Borders plans to add four to six stores in Australia annually during the next five years, boosting its total Down Under to 34 from 14, and is considering opening Borders Expresses, too, according to the Australian, the daily national newspaper.

Managing director John Campradt told the paper that even though the competitive Australian bookselling market had softened, it is still in better shape than book markets in the U.S. and U.K.

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The latest in the digital book ownership wars: HarperCollins announced yesterday that it will create digital copies of its books and make them available to major search engine companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Amazon but keep possession of the actual files, the Wall Street Journal said. The company might arrange to sell digital copies under such arrangements, but on its own terms, which it hasn't yet determined.

Harper has some 20,000 backlist titles and publishes about 3,500 new titles a year. Digitizing the texts will cost "somewhere in the seven figures," the Journal said.

"We see this [approach] as protecting the rights of authors, and protecting our rights as well, but it is also going to be a collaborative effort," Harper CEO Jane Friedman said. "We will make these titles available to everyone."

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Barnes & Noble plans to open a new store in Dallas, Tex., in the Prestonwood Town Center at Belt Line Road and Montfort Drive. After the store opens in October 2006, B&N will close its store at 14999 Preston Road in Dallas.

The coming shortage of younger workers may be old news, but some companies, including Borders Group, are recruiting and seeking to retain older employees in part because they have qualities that make them more attractive than some of their younger colleagues, according to the Detroit News. Borders has even been recognized by the AARP for its approach.

Older workers tend to be highly dependable, less likely to switch jobs and more likely to arrive at work on time. Borders senior v-p of human resources Dan Smith told the paper that older workers also make good booksellers, "pointing out that half of all books sold are to people older than over the age of 45. It is just 'human nature,' he said, for people to want to buy from someone who is like them."

One current Borders employee profiled in the story was hired at age 50 after spending most of her life overseas with her Foreign Service husband. The company considered her experience with cultural groups a form of customer service. "Going to the store and getting the books out was like opening up presents on Christmas morning every day," she told the paper. Working for the bookseller is now all in the family: the woman's husband, retired from the Foreign Service, now works as an administrative assistant to two Borders directors.

Borders has been flexible about scheduling, too, so much so that it even offers a snowbird program, allowing an older employee to work in Michigan in the summer and in Florida in the winter.

This morning the Today Show features Mark Bittman, author of Best Recipes in the World (S&S, $26, 0767906721).

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This morning on the Early Show: John L. Allen, Jr., author of Opus Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church (Doubleday, $24.95, 0385514492).

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Today on WAMU's Diane Rehm Show: Nation publisher and editor Katrina vanden Heuvel, author of Dictionary of Republicanisms (Nation Books, $14.95, 156025789X).

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Today on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show:

• Julie Powell, author of Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen (Little, Brown, $23.95, 031610969X).
• Photographer William Claxton, author of Jazz Life (Taschen, $200, 3822830666).

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Yesterday on Fresh Air: Michael Wex, author-mensch of Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods (St. Martin's, $24.95, 0312307411).

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One of Brian Doyle's twin sons was born with only three chambers in his heart, and in the nine years that followed, Doyle has become absorbed by the heart, for "we are soaked in the song of the heart every hour of every year every life long." He weaves the story of Liam with that of Dr. Dave McIrvin, his son's pediatric cardiologist, and along the way side trips and segues into many stories about hearts--the doctor's mother interned in Utah during World War II, an Armenian surgeon who starts a hospital in Yerevan, a Cambodian who survived the killings fields, a priest, a best friend. He ponders grace, after raging at Liam's Maker for making a broken boy: "I have learned to shut my mouth and learn about grace: the deft grace of the doctors who edited him, the open grace of the thousand people who prayed for him in churches and temples and stupas and chapels and novenas, the grace with which he carries the body God gave him." He writes that all animals are issued the same number of beats for a lifetime: "The pulse then continues, on average, for about two billion pulses. . . . Mayflies to mastodons, beetles to bison, prophets to poets, all are issued the same number of pulses to do with what they will. Tell me, asks the great quiet American poet Mary Oliver, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" Doyle's prose is lyrical and meandering and sometimes whimsical, and always affecting.
 
