"In this increasingly virtual age of open access and universal availability, it's important for readers to keep in mind what it is that a publisher does for an author. A publisher--and I write as one--does far more than print and sell a book. It selects, nurtures, positions and promotes the writer's work.

"An e-book distributor is not a publisher, but rather a purveyor of work that has already been created. In this way, e-books are no different from large-print or paperback or audio versions. They are simply the latest link in an unbroken editorial chain, the newest format for one of man’s greatest inventions: the constantly evolving, imperishable book--given its definitive form by a publisher."

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In an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer, Neil Van Uum, owner of Joseph-Beth Booksellers, said he is "as optimistic as he was when he launched his first store in Lexington 23 years ago. He's fresh off the grand opening of Joseph-Beth's first hospital gift shop at the Cleveland Clinic. And he'll cut the ribbon on a new 30,000-square-foot store in Fredericksburg, Va., in April."

"It's been a bloodbath for 10 years," he added. "But we're finally seeing an opportunity to gain market share." The Enquirer wrote that Van Uum "projects sales growth of 8 or 9% percent this year. That's a big hike for a company that's had steady annual sales of $45 million since 2005, the year it opened its last store in Charlotte."

Part of his optimism comes from expectations for "Joseph-Beth Wellness Retail, a new division that remakes the traditional hospital gift shop, a model Van Uum calls tired. The 5,400-square-foot Cleveland Clinic store includes typical Joseph-Beth goods such as books, music, videos, kids' items and magazines, but also high-end gifts, snacks and beverages. Eventually, it will sell wellness items like yoga mats, self-help books, heart rate monitors and nutritional supplements," the Enquirer reported.

"This whole wellness component is growing as the general population gets older," Van Uum said. "People want to stay young, and we can help with the products we offer."

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Barry Leibman, the longtime co-owner of Left Bank Books, St. Louis, Mo., who will officially leave the bookstore this week after 30 years, told the Post-Dispatch he is "going to miss almost everything about the store. All the cultural stuff I'm around--it's been a unique blessing.... I'm lucky (the bookstore) is something I really believe in. It makes dealing with everything you have to do to keep it going worth it."

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Canada's McNally Robinson Booksellers closed two of its four stores and has filed for bankruptcy protection in an effort to reorganize. CBC News reported that bookshops at Polo Park Shopping Centre, Winnipeg, and the Shops at Don Mills, Toronto, have been shuttered and "175 staff members will lose their jobs."

"It is heartbreaking to see so many hard-working booksellers and restaurant staff lose their jobs. We are very hopeful, however, that we can save many more jobs and renew the company," Paul McNally said.

Tory McNally told CBC News that the plan is to keep the flagship store in Winnipeg and the shop in Saskatoon open.

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The Book Stall, Aiken, S.C., has closed, according to the Aiken Standard.

Owner Ann Carlson told the paper the decision was for personal reasons. Carlson opened the store three years. She also owns Harbor Walk Books in Georgetown, S.C., which remains open.

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A memorial service for FSG/Holt sales rep Mark Gates, 57, who died of lung cancer on December 11 (Shelf Awareness, December 13, 2009), has been scheduled for Saturday, January 16. The service will be held 12-1 p.m. at the First Unitarian Society, 900 University Bay Drive, in Madison, Wis. A farewell party for Gates will be held at another venue in Madison from 2-5 p.m. that afternoon. Those intending to attend the party should e-mail Sandra Bartels a non-binding RSVP.

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Effective today, Dan Angus has become v-p, customer loyalty, at Borders Group, where he will be in charge of loyalty marketing programs and initiatives, including directing the development of customer relationship marketing strategies as well as enhancing and expanding the Borders Rewards loyalty program.

Angus was formerly v-p, customer relationship marketing, for Guitar Center and earlier was senior director, marketing, for Chico's FAS, and held senior customer marketing and management and ad planning positions at Express, Dick's Sporting Goods and American Eagle Outfitters.

Retailers emerged from the 2009 holiday season relieved, perhaps even surprised, by modest gains despite several negative factors like the still wobbly economy, fewer discounts, buyers' reticence and disruptive weather. December sales figures will be announced later this week, but Reuters reported that analysts expect a 1.3% increase over December 2008 for the 30 retailers tracked by Thomson Reuters Data.

Jharonne Martis, director of consumer research for Thomson Reuters, described the gain as "still on the weak side, but it's an improvement from last year. Things are better, but they're still not healthy yet." In 2008, same-store sales fell 3.6%.

