During the American Booksellers Association's winter meetings, the board nominated three director candidates to serve three-year terms (2010–2013), according to Bookselling This Week.

Nominees for the upcoming elections are Sarah Bagby of Watermark Books, Wichita, Kan.; Steve Bercu of BookPeople, Austin, Tex.; and Tom Campbell of the Regulator Bookshop, Durham, N.C. Bercu and Campbell currently serve on the ABA board and are both eligible for an additional three-year term. Cathy Langer of Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, Colo., will leave the board in June.

The board selected Michael Tucker of Books Inc., San Francisco, Calif., and Becky Anderson of Anderson's Bookshops, Naperville and Downers Grove, Ill., to serve second one-year terms as ABA president and v-p/secretary, respectively.

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BTW also offered an update on e-fairness legislation initiatives, reporting that the Virginia state senate "voted overwhelmingly to pass e-fairness legislation... observers noted a key factor in the state senate passage of the e-fairness bill was the active advocacy on the bill's behalf by Main Street retailers, including independent booksellers."

"This experience reminds all of us that there is no effective substitute for the strong involvement of booksellers on this issue," said ABA CEO Oren Teicher.

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J.K. Rowling responded to the plagiarism case filed against her and her publisher (Shelf Awareness, February 18, 2010) by calling the accusations "unfounded" and "absurd," adding that her lawyers will apply to the court for a ruling that the claim is without merit and should be dismissed, the New York Times reported.

"I am saddened that yet another claim has been made that I have taken material from another source to write Harry," said Rowling. "The fact is I had never heard of the author or the book before the first accusation by those connected to the author's estate in 2004; I have certainly never read the book. The claims that are made are not only unfounded but absurd."

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At the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association's annual board of directors retreat last month, board members were presented, and approved, several cost reductions to achieve a balanced budget for 2010 after experiencing a $65,000 shortfall in 2009. A summary of the meeting by PNBA's executive director, Thom Chambliss, can be found here. 

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The Golden Notebook bookstore, Woodstock, N.Y., is up for sale. In a letter to "Fellow Independent Booksellers" posted on the Bookshop Blog, co-owner Ellen Shapiro wrote that after 32 years in business, the shop is looking for a new owner.

"This step is being taken because the illness of one of its owners makes it impossible to provide the hours and service that the community has come to expect and deserve," Shapiro explained. "Our goal is to find a buyer who will continue to maintain it as an independent bookstore."

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DeLillo reads! Vanity Fair featured a breathless report on Don DeLillo's rare reading from Point Omega at BookCourt, Brooklyn, N.Y., noting that "the smallish Brooklyn bookstore was packed to the gills with an eager crowd (including Paul Giamatti). The rarity of the occasion put a lot of pressure on the evening, and it really felt as if the crowd wanted everything to be perfect, as if it were on a collective first date with DeLillo. This was going to be a night to remember. We were on our best behavior, determined that our winning attentiveness would convince the reclusive author to come out more often."

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Jeremiah's Vanishing New York blog celebrated the return of Left Bank Books, "an old favorite come back to life" in its new location, and noted: "I am happy to say that the little shop has not lost its warm and bookish charms."

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"I always have my cell phone with me, and no matter what purse size I have, I still have a book to read," retired bookshop manager Merri Scott told Lee News Service in a piece about the e-book boom among readers, authors and booksellers

Bestselling author Scott Turow suggested the e-book has also broken a gender gap: "In all honesty, it's brought a significant number of men back to reading because they like to play with the gadget."

Jan Weissmiller, co-owner of the Prairie Lights bookstore, Iowa City, Iowa, is adapting to the digital age, but expressed faith in the bricks-and-mortar retail model as well. "People are still going to want to have that meeting place, and they’re going to want to have it around books," she said. "Will parents really want to read from a computer screen to their 18-month-old?"

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Literary buzz from Fashion Week in New York City (via the New York Post): REM's Michael Stipe "was weighed down by knowledge at yesterday's Jeremy Scott show. Instead of carrying the gift bags (which contained condoms) that we've seen toted around this week, Stipe showed up with two massive bags from the Strand bookshop."

