"It is a fantasy to think that you can sit behind a counter and read until a customer comes up to pay for a book. Bookselling requires physical and mental stamina. Ordering books requires poring over catalogues with publishing representatives, vendors, and authors. These days a bookseller must have a comfort level with various computer programs from point of sale programs to search engines and publication designs. Boxes of books come daily that must be unboxed, received, and shelved. Organizational skills go beyond alphabetizing. Marketing books once they are in takes retail and design sense. Shelves must be culled of books that are not selling and returned to the publishers or authors. And there is always dusting and sweeping to be done. Oh yeah, and then read, read, read. I used to feel like all I had time to read was the back of a book. After a year as manager that has improved somewhat.

"I have found booksellers to share a common ideal about the world. We care deeply about our communities, about the power of the written word throughout the centuries, the importance of sharing the stories of our human condition. We are finding and even creating new ways to connect with each other, between various organizations and businesses, in partnerships and special projects."

 

The indie bookstore revival is not just a New York City phenomenon (Shelf Awareness, August 3, 2010). Pittsburgh indies are adapting as well. In a feature headlined "The Second Wave of Pittsburgh Bookstores," POP City reported on the Steel City's bookshop renaissance, noting that the "economic climate has bookstores all over town tweaking their business models. "

Laura Jean McLaughlin and Bob Ziller "recently had a bookstore business 'fall out of the sky and into their laps when Ziller's former employer, Riverrun Books... offered them 10,000 'awesome' second-hand books." Awesome Books opened last February and "is moving a hefty number of poetry titles," which surprised the owners. "Poetry is probably our biggest seller," said McLaughlin.

Caliban Book Shop manager Kris Collins welcomed the arrival of Awesome Books, explaining: "The more bookstores, the better. For us, it means more people coming to book-shop in a centralized area, and more places for us to send customers if we don't have the book they're looking for."

Joseph-Beth Booksellers "downsized from a two-level behemoth on Carson Avenue in South Side Works, to a much more compact space facing the Town Square of that complex. But with a location more suited to pedestrians, the store's foot traffic, book browsing, and event attendance have only increased," POP City wrote. "The old location was a place that people drove by," said general manager Chris Rickert. 

Bill Boichel, who moved his Copacetic Comics Company to a larger location in late May that is "three times the size, and offers more display space, sunlight, and an expansive hilltop view" told POP City "that indie culture centers like book and record stores are crucial for 'nurturing the next generation of local talent.'"

POP City also observed that Copacetic's "arrival is one of four new ventures reversing a 30-year trend of decline in neighborhood retail. Appreciative residents have already noted its impact from front porches, as a steady stream of pedestrians pass by, the bookstore's conspicuous green bags in hand."

Twin Cities Daily Planet profiled DreamHaven Books, Minneapolis, Minn.,  and invited readers to "stop in and say hi to one of Minneapolis's longest-standing independent booksellers," owner Greg Ketter.

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Summer reading for Red Sox Nation. The Boston Globe's Bob Ryan "never could figure out what 'beach reading' was. To me, a book is a book, summer, fall, winter, or spring. Locale has nothing to do with it either, whether it’s in bed, on the porch, in the living room, or on the beach. What’s the difference?"

Nonetheless, Ryan suggested "a few sports books that will entertain and edify, with no particular connecting thread other than they’re all new and they’re all good. The connection, if any, is that they do enable us to draw a timeline spanning approximately 125 years of American sport."

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Let the debate begin. NPR's audience nominated 600 novels to its Killer Thrillers poll of the best all-time mystery novels, and then cast more than 17,000 votes to reach the final top 100 list of "fast-moving tales of suspense and adventure" and unexpected darkness.

"Even the [Agatha] Christie pick, And Then There Were None, is one of her creepier novels," said NPR's book critic Maureen Corrigan, who served on the advisory panel for the project.

The top 10 Killer Thrillers:

1. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
3. Kiss the Girls by James Patterson
4. The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
5. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
6. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
7. The Shining by Stephen King
8. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
9. The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
10. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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Lonely Planet has launched an interactive, iPad version of its new Discover guidebook series, beginning with e-books for Great Britain, Italy, Spain, France and Ireland that "feature suggested itineraries organized by region, theme and length of trip," USA Today reported.

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Frontline indie booksellers work in a much quieter environment, but still may empathize with the video series "What it's really like to work in a music store," which was showcased on Boing Boing.

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Patrick Cramsie, author of The Story of Graphic Design: From the Invention of Writing to the Birth of Digital Design, picked the top 10 graphic design books "that have shaped our visual culture" for the Guardian and wrote: "Nearly all of these books on graphic design appeal as much to the eye as to the mind, being beautiful as well as useful. In some, this marriage is so complete that they stand as archetypes of their medium; as specimens of perfection in book form."

