At least three smaller publishers say payments from Borders have been delayed and they have retained a bankruptcy group as legal counsel, according to Barron's, which quotes a Debtwire report. Borders told Debtwire that it is paying vendors and "is not aware of any material dispute related to its December 2009 payments."

Larger publishers report no problems being paid in a timely way.

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Amazon's new Kindle Development Kit will allow software developers to build and upload active content that will be available in the Kindle Store later this year. Beginning next month, participants in a limited beta program will be able to download the kit, access developer support, test content on Kindle and submit finished content.

The announcement of a nascent Kindle apps store comes just before the much-anticipated release of Apple's new tablet next week. The New York Times described the development as part of a "formidable high-tech face-off: Amazon.com versus Apple for the hearts and minds of book publishers, authors and readers."

"Will Kindle pricing trump Apple sex appeal? Isn’t that the question, really?" asked Richard Charkin, executive director of Bloomsbury Publishing in London. "I haven’t the faintest idea. All I would say is, great. The more people that are out there marketing books in digital or any other format, the better."

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This Friday, Steve and Patty Guynn, owners of Sherlock's Book Emporium and Curiosities, Lebanon, Tenn., will open a branch store on 235 Fifth Avenue North in downtown Nashville, the Business Journal reported.

"Sherlock's fits the retail plan we have in place for Fifth Avenue and it is a wonderful complement to the art galleries and creative culture already existing on the street," said Crissy Cassetty, Nashville Downtown Partnership's retail recruiter.

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Frank Kramer, Harvard Book Store's Owner Emeritus, reminisced about the late Robert B. Parker (Shelf Awareness, January 19, 2010) in the Cambridge bookshop's e-newsletter: "Bob joked that he would charge me for a line in [Parker's 1982 book] Ceremony where Spenser says that he liked eating at the Harvard Book Store Café as it made him 'feel intellectual.' Bob was a good friend like that--always joking, always prodding."

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Among the "Far-Flung" booksellers featured on the International Antiquarian Booksellers Association website was rare book dealer Charles Cox of Cornwall, who observed that "selling old books has never been a sensible way of life and, like the old Cornish miners, we are used to crushing a lot of rocks to extract an ounce of ore. As far as selling is concerned, location matters less and less. We can all share a shop window as wide as the world wherever we live, and, anyhow, the best books will always sell themselves. It is, as we know, the finding and the buying of the exactly right book that's the difficult part, and booksellers, par excellence, are driven and beguiled by the fascination of what’s difficult."

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Book trailer of the day: Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide?: ('Cause I Need More Room for My Plasma TV) by Karen Spears Zacharias (Zondervan).

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A "mystery all insoluble" on Poe's birthday. For the first time in six decades, the mysterious visitor who has left roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac at Edgar Alllan Poe's gravesite in Baltimore every January 19th failed to materialize.

"I'm confused, befuddled," Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum, told the Associated Press. "I don't know what's going on.... People will be asking me, 'Why do you think he stopped?' Or did he stop? We don't know if he stopped. He just didn't come this year."

This past Monday morning, a group representing a variety of ages and races (although skewing slightly younger and black) filled Marcus Books in San Francisco to listen to and discuss a recording of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Just a week before, the Oakland Post honored Raye G. Richardson, 89, who founded the famed African-American store with her late husband, Julian Richardson, as its "Woman of the Decade" and named Marcus Books, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, its "Business of the Decade."
 
At the same time, Marcus, which also has a store in Oakland, issued a plea for the community to step up and buy books from it. "We've got the same small-business blues facing the rest of America," said Karen Johnson, the Richardsons' daughter who runs the San Francisco store. Her sister, Blanche Richardson, who runs the Oakland store, concurred; she sees the latest economic challenges for the two stores as a sign of the times and stressed that their bookstores remain committed to the communities they serve.
 
The family remains deeply involved: the daughters of both sisters and the son of their brother, Billy, all work in the stores--and even their grandchildren, who range in age from eight to 20, lend a hand, marking the fourth generation working in a business that has hosted events for just about every African-American literary and cultural figure from Amiri Baraka to Queen Latifah in its 50-year history. Muhammad Ali even allowed anyone--man, woman or child--who wanted to to sit on his lap for photos during his six-hour event at the Oakland store.
 
"You can't get to 50 years and call it quits," said Blanche, about recent rumors that Marcus Books faces the possibility of closing.
 
