly-imagined background. The fae have been "out" for several decades, a result of modern forensics identifying them. They manage interaction with humans by allowing themselves to live on reservations, with many of the same restrictions and government legislation that other minorities have experienced. However, this restriction with its ID checks is somewhat amusing to the fae, since they can change appearance at will. Werewolves, however, have only recently admitted their existence to humans, while vampires (who are truly evil) are not out at all. Within the non-human world, they all are living uneasily, and often violently, together.