January bookstore sales rose 2%, to $2.3 billion, compared to January 2009, according to preliminary estimates from the Census Bureau.

Total retail sales in January rose 3.1%, to $277.4 billion, compared to the same period a year ago.

Note: under Census Bureau definitions, bookstore sales are of new books and do not include "electronic home shopping, mail-order, or direct sale" or used book sales.

All 23 books by John Grisham will now be available electronically, the AP reported. Grisham had expressed reservations about e-books, and his titles had not been available digitally.

"This is one of our most exciting e-book initiatives to date and is certain to usher in a new generation of Grisham readers and e-book adopters," Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group chairman and editor-in-chief Sonny Mehta said in a statement.

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Barnes & Noble is leading a charge in support of Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes, which Grove/Atlantic is publishing next Tuesday in association with El León Literary Arts: the bookseller is making the title a summer selection of its Discover Great New Writers program (effective April 29) and featuring it in e-mail campaigns, online and in store standalone displays that include comments by authors of other Vietnam War novels.

B&N is also touting its role in helping the book get published, noting that after El León submitted the book for consideration to the Discover Great New Writers program, its booksellers "immediately loved it" and shared their enthusiasm for the book with Grove/Atlantic.

"Matterhorn has had a lot of lucky breaks on its road to publication, and I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who has gotten behind it, but the simple truth is that none of it would have happened without the support of Barnes & Noble and its Discover Great New Writers program," Marlantes said. "They recognized the book's value and they've been championing it ever since."

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The New York Times explored the problem of archiving literary material originally written digitally:

"Electronically produced drafts, correspondence and editorial comments, sweated over by contemporary poets, novelists and nonfiction authors, are ultimately just a series of digits--0's and 1's--written on floppy disks, CDs and hard drives, all of which degrade much faster than old-fashioned acid-free paper. Even if those storage media do survive, the relentless march of technology can mean that the older equipment and software that can make sense of all those 0's and 1's simply don't exist anymore.

"Imagine having a record but no record player."

Quick, for more, read here, before it fades....

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Book trailer of the day: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Jane Austen and Steve Hockensmith (Quirk Books), the prequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

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And don't miss The End of Publishing, distributed originally by Penguin global chairman John Makinson, with a Q&A about the video on Penguin's blog.

Very clever surprise ending--or surprise midpoint!

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Al Casperson, owner of A. Casperson Books, Niles, Mich., spoke with the Daily Star about his recent announcement that the shop will be moving to downtown Niles from the location it has occupied since 1971, when it was started by his father.

"I want to be an old bookshop," he said regarding the new space. "Stuff is going to be everywhere.... Part of having a bookshop is creating an atmosphere. Even if they (customers) don’t buy a book, I want them to come back just because it’s so cool in there."

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"As a small, independent bookseller about to celebrate 83 years in existence in Toronto, we survive by the skin of our teeth, a little luck and some fantastic loyal customers, " wrote Suri Weinberg-Linsky, owner of Squibbs Stationers, in the National Post. "We are booksellers, we know our books and remember our customers' favorite genres. A bookseller on a community's main street is part of the fabric of a neighborhood. We can be walked to, our windows can be admired and sometimes, you get to meet up with a neighbor that you haven't seen for a while. Try that online. You get what you pay for."

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Translator Edith Grossman--once called by Harold Bloom "the Glenn Gould of translators, because she, too, articulates every note"--was profiled in an insightful piece from the Associated Press (via the San Francisco Chronicle) on the art and the business of literary translation in the U.S.

"There are whole segments of the publishing business that don't want to get involved with translations; it's a lot of extra work," observed FSG's Jonathan Galassi. "But if all publishers did make 20% of their books translations, most of them wouldn't get read. It's not just about publishing a book, it's about publishing for a ready readership."

Chad Post of Open Letter Press suggested that there is "still great international literature coming out, it's just that now it's coming out from the smaller, indie-university presses. And the vast majority of these titles don't receive the media attention or bookstore placement necessary to become noticed by mass audiences."

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Kick save and a beauty by the Man Booker Prize winner. Margaret Atwood's resume may be as full as any writer could aspire to, but now she has added to her legendary status with a singing role in the Canadian film Score: A Hockey Musical, the Guardian reported.

"Yes, I sang, shameless me," Atwood wrote on her blog, which also featured photos from the film's set. "We were all in an arena freezing our feet off [including] the star, Noah Reid, and the director, Mike McGowan, and Jody Colero, who got me into it, and a jolly supporting cast of thousands! Hey, I signed a hockey stick."