Those who gathered for the MLK Day celebration in San Francisco, including Ross Mirkarimi from the city's board of supervisors, seemed intent on being part of the stores' future as cultural centers in the cities on opposite sides of San Francisco Bay.
 
"In a bookstore like this, revolutions are made," Mirkarimi said, noting that Marcus makes available written work by and about those who gave their lives for civil rights and the elevation of African-American culture.
 
Earlier, a teenage Asian customer observed that while everyone remembers the "I Have a Dream" part of King's speech, they forget how he spoke about the "insufficient funds" being paid by the "Bank of Justice" for people of all colors.
 
After the speeches and discussion, Raye Richardson told Shelf Awareness that she felt both great hope and fear on the occasion of Marcus Books' 50th anniversary. She found hope in the form of the young people--her great-grandchildren and others--engaged in places like Marcus Books. "But it scares me that reading might become extinct, that we will become just a visual society," she said. "It's just so critical that children be taught not only to read but to love reading."
 
Through efforts of the generations of the Richardson family and the extended family of bookstore staff and customers, Marcus Books continues to reach out to its community using all forms of media, from the books on its shelves to YouTube videos like this one, an active Facebook presence and a lively social network. As much as Marcus Books aims to continue to preserve African-American culture from the past, it also plans to be part of the future as it moves into its 50th year.--Bridget Kinsella

On March 16, Hachette Book Group's graphic novel imprint, Yen Press, will publish Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1, which will have "selected text" from Stephenie Meyer's novel, a 350,000-copy first printing and retail for $19.99. Korean artist Young Kim illustrates the graphic novel in black and white with color interspersed throughout. Due to the original novel's length, the graphic novel version will be divided into two volumes, with the second volume's release date to come. Meyer consulted on the book and had, Yen said, "input on every panel."

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, January 23

8 a.m. Richard Milner, author of Darwin's Universe: Evolution from A to Z (University of California Press, $39.95, 9780520243767/0520243765), presents his one-man show on the history of evolution. (Re-airs Sunday at 7 p.m.)

9:45 a.m. John Mueller, author of Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda (Oxford University Press, $27.95, 9780195381368/019538136X), argues that the likelihood of a terrorist obtaining a nuclear device and using it against the U.S. is far smaller than most people think. (Re-airs Saturday at 9 p.m.)

11 a.m. Anne Lutz Fernandez, co-author (with Catherine Lutz) of Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile & Its Effects on Our Lives (Palgrave Macmillan, $28, 9780230618138/0230618138), contends that America's love of cars is the root of many problems, including obesity and asthma, as well as a high financial toll on the poor. (Re-airs Sunday at 5 p.m.)

2:30 p.m. Martin Jacques, author of When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order (Penguin, $29.95, 9781594201851/1594201854), says the 21st century will be driven by Asian influences.  (Re-airs Monday at 6:30 a.m.)

4 p.m. Nicole Gelinas, author of After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street--and Washington (Encounter Books, $23.95, 9781594032615/1594032610), argues that we need to return to a financial system controlled by market discipline. (Re-airs Sunday at 8 a.m.)

4:55 p.m. Ann Louise Bardach talks about her book, Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana, and Washington (Scribner, $28, 9781416551508/1416551506). (Re-airs Sunday at 2:30 a.m.)

7:45 p.m. Dominique Lapierre, author of A Rainbow in the Night: The Tumultuous Birth of South Africa (Da Capo, $26, 9780306818479/0306818477), talks about the heroic women he has written about, including anti-apartheid activist Helen Lieberman. (Re-airs Monday at 1:30 a.m.)

10 p.m. After Words. Barbara Mitnick interviews historian Thomas Fleming, author of The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers (Smithsonian, $27.99, 9780061139123/0061139122). Fleming profiles the women who played a central part in the lives of the founding fathers. (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m. and Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m.)

Sunday, January 24

12:30 a.m. Richard Reeves discusses his book, Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of the Berlin Airlift June 1948-May 1949 (S&S, $28, 9781416541196/1416541195. (Re-airs Sunday at 3 p.m.)