 

Analysts weighed in from all corners regarding yesterday's announcement by Barnes & Noble that the board is considering selling the company (Shelf Awareness, August 4, 2010).

The Wall Street Journal reported that Goldman Sachs analyst Matthew Fassler "upgraded his rating on the stock to neutral from sell, adding that interest from both [chairman Len] Riggio, who has about a 30% stake in the company, and [dissident shareholder Ron] Burkle could make a deal possible."

"We assign a 30% probability to a transaction, recognizing potential challenges in financing a transaction and the potential lack of other bidders," said Fassler, adding, "We don't see compelling value in the business."

TheStreet.com explored "Why 'No Sale' Is the Worst That Can Happen," reporting that if "a deal can't be completed, this will not only be a red flag for Barnes & Noble, but the entire book industry, IBISWorld analyst George Van Horn said."

Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter also expressed pessimism: "As long it's primarily a brick and mortar retailer, and that business remains pressured, we believe it will be difficult to get any credit."

The Motley Fool's analysis took a literary turn: "Big booksellers' current situation is an eldritch tale straight out of H.P. Lovecraft's fevered, shadowy brand of horror. Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) shares may have spiked more than 20% today, on word that the company's putting itself on the block, but the ultimate outcome might read a little too much like the cursed Necronomicon Lovecraft alluded to in his works. No thanks!"

SmartMoney.com reported that Morningstar equity analyst Peter Wahlstrom said, "Some critics would say that the shares have been so beaten down that management is just being opportunistic with a depressed share price." He also noted that e-books may help the company: "While hard covers and paperbacks have stagnated and are in a circular decline, some would argue the real revenue or volume driver for the industry is the digital platform."

Forbes cautioned investors: "We have been avoiding shares of BKS since our early June 2008 coverage began, when the stock was trading at $27.31. The company has an unsustainable 7.79% dividend yield, based on last night's closing stock price of $12.84. The stock has technical support in the $11 price area, which are approaching all-time lows. If the shares can firm up, we see overhead resistance around the $16-$18 price levels. We would remain on the sidelines for now."

At Rocket Bomber, a B&N employee offered "an annotated, paragraph by paragraph translation" of the company's press release "with highlights for key portions, and a bit of dramatization." One highlight: "And, um, do we have to bring up the employees? Yes? [*sigh*] OK, we also pay people to sell things. But they’re not as important as the Unique & the Digital & the Explosive! See, Wall Street? We had to mention that we pay people to sell books, but we mentioned it last. Can we a least get half-credit for that?"

The New Sleekness blog suggested an alternative future for the company that begins with "If I were a rich man, I'd buy B&N" and concludes with a vision of "instant community centers that promote book (and other) culture where before stood a big, cold piece of consumer monoculture."

 

For Gary Shteyngart's reading Tuesday night at Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, Wash., Erica Cooper, one of the store's cookbook section gurus, made a spread of Korean food in honor of Eunice Park, the heroine of Super Sad True Love Story (Random House). Here Shteyngart chows down.

 

 

Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Ilyon Woo, author of The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times (Atlantic Monthly Press, $25, 9780802119469/0802119468).

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Tomorrow on 20/20: Michael Capuzzo, author of The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases (Gotham, $26, 9781592401420/1592401422).

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Tomorrow night on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Heather McDonald, author of You'll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again: One Woman's Painfully Funny Quest to Give It Up (Touchstone, $15, 9781439176283/1439176280).

 

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, August 7

5 p.m. For an event hosted by Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, N.C., Scott Huler, author of On the Grid: A Plot of Land, an Average Neighborhood, and the Systems That Make Our World Work (Rodale, $24.99, 9781605296470/1605296473), examines the infrastructure of his own Raleigh, N.C., neighborhood.

7 p.m. Jenn Risko, publisher and co-founder of Shelf Awareness, discusses several noteworthy titles being released in the fall, ranging from memoirs by George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice to the personal papers of Nelson Mandela and presidential diaries of Jimmy Carter. (Re-airs Sunday at 6 a.m. and 4:15 p.m., and Monday at 2:30 a.m.)

7:30 p.m. Naomi Cahn and June Carbone, co-authors of Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture (Oxford University Press, $29.95, 9780195372175/0195372174), examine how regional and ideological differences effect American families.

9 p.m. William LaForge discusses his book Testifying Before Congress: A Practical Guide to Preparing and Delivering Testimony before Congress and Congressional Hearings for Agencies, Associations, NGOs, and State and Local Officials (TheCapitol.Net, $67, 9781587331633/1587331632). (Re-airs Sunday at 10 a.m. and Monday at 4 a.m.)