And just in case you'd like some goalie tips from Atwood, the Guardian also featured this handy instructional video. Pay particular attention to the hockey advice she once received from Robertson Davies.

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Obituary note: Miguel Delibes, described by the Guardian as "the 20th century's foremost writer about Castile, Spain's central tableland," has died. He was 89.

This morning on the Today Show: Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and the cast of The Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie. The movie comes out this coming Friday; The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary (Amulet Books, $14.95, 9780810996168/0810996162) goes on sale today.

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This morning on Good Morning America: Mariana Pasternak, author of The Best of Friends: Martha and Me (Harper, $25.99, 9780061661273/0061661279).

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This morning on the Early Show: Joe Navarro, author of Louder Than Words: Take Your Career from Average to Exceptional with the Hidden Power of Nonverbal Intelligence (HarperBusiness, $24.99, 9780061771392/0061771392).

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Today on Dr. Phil: Michele F. Lowrance, author of The Good Karma Divorce: Avoid Litigation, Turn Negative Emotions into Positive Actions, and Get On with the Rest of Your Life (HarperOne, $25.99, 9780061840692/0061840696).

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Today on Rachel Maddow: Desmond Tutu, author of Made for Goodness: And Why This Makes All the Difference (HarperOne, $25.99, 9780061706592/0061706590).

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Tomorrow morning on the Today Show: Jennifer Trachtenberg, author of The Smart Parent's Guide: To Getting Your Kids Through Checkups, Illnesses, and Accidents (Free Press, $16, 9781439152911/1439152918).

Also on Today: Rachel Allen, author of Favorite Food at Home: Delicious Comfort Food from Ireland's Most Famous Chef (Morrow, $24.99, 9780061809279/0061809276).

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Tomorrow on the Bob Edwards Show: Gregory Boyle, author of Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (Free Press, $25, 9781439153024/1439153027).

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Tomorrow on the Bonnie Hunt Show: Jeff Garlin, author of My Footprint: Carrying the Weight of the World (Simon Spotlight, $25, 9781439150108/1439150109).

The Swedish film of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo opens in the U.S. this coming Friday, March 19, in limited release. The movie has English subtitles. The Swedish films based on the second and third titles in the series are expected to be released here this summer. Hollywood film versions of all three titles are also in the works.

The third book in Stieg Larsson's trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, is being published here by Knopf on May 25.

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Also opening this Friday is Joan Jett's movie The Runaways, starring Kristen Stewart as Jett and Dakota Fanning. Appearing the same day is Joan Jett by Todd Oldham, introduction by Kathleen Hanna (Ammo Books, $34.95, 9781934429600/1934429600), an authorized title that chronicles the singer's career through photographs--many of which have never been published--excerpts from 30 years of interviews and more.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley has won the 2010 Dilys award. The Dilys is sponsored by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association and given to the mystery title of the year that member booksellers have most enjoyed selling. The award honors Dilys Winn, founder of the first specialty bookseller of mystery books in the U.S.

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The 2010 Ridenhour Prizes, sponsored by the Nation Institute and the Fertel Foundation, are:

The Ridenhour Courage Prize, which goes posthumously to Howard Zinn, honored for "his determination to showcase the hidden heroes of social movements throughout history, his refusal to accept the history of only the powerful and victorious, his steadfast belief in the potential for a better world, his unflinching moral stance on fighting whatever he perceived was wrong in society and his fight to inspire students to believe that together, they could make democracy come alive." In the week before his death in January, Zinn learned that he was to receive the award.

The Ridenhour Book Prize goes to Joe Sacco and his graphic novel Footnotes in Gaza, "a work of profound social significance, one that explores the complex continuum of history. At a time when peace in the Middle East has never seemed more elusive, Sacco's illustrations bear witness to the lives of those who are trapped by the conflict." This is the first time this award has gone to what the judges called "an illustrated book."

The Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling goes to Matthew Hoh, the State Department official who resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan. The judges commented: "At a time when Afghanistan was still looked at as the 'good war,' Hoh came forward, very publicly and at great personal risk, to question the war's fundamental rationale. His passionate and informed letter of resignation lit a spark and was, for many, the first extended argument against further escalation in Afghanistan."

The awards, each of which has a $10,000 prize, will be presented April 14 in Washington, D.C.