"Santa did show up this year, delivered a lot of presents, and helped retailers become at least as profitable, and likely more profitable for everyone, than last year," said Richard Jaffe, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. "Things are going to be OK. Not great, but OK."

ShopperTrak, which anticipates a 1.6% rise in year-over-year sales for November and December, reported that retail sales increased 8.8% for the week ending December 26, and "much of that jump appears to have been consumers making up for lost time," the New York Times wrote.

On the weekend before Christmas, a massive winter storm along the East Coast had a damaging effect on business (ShopperTrak calculated that sales were $6.9 billion for that Saturday, down from $7.9 billion in 2008), but during the subsequent week, "consumers flocked to stores, enabling retailers to recover some lost sales. In fact, post-storm shopping helped the day after Christmas--which is typically the third best performing day of the season--ascend to the number two spot this year," the Times noted. ShopperTrak reported that consumers spent $7.9 billion on December 26, up from $7.8 billion last year.

The Wall Street Journal aptly summed it all up by observing that "retailers won the closely watched holiday skirmish with shoppers, who opened their wallets a little bit." SpendingPulse reported a "late boost from procrastinating consumers and an extra day of shopping between Thanksgiving and Christmas increased total retail sales, excluding automobiles and gas, 3.6% over the year-earlier period through Christmas Eve." Factoring out the extra shopping day, the gain would have been 1%.

"I'd call it a good season because the profits will be good," said Maggie Gilliam, president of Gilliam & Co, an independent retail research firm.

MasterCard reported that online sales rose 15.5%, receiving an unanticipated late boost from bad weather on the East Coast, which "meant that many shoppers had little choice but to turn to their computers to finish off their gift lists," the Journal wrote.

In honor of its 110th birthday, which falls on January 10, the University Book Store, which has eight stores in and near Seattle, Wash., asked 110 authors, poets and graphic novelists with some connection to the store to write 110-word compositions. The pieces are being published as 110/110 and aim to honor the store's spirit, which CEO Bryan Pearce described this way in the book's foreword: "From our first day, we have believed in the power of the written word to educate and entertain; marveled at how diverse thought, experience, perspective and expression have enhanced the quality of life; and witnessed overwhelming delight in the eyes of readers upon meeting the authors of the works they love."

For the rest of the year, customers who buy a book by any of the 110 authors in the book will receive a free copy of 110/110.

During the next 110 hours or so, Shelf Awareness will run several of the contributions. Our first is by Maria Dahvana Headley, author of The Year of Yes, several plays and short stories and an occasional screenplay. She lives in Seattle with her husband, playwright and screenwriter Robert Schenkkan, two teenage stepkids and two devious Bengal cats.

Pulp Romance

He saw her across a crowded shelf.

Her deckle-edge was seductively deep, her endpapers velvety. She was a first edition, probably autographed. Any man would want to write his name in a book like her.

She noticed him perusing her pages, and blushed. He had a hard spine, and a crisp dust jacket. His eyes were capitalized, and in an obscure font designed in Amsterdam in 1768. She caught herself glancing at his flyleaf, and looked away, mortified.

They were in the YA section, and she was acting like a common galley.

"Can I have your ISBN?" he whispered. He could nearly see her addendum.

"Yes," she cooed, helpless. "Yes."

Paul Nathan, rights columnist for Publishers Weekly from 1946 to 1998, died December 12 at age 96 from Parkinson's disease, PW reported.

Nathan also published three novels, works of nonfiction, short stories and plays, was a Russian-language translator and was a columnist for Publishing News and Variety. We remember him for his cheerful photograph that ran every week. At one point, during difficult times in the early 1980s, one reader called him the last smiling person in the book world.

A service will be held today, 5-7 p.m., at the Griffis Faculty Club at Weill Cornell Medical College, 1300 York Ave. in New York City. Contributions in his name can be made to the Wright Center for Aging, 1484 First Ave., New York, N.Y. 10065.

This morning on Fox and Friends: Jerry Doyle, author of Have You Seen My Country Lately?: America's Wake-Up Call (Threshold Editions, $26, 9781439168011/1439168016). He will also be on the Laura Ingraham Show tomorrow.

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Today on the Dr. Oz Show: Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz, authors of YOU: On a Diet (Free Press, $26.99, 9781439164969/1439164967).

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Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Michael Pollan, author of Food Rules: An Eater's Manual (Penguin, $11, 9780143116387/014311638X).