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Book trailer of the day: Horns by Joe Hill (Morrow). (Grab the widget at the author's website to find the video, an excerpt, custom playlist and Hill's blog.)

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Entertainment Weekly's Shelf Life blog interviewed actor Denis Leary (Rescue Me), author of Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid, about his reading life. Leary's favorite book of all time? "It's a tie between Without Feathers by Woody Allen and Orr on Ice. Okay--it's Orr on Ice, which is a giant hockey book about Bobby Orr--the greatest hockey player of all time--and what he eats, how he skates, what he wears, how often he eats, how he scored, how many times he scored, etc. etc. It's big and dumb and stupid and I read it at least once a year. It was published in 1972. That really shows you where my literary interests lie. Although I do think the Woody Allen book is incredibly well written and funny."

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In the Scotsman, Lee Randall reported from the speed-dating front lines at an Edinburgh Bookshop event: "And kudos to the bookshop. A themed dating event makes heaps of sense. It allows for the sensation (if untrue, as I was to discover) that we were a room full of rabid bibliophiles. That's a big deal if you're like me, and can't bring yourself to swoon over anyone who doesn't read.

"Though many of my mini chat-up sessions covered unbookish ground--what do you do, where are you from, what do you mean you've never heard of Andrea Levy?--it was comforting knowing that any pregnant pauses could be filled with questions about what was on the nightstand waiting for the next chapter to unfold. Plus I was able to recommend some of my favorite writers to people who had never heard of them. And maybe that will spark a love affair of another sort entirely!"

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Amazon has introduced a Kindle application for BlackBerry users in the U.S.
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DC Entertainment, a division of Warner Brothers Entertainment, has named Jim Lee and Dan DiDio as co-publishers of its DC Comics imprint, the New York Times reported.
 

At a long-anticipated hearing Thursday on the Google Book settlement (Shelf Awareness, December 18, 2010), U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin "put lawyers who reached the $125 million settlement on the defensive.... When the lawyers who completed revisions on the deal in the fall took their turn to speak, Chin questioned why the settlement gave Google publishing rights well into the future rather than merely rectifying any harm that led authors and publishers to sue it five years ago," the Associated Press (via the Huffington Post) reported. He did not offer an immediate ruling.

"Usually it's a release of claims based on what's happened in the past," Chin said to Michael J. Boni, a lawyer for authors. "Usually you don't have a release of claims based on future conduct. Why is this case different?" The judge suggested "it seemed akin to a settlement in a discrimination action containing wording that says: 'I'm releasing you now from discriminating against me in the future.' "

He also said, "I would surmise that Google wants the orphan books and that's what this is about."

Some highlights from the testimony, as reported by the AP:

• U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General William F. Cavanaugh said Google had used the settlement to give it rights it never negotiated for, "essentially rewriting people's contracts.... It produces benefits to Google that Google could not achieve in the marketplace because of the existence of orphan works."
• Attorney Daralyn J. Durie, speaking for Google Inc., said provisions of the deal requiring authors to opt-out if they don't want their books scanned rather than requiring Google to first get each rightholder's approval was not an issue the company could be flexible on.
• "It's not going to be a great library, it's going to be a great store," said Sarah Canzoneri, a member of the Children's Book Guild and plaintiff in a lawsuit by authors and publishers.
• A lawyer for Sony Corp., which makes electronic book readers, said the company supports Google's effort because it would promote competition. But an attorney for Microsoft Corp. complained that it would give Google an unfair advantage.
• The deal "raises very serious privacy concerns," said John Morris, an attorney for the Center for Democracy & Technology.

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"People familiar with the matter" told the Wall Street Journal they expect the judge to take several months to make his ruling.

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One speaker supporting the settlement, Lateef Mtima, director of the Institute of Intellectual Property and Social Justice at Howard University, said it "would aid in the 'development of a thriving, vibrant culture,'" the New York Times wrote.

Opponents of the deal, however, also pointed out that Google would have the right to scan and sell orphan works, and Hadrian Katz, a lawyer for the Internet Archive, a nonprofit group that is scanning books for its own digitization project, said, "You can’t settle a claim for copyright infringement by authorizing the miscreant to continue to infringe copyright."

