A fire heavily damaged the Von's Book Shop building, which includes student apartments, in West Lafayette, Ind., according to the Journal and Courier. The store, which serves many Purdue University students, hopes to reopen in several days. The cards, beads and music sections suffered water damage but most books were unscathed.

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With the example of The Number, a January title by Lee Eisenberg, about planning for retirement, today's Wall Street Journal examines the timing of book buzz these days, which for some titles is occurring long before pub date. Among factors leading to the change from the old industry adage that a book had to be available when publicity hit: the ability of consumers to order a book online far ahead of publication and the short amount of time allowed by mass merchants to let a book establish itself before banishment.

Publisher Free Press is also using the services of BzzAgent, which has a network of volunteers to talk up products. B-ware: on December 7, some 1,000 of these bzzers will begin bzzing about The Number.

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Barnes & Noble plans to open a store in Bee Cave, Tex., near Austin, in July 2007. The store will be located in the Hill Country Galleria at Highway 71, Galleria Parkway and FM 620 (for us non-Texans, that's not a typo) and will stock nearly 200,000 book, music, DVD and magazine titles.

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Promising lower prices than the campus store, another Beat the Bookstore franchise store has opened, this time near the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus, the student newspaper, the Current, reported. There are eight Beat the Bookstore stores now.

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Today Gail Williams is opening a Christian bookstore called It Is Written in Brewton, Fla., in memory of her son, Christopher David Winchester, who was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb on July 14, the Brewton Standard reported. Williams had considered opening a store for a long time, and her son had encouraged her "to pursue her dream."

"Very nice weather" in October "discouraged traffic" at the Book Stall at Chestnut Court, Winnetka, Ill., as customers found ways to enjoy the fall outside, but the cold weather since then has helped drive people to the store and made November "exciting and dynamic," owner Roberta Rubin told Shelf Awareness. "We will be up for the month. It gives us heart that our customers love us so."

Rubin gives much credit to the store's newsletter, "our main marketing piece," which now goes to almost 10,000 people. The store added lists of holiday titles and did an insert, both of which have helped draw people to the store.

So far this season, there is "no one big blockbuster, nothing like The Da Vinci Code," Rubin said, but a range of titles is doing well. "Nonfiction is carrying the banner," she said cheerfully.

The Book Stall puts on several events a day, as many as five, both in-store and at other sites, including downtown clubs like the Union League and University Club, and many of its bestselling titles reflect this. As Rubin put it, "We're an events-driven store."

It's obvious, too, from the Book Stall's bestseller list that the store is on the author tour A-list: No. 1 title Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin has no rival in sales since the author's recent appearance. Teacher Man by Frank McCourt is giving sales lessons since McCourt came to the Book Stall--his third visit there. Long after David McCullough's June appearance, 1776 continues to sell. Joan Didion did not come to the store for The Year of Magical Thinking, but the Book Stall was able to get autographed copies of the book, and it, too, is selling magically.

Other strong titles Rubin and the staff are promoting include Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See ("we've sold hundreds and hundreds of that"); The March by E.L. Doctorow; Ordinary Heroes by Scott Turow; On Beauty by Zadie Smith; and The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea. In addition, Rubin said, people who have seen the movie Capote "are picking up on" his ur-first novel, Summer Crossing, which was discovered late last year and published in October.

Among perennial bestsellers are The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Small Island by Andrea Levy and Thirteen Steps Down by Ruth Rendell. And "everyone's raving" about Into Temptation by Penny Vincenzi, Rubin added.

Rubin was especially excited after finishing a galley of The Fugitive Wife by Peter C. Brown, a January title that she believes will glitter in the new year. "It's about going to Nome, Alaska, searching for gold in 1900," she said. "It has a woman heroine who's outstanding."

BookStream, the Poughkeepsie, N.Y., wholesaler that is gearing up to open (Shelf Awareness, September 8), has hired more sales and buying staff. New employees include:

Lily Bartels from the Open Door Bookshop, Schenectady, N.Y.; Carol Chittenden, owner of Eight Cousins Bookshop, Falmouth, Mass.; and Carolyn Bennett from the Drama Bookshop, New York City--and the daughter of Betty and John Bennett of Bennett Books, Wyckoff, N.J.

In an unusual approach, several of the new employees will do both buying and selling, which vp, sales and marketing, Maury McClelland said "means that the buyers/sales individuals have first hand knowledge of what is happening in the market place and the publishers' plans without having to depend on communication from others" and "promotes a team spirit where everyone is able to see, feel and touch the full life cycle of titles, resulting in better control of the buying, selling and marketing of each book."

Bartels will both buy and sell; Chittenden will buy children's titles and sell to children's stores; while Bennett will focus on sales. Chittenden will continue to manage her store.

This morning Good Morning America has super guest Jared Lee, author of You're Different and That's Super (S&S, $12.95, 1416900705).

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This morning the Early Show features Marlo Thomas, author of Thanks and Giving All Year Long (S&S, $17.95, 1416915869).

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Today WAMU's Diane Rehm Show devotes 60 minutes to Mike Wallace, author of Between You and Me (Hyperion).

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Today on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show:

• New Yorker editor David Remnick on The Complete New Yorker: Eighty Years of the Nation's Greatest Magazine (Random House, $100, 1400064740). 
  
• Claire Harman, whose new book is Myself and the Other Fellow: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson (HarperCollins, $29.95, 0066209846).

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Today on KCRW's Bookworm, Peter Maresca and Art Spiegelman discuss Little Nemo in Slumberland: Splendid Sundays 1905-1910 (Sunday Press, $120, 0976888505). As the show puts it: "A celebration of the great Winsor McCay's Sunday funnies! Why? Because Nemo in Slumberland has been printed in its original full-color and actual size for the very first time! See Nemo as a generation saw it in the Sunday Papers! Hear editor Peter Maresca and comics expert Art Spiegelman describe the vibrant fine points and nuances of the most sophisticated Sunday strip ever!"

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Tonight on the Charlie Rose Show: John Hope Franklin, whose autobiography is Mirror to America (FSG, $25, 0374299447).

Reproductive rights is the subject of the latest Books for Understanding bibliography created by the Association of American University Presses. The listing offers "a resource to understanding the many sides of this debate" over Roe v. Wade and related issues.

The list includes such works as:

• Behind Every Choice Is a Story edited by Gloria Feldt (University of North Texas Press, 2002)
• What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said: The Nation's Top Legal Experts Rewrite America's Most Controversial Decision edited by Jack M. Balkin (NYU Press, 2005)
• Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War by William Saletan (University of California Press, 2004)
• A Woman's Guide to Sexual Health by Mary Jane Minkin and Carol V. Wright (Yale University Press, 2004)

Greg Michalson of Unbridled Books graciously pointed out that we misspelled the name of an author of one of two Unbridled Books titles mentioned yesterday by Lisa Baudoin of Main Street Books, Pella, Iowa. The author of her handselling favorite, The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God, is Timothy Schaffert, not Stafford.