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Tomorrow morning on Good Morning America: Jim Wallis, author of Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street (Howard Books, $24, 9781439183120/1439183120). He will also appear tomorrow on MSNBC's Morning Joe.

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Tomorrow night on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: George Lucas, contributor to Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success (It Books, $29.99, 9780061778896/0061778893).

Past Life, a new FOX-TV series inspired by M.J. Rose's novel The Reincarnationist (Mira, $6.99, 9780778325765/0778325768), will have its network premiere Thursday, February 11. More information about the show is available on the FOX website. The trailer and video sneak peeks can be found at TVOvermind.com.

From last week's Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org, here are the recommended titles, which are also Indie Next Great Reads:
 
Hardcover
 
But Not for Long: A Novel by Michelle Wildgen (Thomas Dunne Books, $24.99, 9780312571412/0312571410). "Three members of a sustainable foods cooperative struggle to sort out their own lives in a compelling story that engages themes that are very relevant to our contemporary world. But Not for Long is one of those books that entertains and illuminates."--Melissa Olm, the Reader's Loft, Green Bay, Wis.
 
Children of Dust: A Memoir of Pakistan by Ali Eteraz (HarperOne, $25.99, 9780061567087/0061567086). "Ali Eteraz's account of his schooling in a madrassa in Pakistan is a fascinating look into a culture few Americans ever see. Eteraz is a talented young author who writes with intelligence and critical self-awareness. Children of Dust is a pleasure to read."--Tamara Maxey, Windows on the World-Books & Art, Mariposa, Calif.
 
Paperback
 
Fred Astaire by Joseph Epstein (Yale, $15, 9780300158441/0300158440). "How could a string bean with an oversize forehead, jug ears, and an obvious toupee be one of the romantic leads of movie history? Epstein meditates on this heavenly hoofer from every angle, and the results will have you jonesing for a TCM movie marathon."--Daniel Goldin, Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, Wis.
 
For Teen Readers
 
Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern (Feiwel & Friends, $16.99, 9780312382520/0312382529). "You will absolutely adore Jessie, a high school mathlete who makes themed skirts for every day of the year! When her two best friends suddenly turn punk, Jessie has to find new friends and stumbles into friendships with the Dungeons and Dragons crowd. A delightful novel with a strong, funny, smart lead character I would love to have known in high school."--Cathy Berner, Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston, Tex.
 
[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]
 

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There's no name for the genre of Joe Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza because Sacco has invented his own and is its sole practitioner. Call it graphic reportage or graphic journalism, it's investigative reporting done in comic book format, in a crisp, ultra-realistic style bringing a visual message as well as a verbal one, and this 400-page masterpiece is equally exhilarating in its artwork and harrowing in what it has to say.
 
The creation of the book began in 2001, when a mention of two little-known large-scale killings of civilians in the Gaza Strip in 1956, the greatest massacre of Palestinians on Palestinian soil, was edited out of an article the author and Chris Hedges turned in to Harper's magazine. To right that wrong, Sacco returned to Gaza to gather 50-year-old information on these two "footnotes" of history, which he then brought to terrifying visual life.
 
Swiftly and skillfully Sacco draws the reader into the tortured world of the Gaza Strip, using his present-day return to Gaza as a documentary framing device for what obsesses him, the slaughter inflicted by Israeli soldiers on the men, women and children of two small towns. Sacco is a character in the story, the reader's personal guide through the comic strip, our Virgil on a visually detailed descent into Hell, a gawky, nerdy, utterly sincere character easy to spot in the panels because of his exaggerated lips and nose, with his ironic, passionate narrative voice in the lines.
 
Page after page of gorgeously composed panels come alive with images erupting out of their cartoon frames, poking and breaking out of their boxes with energy, exploding with Sacco's distinctive genius for dramatic perspective and graphic focus. Every turn of the page is a visual assault--the layout of Sacco's graphic art is aggressive and bold, with panels of all sizes.
 
His ace is his uncanny skill at characterization--a face by Sacco is a human original, distinctly different, flawed and fiercely unique. Every page of this huge book is teeming with the sheer variety of humanity, character after character stepping forward to give testimony to the injustices and horrors of the past.--Nick DiMartino
 
Shelf Talker: Using a graphic format to report on the 1956 killings of Palestinians in Gaza, Joe Sacco has crafted a dramatic and compelling testimony to the injustices and horrors of the past.