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In a statement issued after the hearing, Google said, "We appreciate the concerns voiced, but we believe the settlement strikes the right balance and should not be destroyed to satisfy the particular interests of the objectors," the Washington Post reported.

Tomorrow on NPR's On the Media: Marilyn Johnson, author of This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All (Harper, $24.99, 9780061431609/0061431605).

Walter Kirn, author of Up in the Air, which was adapted into the Oscar-nominated movie, did not get an invitation to this year's Academy Awards ceremony and he isn't happy about it.

The Wrap reported that Kirn took his case to the 21st-century court of public opinion--Twitter--where he wrote: "Caution to writers: Don't expect that because you write a novel that becomes an Oscar-nominated film that you'll be invited to the Oscars. Novelists are like oil in H'wood: they drill us, pipeline us, pump us and then burn us."

Paramount Pictures said Kirn is "on our wish list for seats, as are producers and executive producers of our film who do not have seats yet."

Oren Moverman, director of Oscar nominee The Messenger, is negotiating to rework the screenplay and direct an as-yet untitled Kurt Cobain project. "Material on the life, music and 1994 suicide of the Nirvana singer-songwriter will come at least partially from Charles R. Cross’s 2001 Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain. Universal originally purchased the life rights of both Cobain and his widow, Courtney Love, who had already optioned the film rights to the Cross book," according to the Hollywood Reporter's Risky Business blog.

Scottish Terrier "Sadie" wasn't the only big winner at last weekend's Westminster Dog Show in New York City. The Alliance of Purebred Dog Writers celebrated the top writers, photographers and publications focusing on the purebred dog. Dogs: The First 125 Years of the American Kennel Club, published by the AKC, won the Arthur Frederick Jones Awards for best nonfiction book, DogChannel.com reported.

The Dog Writers Association of America also held its awards event and Brian Patrick Duggan took home the Single Breed Book award for Saluki: The Desert Hound and the English Travelers Who Brought It to the West. 

Prolific author Jerome Charyn has been teaching film for the past 14 years at the American University of Paris. He learned the art of table tennis while living in Paris and was demolished in many a tournament by teenage champions. He discovered language and literature through the poems of Emily Dickinson. His previous novel, Johnny One-Eye, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Charyn's new novel, The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, will be published by Norton next Monday.
 
On your nightstand now:
 
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Hitler by Ian Kershaw, The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell and Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada. I like to read with Emily Dickinson's cadences inside my head, to bump along with her music. But right now I'm finishing a novel about Berlin during World War II. So I dream with Emily Dickinson and with the sinews of Berlin's bombed-out canals and streets.
 
Favorite book when you were a child:
 
Bambi. Name one child who has ever really recovered from the death of Bambi's mother. All my life I have been striving to recapture the emotion of that sense of loss on every page I write.
 
Your top five authors:
 
Emily Dickinson, William Faulkner, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem and Cormac McCarthy. All of them are magicians who have a striking sense of the line and are as unpredictable as the greatest of sharpshooters... or ping-pong players.
 
Book you've faked reading:
 
War and Peace. When I was at college, a couple of centuries ago, you were considered worthless until you had read Tolstoy's War and Peace. Naturally I decided not to read the book. But Tolstoy was everywhere, and pretty soon I was babbling about the beautiful Natasha and the bumbling Pierre Bezhukov. I invented battle scenes, love stories, tales of catastrophe and ruin. People never ceased to listen. Years later I dipped into War and Peace and discovered that all my battle scenes and tales of catastrophe were in the book. Either I had invented Tolstoy or Tolstoy had invented me.
 
Book you're an evangelist for:
 
Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen. The whole planet sees Leonard Cohen as a magnificent songster, but I see him as a great novelist gone astray. From its opening lines, the novel reads like a love song to a vanished Indian tribe. It's funny, lyrical and heartbreaking.
 
Book you've bought for the cover:
 
The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel. There are three Cossacks who look like rabbinical students riding across a pale white background, as if they were personages in a painting by Chagall.
 
Book that changed your life:
 
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. When I first read the opening lines, told from the point of view of a man with the mind of a child, I realized I wanted to write. Nothing else would please me than to play with words the way Benjy plays, with the same sad, syncopated melody.
 