10 p.m. After Words. John Pike, founder and director of GlobalSecurity.org, interviews Richard Whittle, author of The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey (S&S, $27, 9781416562955/1416562958). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m., Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m., and Sunday, August 15, at 12 p.m.)

11 p.m. For an event hosted by Politics & Prose bookstore, Washington, D.C., Akbar Ahmed, author of Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam (Brookings Institution Press, $29.95, 9780815703877/0815703872), recounts visiting Muslim communities in 75 towns and cities in the U.S. (Re-airs Sunday at 6 p.m.)

Sunday, August 8

7 a.m. Charles Ogletree talks about his book The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Race, Class and Crime in America (Palgrave Macmillan, $25, 9780230103269/023010326X). (Re-airs Sunday at 7 p.m.)

9 a.m. Alexander Zaitchik, author of Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance (Wiley, $25.95, 9780470557396/0470557397), contends that Beck's radio career was floundering until he found a niche in promoting negligent claims against the left and coordinating political rallies. (Re-airs Sunday at 11 p.m. and Monday at 7 a.m.)

 

Screenwriter Jennifer Salt talked about adapting Eat Pray Love with CNN, which reported that "not only did she love the book, but Salt also for a time followed the same guru who plays such a pivotal role in Gilbert's book."

"There were things in the book that I loved, things that Ryan [Murphy, the director] loved and the sense from the author... of things that the audience of the book really loved," Salt said. "I think we felt a responsibility to try and include them all, but at a certain point, you can't accommodate them all."

"[The book] wasn't laid out with those natural climaxes and conflicts," she added. "We at first looked at it and thought we kind of had to invent a story in a way because [the book] was episodic and at the end of each chapter, you had a resolution. Resolution is not something you want in a screenplay. It's the lack of resolution which drives you to the end of the story, so it was tricky."

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Jack Bender (Lost) is heading a "short list of directors to resuscitate the Tom Clancy-created Jack Ryan franchise, with Chris Pine playing the character in a contemporized original story that picks up Ryan before he joined the CIA," Deadline.com reported, noting that "Paramount Pictures and co-financier Skydance Productions are readying for a February production start." The film's tentative title is Moscow. The last Jack Ryan movie was 2002's The Sum of All Fears, starring Ben Affleck.

 

Winners of the 2010 New England Book Awards are:
 
Fiction: Father of the Rain by Lily King (Grove Atlantic)
Nonfiction: Let's Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell (Random House)
Children's Books: City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems, illustrated by Jon J. Muth (Hyperion)

The New England Independent Booksellers Association will honor the winning authors during a ceremony Thursday, September 30, at NEIBA's Fall Conference.

 

It sounds like a fictional thriller: great detectives from five continents meet once a month in secret chambers to ponder--and hopefully solve--cold cases over a gourmet lunch. But it's not fiction. In The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases (Gotham Books, $26, 9781592401420/1592401422, August 10, 2010), Michael Capuzzo tells the story of the Philadelphia-based Vidocq Society, a group with 82 members--one for each year of the life of Eugène François Vidocq, the first modern detective--and more than 100 associate members drawn from all over the world.

Capuzzo focuses on the three men who formed the Society in 1990: Frank Bender--manic, intuitive, psychic and happily sex-addicted--is the most celebrated forensic artist working today. Richard Walter--tall, melancholy, acerbic, chain-smoking--is a forensic psychologist and eerily brilliant profiler. William Fleisher, head of U.S. Customs enforcement in three states, is the administrator who allows Bender and Walter, "equal parts Reason and Revelation," to function at their best.

As they and their colleagues solve the most baffling, often heartbreaking cold cases, we come face to face with terrifying crimes and eccentric and enthralling forensic professionals. We talked to Michael Capuzzo about the people, the cases and the depths of bone-chilling evil.

How did you come across the Vidocq Society?

I had finished writing Close to Shore (about a rogue killer shark) and was researching ideas for my next book, when I stumbled onto a website called Cuisine and Crimes, about the Vidocq Society. Danny DeVito had bought the rights to its story, I was living in Philadelphia where it's based, it was 10 minutes away--a kismet moment.

Why did they decide to let you write their story?

They're colorful and they do great work, and they are human, so of course they want recognition. The main characters I write about--William Fleisher, Frank Bender, Richard Walter--had read Close to Shore ("It's a book about a goddamned fish!") and they liked it. And publicity helps them get more cases and get their name out.

Which case, in your opinion, was their most spectacular?

There were so many! Hans Vorhaus, Leisha Hamilton, John List....The Boy in the Box because of its longevity. Leisha Hamilton because the Vidocq Society pulled that conviction from the jaws of hell. It showed their ability to go the irrational--their art, if you will--and their ability to peer into the heart of evil.