On Monday, after five Caldecott Honor book citations, five Coretta Scott King Awards and four Coretta Scott King Honor Awards, Jerry Pinkney was awarded the 2010 Caldecott Medal for The Lion and the Mouse (Little, Brown). From cover to endpapers to the 40 pages within, the book wordlessly depicts the story of a lion who frees a mouse that may seem small, but who, in turn, frees the mighty lion. Pinkney's first book, The Adventures of Spider (1964), "which by the way was published by Little, Brown," he points out, is still in print. He attended the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) on full scholarship. He has received five New York Times Best Illustrated Awards, was a U.S. nominee for the 1997 Hans Christian Andersen Illustration Medal, and his artwork is in galleries and museums around the world. Next month, the Schomburg Center in Harlem will exhibit 40 pieces that he created in the 1970s (he'll give a talk and sign books on February 6). In November, the Norman Rockwell Museum will exhibit Pinkney's work on the theme of "place."

How did growing up in Philadelphia influence you as an artist?

I was born in 1939, so those early years in the 1940s were a time where we still had the shadow of segregation as far north as Philadelphia. I grew up on a street that was all African-Americans; many had migrated from the South. It was a dead-end street--to the left was an Italian community and to the right was a Jewish community. A lot of my early life was informed by different and separate communities; you see that in my work. My life was shaped by going to an African-American school that wasn't integrated until I was in junior high. You see in my work the pursuit of telling the African-American experience and also the other side of it, which is how this country is such a patchwork of different cultures and nationalities. I do see the world and my community from the lens of a black person.

You included "The Lion and the Mouse" in your Aesop's Fables (2000). Why did you want to probe more deeply into this fable?

Going into that project, there were three of us looking for well known tales but also lesser known stories. We must have looked at over 200 fables. "The Lion and the Mouse" was at the top of everyone's list. It was always with me as far back as I can remember. It was a favorite of mine--the majestic lion is a favorite for most of us. It's a great fable with a powerful moral. It resonates today as much as it did hundreds of years ago. It's magical, that these two opposite characters both play a role in the same narrative. I was anxious to revisit it because that one spot illustration [in Aesop's Fables] wasn't enough to tell the story the way I wanted to tell it.

How did you plan the pacing of the narrative, given that the pictures tell the entire story?

I knew I would add to the front end, and I've been doing that with some of my other stories with the endpapers. Let's see, how we can lead the reader into the story? How can I prepare you so you go on that journey? Why would the mouse be out on the plains at that time? She'd be searching for food. For herself? Let's add family. Once I added the family on the front end, it made sense for the lion to have a family. I thought it was a treasure of a fable, but did I know the family would be important in the book? No, I didn't know any of that. You listen to what you're doing and what the story's asking.

You recently moved to a new studio, with space to lay out an entire picture book at once. Did that help you in your process with this book?

I think about this often. I don't know if there's a direct line, but I've been there for a year and a half. In that time, I've done The Lion and the Mouse, The Sweethearts of Rhythm and a project on the African burial ground [in New York] that opens next month. [The work] seems more focused and pointed. It's the ability to lay the work out, but it's also an environment that's really for work. There's no telephone, no television or computer. There's no denying there's a difference in the projects since I've been in that space. And the work is more joyful.

The Serengeti landscape is so integral to your book. Have you been there?

I've not been to the Serengeti. It's funny, I met a woman after church who'd bought the book, and she said she'd been to the Serengeti, and she said when she opened the book, she felt she was back there again. One of the reasons I've worked so well with National Geographic and the National Parks is that a lot of it is reinterpreting; what you're doing is reconstructing because a lot of it doesn't exist anymore. I use my imagination to evoke the spirit and the look of a place.

Why do you prefer watercolors?

I've always loved drawing as far back as when I was in college. There are two reasons: first of all, drawing and line has been important to me. In the early stages, for commission projects and for publishing, most of the work was printed in two to three colors, so line was important to the separation process [in which the same piece of art was run through the printer several times with each color separately]. Then I chose a transparent medium because the line is still important to what I do--it's about the importance of the mark and the possibility of that mark. --Jennifer M. Brown

Philip Gross won the £15,000 (US$24,426) T.S. Eliot prize for his poetry collection The Water Table, "beating competition from his better-known peers such as Alice Oswald, Sharon Olds and Christopher Reid," the Guardian reported.

Simon Armitage, chair of the judging panel, said the book "is so concentrated and keen-eyed and patient. The poems have a beauty and a craft to the writing and it's hard to imagine how he kept it up over 64 pages.... There are big concerns throughout the book and he writes with real lyrical confidence."