A nice addition for booksellers is Paraclete Press's explanation of who they are, which includes, "we like it best when readers buy our books from booksellers, our partners in successfully reaching as wide an audience as possible."--Marilyn Dahl

At the King's English Bookstore, Salt Lake City, Utah, the holiday season started with Buy Local First week, which actually lasted 10 days--through two weekends--in the middle of November. "It was great for business and a big promotional thing," co-owner Betsy Burton told Shelf Awareness.

During the "educational" event that was held throughout the state, the King's English and other merchants in its part of Salt Lake City (near the corner of 15th and 15th) gave discounts of 15% so long as customers said they shopped locally. All four major TV stations in the city did stories, and other media covered the event. For Burton, "the best part" of the week was being able to have dialogues with customers about the importance of local businesses. "People were so responsive," she said.

Seven years ago, the King's English had been involved in a buy local program, the Salt Lake City Vest Pocket Business Coalition. Its focus was on educating the government about the value of independent businesses to the local economy and fight against giving economic perks to developers with chains. The Coalition hosted debates, helped a new mayor become elected and ensured that independent businesses are part of the process.

By contrast, Buy Local First Utah, whose membership has grown to nearly 500 businesses, is working across Utah to educate consumers about the importance of local businesses much like similar movements in Boulder, Colo., and Austin, Tex., among other places. The organization plans to hire a director early next year and organize more buy local first events, probably in the spring and around Independence Day.

"People are yearning for community," Burton said. "They are mad in a way they were during the Vietnam War." They link the loss of community with the growth of big box retailers like Wal-Mart, the war and political divisiveness. "Buying local is very powerful," she added. "It seems to be happening everywhere, sometimes very spontaneously." Speaking of independent booksellers, she said, "This and Book Sense are our best hope. It works so well for us."

Another major holiday event is the store's annual holiday party that features local authors, which was held last Thursday. Among the authors honored this year were Pat Bagley, the cartoonist whose Clueless George Goes to Washington is "the single bestselling title of the season," Burton said. And for the first time, Burton herself attended in her capacity as an author (she related this with what seemed like a mix of pride, embarrassment and irony): she just finished her extensive tour for The King's English, her memoir of bookselling that appeared March.

Through the beginning of December, business at the King's English has been "good," Burton said. Among titles she and the staff are handselling or are doing well:

The March by E.L. Doctorow, "my favorite novel of the year. You can sell it to absolutely everybody. It's for people who love a literary novel, for people who love a good read, for people who love history. It's at the head of the list."

Missing Mom by Joyce Carol Oates, which is "very unusual for her. It's not unusual for her to have a book that's unusual for her, but this is really unusual. It's about two sisters whose mother is brutally slain."

Ash and Bone by John Harvey, "a fine dark English mystery. It's a mystery, not a thriller, and almost as complex as John le Carre or P.D. James. It's like the best of Peter Robinson."

Childhood at Oriol by Michael Burn, "a lovely novel from the '50s set between the world wars that has been reissued by Turtle Point. It's for people who want a quietly beautiful book."

Although Burton is selling the Man Booker winner The Sea by John Banville, she is handselling another novel that she calls very similar to The Sea: it's Rules for Old Men Waiting by Peter Pouncey, which came out this spring. "When people ask for The Sea, I say it's a fine novel but also say have you seen this?" Burton said. "It's having a whole new life this fall."

"A beautiful first novel," Rules for Old Men Waiting is about "a man locked in winter in his house in New England. His wife has just died and he's preparing for death himself. He makes a set of rules to keep up and engage in life. He starts to write a novel. The death of his son is involved, too. It's filled with all the education and information in this man's head. It's just brilliant."

Other important titles:

• On Beauty by Zadie Smith
• Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee
• Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love by Anne Fadiman
• The Elements of Style Illustrated, for its "wonderful illustrations."
• Fire Season by Katharine Coles, "a local author."
• The Lightning Keeper by Starling Lawrence
• The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez

Burton's favorite stock stuffers include Case Histories by Kate Atkinson and Banishing Verona by Margot Livesey.

Perhaps most intriguing, Burton is promoting a book this season that won't be out until next year. It's A Strong West Wind by Gail Caldwell, a Boston Globe book editor, about growing up in Texas. "Caldwell has caught the essence of a woman growing up in the West. It's totally enchanting." So Burton is giving gift certificates for the book to "people my age who I think will love this book," whether they are feminists, have a feeling for the West or want to know about the West. "I tell them this book is coming for you later in February," Burton said.