What happens when they solve a cold case and the authorities don't care?

It takes all the stars to be aligned to solve a cold case. Those left behind--the victim's family--are the heart and soul of making sure a cold case stays alive. But if there is no political support for the case, which usually means support from a D.A.'s office, then the only satisfaction in solving the crime is for the family. It's endlessly frustrating to the members.

It's also somewhat frustrating to have no official role, since they work in an advisory capacity. They can't bring charges or accusations; they can offer advice and counsel, however, and they can sit in on interrogations.

The cases they solve are fascinating, but not more so than Fleisher, Bender and Walter, each for different reasons--Walter, in particular, with his ability to profile.

Walter [photo, left] does have an uncanny ability. He's a genius. Together the three form the archetype of the great detective. Bill keeps them together, Frank is psychic and Richard profiles--he knows the darkest secrets of the human heart. Cops would do great forensic work, but often can't see the motive--they can't go beyond logic. But Walter can, and I learned so much about human nature from him. It was like having Dostoevsky as a mentor. He's also worked a Sherlock Holmes persona into his social life, and excels at black humor. He's open about the fact he's quite eccentric--who wouldn't be? What does it do to a person, knowing what he knows?

What's next for you?

For the present, media appearances. The book comes out August 10, and I'll be on Fresh Air that week. Prior to that is a USA Today interview. On August 13, 20/20 will air a one-hour special about The Murder Room and the Vidocq Society. ABC hopes to make the stories into a series. --Marilyn Dahl

 

 

Margaret Dilloway based this novel on actual events in the life of her mother, who was a Japanese war bride brought to the States by her American husband. Despite the tensions revealed between mother and daughter, this close connection lends immediacy to the story.

Shoko was a typical Japanese girl, encouraged by her parents to "marry well." Her father, born to wealth, sold everything and became a priest in midlife. Shoko missed her lovely silk dresses but followed her mother's example and did not complain. She fell in love with Ronin, a Burakumin or Eta, a member of a class discriminated against since feudal times. Her brother, Taro, chastised her for this connection, saying that she was bringing shame to her family. A friend of Taro's, Tetsuo, who was in love with Shoko and had been engaged to her before he was caught in flagrante delicto with her roommate, dispatched Ronin, leaving Shoko brokenhearted.

Ever practical, she took inventory of the Americans she had also been dating, showed her father their photographs and he picked the best candidate: Charlie. Shoko's father advised her to ask the soldier to marry her before his tour was up. She did, and they were married almost immediately. Taro was incensed; he'd never come to terms with the Americans winning the war, and the marriage resulted in an estrangement from Shoko.

Fast-forward to Shoko, in her 60s and suffering a heart condition that may have been caused by her proximity to the bombing of Nagasaki. She has just received news that her sister in Japan has died of the same malady. It suddenly becomes imperative to Shoko that she be reconciled with her brother. She is too ill to travel, so she sends her daughter, Sue, and granddaughter, Helena, to carry a letter to Taro. Sue, a single mother, is mired in a dead-end job and ready for a change.

This leads to the best part of the book: an appreciation of the pace of Japanese country life and the Japanese aesthetic with its gentle insistence on finding beauty everywhere, and then, finally, to the revelation of Shoko's long-held secret, previously known only to Charlie. Sue also makes discoveries that will change her life. The end feels hurried, as all these things take place in very few pages.

Threaded throughout the book, as chapter headings, are excerpts from a book that Dilloway's father gave Shoko, The American Way of Housekeeping. It was a guidebook created by American officers' wives for their Japanese housekeepers in 1948, and given to many Japanese brides to teach them how to be successful American wives. Reading it today is an exercise in our own cultural history and how times have changed for women.--Valerie Ryan

Shelf Talker: A multilayered story of relations between mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters and Japanese-American cultural divides.

 

The following were the bestselling books at independent bookstores in and near Chicago during the week ended Sunday, August 1:

Hardcover Fiction

1. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
2. Star Island by Carl Hiaasen
3. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
4. Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner
5. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob Z by David Mitchell

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain
2. Were You Born on the Wrong Continent by Thomas Geoghegan
3. Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern
4. Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth
5. Fiesta at Rick's by Rick Bayless

Paperback Fiction

1. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
3. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
4. One Day by David Nicholls
5. Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

Paperback Nonfiction

1. Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
2. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
3. Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart
4. Clandestine in Chile by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
5. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Children's

1. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephanie Meyer
2. The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie
4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
5. The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

Reporting bookstores: Anderson's, Naperville and Downers Grove; Read Between the Lynes, Woodstock; the Book Table, Oak Park;tThe 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 booksellers and Carl Lennertz!]