The German Book Office's book of the month pick for January is Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness by Reinhard Kleist, translated by Michael Waaler, and published in the U.S. by Abrams ComicArts last October ($17.95, 9780810984639/0810984636).

In this graphic novel, graphic novelist and author Kleist, whose earlier works include Havanna, Lovecraft and Amerika, traces Cash's life and uses his 1968 concert at Folsom Prison as its focal point.

The GBO noted: "Whether depicting the death of Cash's brother Jack, his addiction to drugs or divorce from his first wife, Kleist is at his best when capturing the turmoil and chaos that so often characterized the singer's life. Kleist knows how to work with the limitations of the medium, and though text is minimal, the artist's angular lines and powerful images speak volumes. Vivid and intense illustrations of Cash's drug induced hallucinations on stage and eventual battle with withdrawal are intertwined with simple, stark images of Folsom prison sitting against a backdrop of lyrics."

Although he is the author of three volumes of poetry and two books of nonfiction, Thomas Lynch is best known for his memoir, The Undertaking, a beautifully written account of his experiences as a mortician. Distinguished by its elegant prose and depth of feeling, that book won Lynch critical acclaim and many fans. Now, Lynch returns to his conjoined themes of life and death with these quiet yet soulful short stories and novella that offer intricate portraits of men and women at the furthest reaches of grief, longing and love.

"Catch and Release," the first and most striking story in the collection, follows Danny, a fishing guide, as he travels along a river with his three-legged dog, Chinook, and his father's ashes in a tall green thermos. Danny reflects on his father's life and the inestimable extent of his loss. Drifting through the water, Danny wonders about the best way to dispose of the ashes; the solution he finds is unsettling but perfect. In the dark and affecting "Bloodsport," an undertaker remembers the troubled life and reflects on the horrible murder of a young woman he first met when he organized her father's funeral. In this short but piercing tale, Lynch manages to give a thoughtful examination of mental illness, domestic violence and the impermanence of desire. "Hunter's Moon" is a more static story, though no less emotionally resonant. Here, Harold Kreehn, an ex-casket salesman, reminisces about his three wives. The first left him for another woman; the second divorced him when the death of his daughter rendered him unable to cope with their relationship; and the third, Harold's greatest love, has recently died. "Matinèe de Septembre," an intriguing and clever mirror-image take on Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice," follows Aisling Black, a successful, recently widowed professor who goes for an extended--and somewhat surrealistic--holiday at a fading Michigan resort.

Though incredibly rich and detailed in its portrayal of marriage and fatherhood, "Apparation," the title novella, stalls in its pacing. More than all the other stories in this collection, "Apparition" relies heavily on the memories of its main character, Adrian Littlefield, an ex-minister who has become wildly successful after writing a divorce self-help book. While these out-of-sequence flashbacks create a beautifully layered portrait of love, loss and regret, they don't have quite enough forward movement. Yet this is a small complaint and detracts nothing from the collection as a whole. Lynch is a superb writer who combines a poet's vision with a deep understanding of the human heart. His first collection of fiction does not disappoint.--Debra Ginsberg

Shelf Talker: A beautifully written collection of short fiction from the award-winning author of The Undertaking examining themes of life, death, love and loss.

The following were the bestselling titles at independent bookstores in and around Chicago during the week ended Sunday, January 17:

Hardcover Fiction

1. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
2. A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
3. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
4. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
5. Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
2. Drive by Daniel Pink
3. Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert
4. Eating Animals by Jonathan Foer
5. Good Soldiers by David Finkel

Paperback Fiction

1. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
2. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
4. Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
5. Family Affair by Caprice Crane

Paperback Nonficion

1. Food Rules by Michael Pollan
2. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
3. The Blind Side by Michael Lewis
4. Cook Yourself Thin by Lifetime Television
5. Mistress of the Monarchy by Alison Weir

Children's

1. Fanny and Annabelle by Holly Hobbie
2. Ranger's Apprentice 7: Erak's Ransom by John Flanagan
3. Alex Rider Series 8: Crocodile Tears by Alex Horowitz
4. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
5. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Reporting bookstores: Anderson's, Naperville and Downers Grove; Read Between the Lynes, Woodstock; the Book Table, Oak Park; the Book Cellar, Lincoln Square; Lake Forest Books, Lake Forest; the Bookstall at Chestnut Court, Winnetka; and 57th St. Books; Seminary Co-op; Women and Children First, Chicago.

[Many thanks to the reporting bookstores and Carl Lennertz!]