The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard (Ballantine, $25, 9780345471017/0345471016, April 6, 2010)

Opening lines of books we want to read:

Until she was twenty-five, Jody Linder felt suspicious of happiness.

She hated that about herself, because it tended to sour some otherwise pretty damn fine moments, but this was Rose, Kansas, after all. Only the year before, a pencil tornado had dropped down and killed three people only a few miles from her hometown. A tornado, when the sun was shining! In the winter, there were ice storms. In the summer, there were grass fires. At all times, people she knew went bankrupt, lost their homes, their ranches, their jobs. Or, they died just when you least expected them to. A person could, for instance, belong to a nice family living an ordinary life in a small town in the middle fo nowhere, and on some innocent Saturday night, violent men could drop in like those tornadoes and turn those nice people into the dead stars of a Truman Capote book. Such things happened. That wasn't paranoia. It was a terrible fact that Jody knew better than anybody--or at least better than anybody whose father had not been murdered when she was three years old and whose mother disappeared the same night....

Happiness was fragile, precious, and suspect.--Selected by Marilyn Dahl

Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo has reported from many of the world's most dangerous places, but the experience he recounts in Days of Fear reduces him to sobbing. At 52, he's a seasoned reporter and has come to Afghanistan, a land proudly boasting 3,000 suicide bombers, a country infested by 10 million land mines, to interview a powerful, dangerous leader of the new Taliban. He intends to meet the enemy face to face, to give the Taliban a true voice.

Always carrying with him his copy of Albert Camus' The Plague, heading toward a remote outpost on the edge of Pakistan, walking the thin line between the Taliban and the Afghan police, Mastrogiacomo has a surprise waiting. He's not heading toward an interview, at all. The leader he's come to meet has been placed under arrest. The new leader does not consider the author a journalist. He considers him a spy. Mastrogiacomo is bound and blindfolded, along with his interpreter and driver. Overnight they become tortured, brutalized hostages. His driver is beheaded. His interpreter will be next.

It's an icy plunge into what looks like pure evil. Yet the Taliban who enact these horrors are boys in their 20s, cold-blooded and brutal but sometimes surprisingly sympathetic, not expecting to live long, admiring their short beards with pocket mirrors, callously trying to provoke their prisoners into spilling tears of terror.

Written with grace and fairness, with you-are-there realism, the book is a nail-biter. Mastrogiacomo introduces us to the terror of helplessness, of blindfolds so tight they hurt your eyes, of wounds that go on bleeding for hours because tied hands can't stop the flow of blood. It's a harrowing, heartbreaking, ultimately redemptive journey to the limits of what a man can endure, and Mastrogiacomo brilliantly captures step-by-step the mental fracturing and psychological breakdown that accompany torture, reporting in an unadorned style that is sensitively underwritten.

As a survival story, it's gripping stuff, and you believe every word of it. Think The Old Man and the Sea, set in a world of Kalashnikovs and decapitations. Mastrogiacomo takes the reader on a body-punishing dash across the desert, from villages of tents and cardboard huts to vast opium poppy farms. It's a narrative with all the sheer unpredictability of nonfiction told with the sophistication, compassion and suspense of Joseph Conrad.--Nick DiMartino

Shelf Talker: A harrowing, heartbreaking, ultimately redemptive journey to the limits of what a man can endure, by a journalist captured by the Taliban.

The following were the bestselling titles at members of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association during February:

Hardcovers

1. A Night Too Dark by Dana Stabenow (Minotaur)
2. City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley (Minotaur)
3. Split Image by Robert B. Parker (Putnam)
4. The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell (Random House)
5. The First Rule by Robert Crais (Putnam)
5. Apple Turnover Murder by Joanne Fluke (Kensington)
7. Gator A Go-Go by Tim Dorsey (Morrow)
7. Fantasy in Death by J.D. Robb (Putnam)
9. The Midnight House by Alex Berenson (Putnam)
10. Iron River by T. Jefferson Parker (Dutton)

Softcovers

1. If Books Could Kill by Kate Carlisle (Berkley)
2. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (Bantam)
3. Scarecrow by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Vintage)
5. Living Witness by Jane Haddam (St. Martin's)
6. Town in a Blueberry Jam by B.B. Haywood (Berkley)
7. The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry (Penguin)
8. Sleeping with Anemone by Kate Collins (Obsidian)
9. The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer (Minotaur)
9. The Diva Paints the Town by Krista Davis (Berkley)

[Many thanks to the IMBA!]