Favorite line from a book:
 
"To shut our eyes is Travel," from The Letters of Emily Dickinson. Don't we Travel with our eyes shut whenever we dream our way into a book? Isn't she trying to reassure us that writing and reading are the only Aladdin's lamp we'll ever need?
 
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
 
Gulliver's Travels. How modern Gulliver's voyages suddenly seem, as if Jonathan Swift were examining our own interior landscape, where we are both large and small, and our whole identity can change in an instant.
 

I met Jamie Fiocco, Sarah Carr and Land Arnold last September at SIBA's trade show in Greenville, S.C. In a column I wrote after the SIBA show, I said I'd been immediately impressed by their collective knowledge and passion as booksellers, as well as their undeniable courage as business people. Their new bookstore, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C., had its soft opening in November and a successful grand opening January 9.

Now that the bookshop is three months old--and with so many news stories appearing about bookstores on their last legs--it seemed like a good time to explore an indie that is on its first legs. Every bookstore is a story, and this one just hit the "Once upon a time" stage. For the next couple of weeks, the Flyleaf crew will share some early impressions of their new lives as bookstore owners. Jamie got the conversation started.

When Flyleaf Books hosted its grand opening, they had anticipated a crowd of about 150 people. "I got 125 wine glasses, thinking we’d have extras, and we had 350 show up," Jamie recalled, noting that community support "has been very, very good. I’ve bumped into folks in town talking about the store; folks walk in the door every day and immediately thank us for being brave enough to open an independent bookstore in town. We were overwhelmed with how many folks didn’t hesitate to become Flyleaf members or to buy gift certificates from us for their holiday gifts. Industry support has been equally positive. The reps and publishers made everything from their end move very easily. The other folks in the industry--media, vendors--were very supportive as well. I think with all the shifting going on in the publishing world folks were happy to have a positive project to be excited about."

After years as a frontline bookseller, being an owner has been "exhilarating and exhausting," Jamie observed. "It’s a beautiful thing to be able to talk to customers and to explain to them why the store is a certain way, or why we carry a certain book or type of book (or don’t carry them). It’s a whole new crowd of folks to introduce to all your favorite books and authors. And, on a different note, it’s nice having veto power in my back pocket, meaning I (we) have the ability to say 'no' when dealing with a customer, vendor or a self-published author who is being unreasonable. There have been a few times where someone was pushing an idea that didn’t dovetail with the store’s goals and it was nice to be able to tell them nicely that I just wasn’t interested."

I wondered if there was an aspect of the bookstore that they were uncertain about before opening, but have found exceeded expectations. She cited Flyleaf's events space: "We have a 1600-square-foot dedicated events space that we are using for readings. It’s the old aerobics/yoga room from the gym that used to be in this space, so the acoustics are great and there’s a beautiful wooden floor. We’ve been taken by surprise at how many community groups want to use the space for meetings, musical groups that want to use the space for performance, and all sorts of literary groups--writing classes, open mics, poetry slams--that need a space to meet regularly. We have had to develop rules about who can use the space; first priority to author events, then other events with a book tie-in. We’ve even developed a fee schedule for non-literary groups to rent the space when we don’t need it otherwise. We had a Phase Two in mind for the events room, and we’ve already moved ahead with part of that in installing a really nice AV projector and screen so we can accommodate DVD presentations and films in the room."
 
And what's personal life been like for the new bookstore owners? "I’ve had to almost completely abandon the notion of life outside the bookstore; since Sept 2 it’s been nonstop," Jamie admitted. "We’ve been open for 90 days now and we’re finally at the point where Land and I have discussed having regular days off. We don’t know when those days are yet, but we’ve been able to take a few here and there. We’ve got an employee who is able to close for us on weekends. Sarah’s been the rock; she opens the store 9 a.m. Monday through Friday and works into the early afternoon so Land and I can sleep in a bit. My husband has been very understanding; we talked about it before we started this project and decided two years of chaos was a fair price. Land and I have gotten pretty good at simply telling the other to go home and get some sleep. I absolutely cannot imagine doing this alone."

More from the Flyleaf Books crew next week.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)