With this issue, we welcome our talented former colleague Maria Heidkamp as a contributing editor. A graduate of Cornell, she worked as a labor policy analyst for the National Governors' Association, then was awarded the first Random House Publishing Studies Fellowship to attend graduate school at New York University. In the early 1990s, she worked at Publishers Weekly with John Mutter, covering bookselling with her typical humor and energy. She then ran the U.S. Department of Labor's labor market transition program in Hungary for six years. (There she won several awards, including one from the Hungarian Ministry of Defense--so watch out!)

Her first piece for Shelf Awareness is about the Attic Bookstore, which is reopening today in new space in Englewood, Colo. Selling mostly used books, the new store has a rather ghoulish décor, aimed at scaring up sales, particularly with younger readers of all genres. The Attic doesn't specialize in mystery or horror; instead it simply aims to be like a theme restaurant--serving food for the mind in a fun setting.

We look forward to running many more stories with Maria's byline.

Better-than-expected holiday sales and rumors of a possible buyout by any of four private equity firms (see yesterday's Shelf Awareness) drove up Borders stock 10.2% to $24.70 a share on a down day for the market. Borders trading volume was almost 3.5 million shares, nearly six times the usual.

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Dutton's Bookstore in North Hollywood, Calif., the store that carries a mix of new, used and collectible books and is owned by Davis Dutton, will close sometime in the next few months, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. Dutton will continue to sell rare books online.

Dutton's parents founded the store in 1961. Dutton's brother Doug owns stores in Brentwood and Beverly Hills that have no business connection to Dutton's North Hollywood.

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Aww. Check out the Book Sense's 2006 Valentine's Day Top Ten titles, produced in conjunction with, naturally, a partner, the Association of American Publishers' Get Caught Reading campaign. The tempting ten include Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx, The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time and The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.

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Speaking of the AAP, the organization's gross sales figures for November, for which 74 publishers reported, showed sales rose 0.6% to $979.4 million. Paperbacks of all kinds did exceptionally well. The strongest categories included university press paperbacks, up 29.4% (although u.p. hardcovers dropped 17.5%); children's and YA paperbacks, up 18.8% (although the same category in hardcover was down 7.3%); mass market titles, up 11.8%; electronic books, up 117% (but from a base of $600,000); and audiobooks, up 8.6%.

Religious books stumbled 11.3%, higher education was down 4.9% while adult hardcovers and paperbacks nudged upwards, 1.4% and 5.3% respectively.

College booksellers and publishers gather in Houston, Tex., Fri.-Tues., March 3-7 for CAMEX (the Campus Market Expo) and annual convention of the National Association of College Stores. The two days of seminars delve into topics ranging from digital content delivery, the latest in RFID and e-commerce to used books display, textbook loyalty programs and more. Three days of the trade show follow.

Mike Wallace, whose memoir is Between You and Me (Hyperion), is the opening session speaker. The motivational breakfast speaker is the brave Paul Rusesabagina, whose as a hotel manager saved 1,200 people during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, as profiled in the movie Hotel Rwanda. His autobiography, An Ordinary Man (Viking), will be published in April.

Among other highlights: Betsy Burton, co-owner of the King's English, Salt Lake City, Utah, and author of the eponymous memoir about her life as an independent bookseller, will speak. The highly popular Book & Author Breakfast features Dava Sobel, whose new book is The Planets; Myla Goldberg, author of Bee Season and Wickett's Remedy; Jeffrey Eugenides, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Middlesex; and Ron McLarty, whose The Memory of Running languished in his desk drawer until Stephen King called it "the best book you can't read."

For more information, to the CAMEX Web site.

The Early Show goes for a walk this morning with John Grogan, author of the hottest dog book of the holidays, Marley & Me (HarperCollins, $21.95, 0060817089).

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This morning the Today Show sits with Suzanne Hansen, author of You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again: The True Adventures of a Hollywood Nanny (Crown, $22, 0307237540).

Also on the Today Show, Elizabeth Somer talks about her book, 10 Habits That Mess Up a Woman's Diet (McGraw-Hill, $16.95, 0071462287).

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Today the Diane Rehm Show goes over the numbers quickly with Jane Bryant Quinn, author of Smart and Simple Financial Strategies for Busy People (S&S, $26, 0743269942).

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Today on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show: Mary-Ann Tirone Smith who talks about her childhood memoir, Girls of Tender Age (Free Press, $24, 0743279778).

Debby Rosenzweig clearly doesn't suffer from paraskavedekatriaphobia, also known as fear of Friday the 13th. She chose today, this most unlucky of days, to reopen her mostly used-book bookstore, the Attic Bookstore, at its new location in Englewood, Colo. The reopening date is but one sign that the Attic is no ordinary bookstore. Just ask the two resident black cats who prowl the premises, Agatha and Edgar. And beware the hanging pirates, skeletons, ravens and skulls (14 at last count).

Business had been good in the four and half years Rosenzweig has owned and managed the original Attic in Denver, which Rosenzweig attributed in part to the many used bookstores in the old neighborhood. "It's good to have competition, especially in used bookstores," she commented. Also the store, which served coffee, drew a lot of people who liked to hang out and talk. Over half of the Attic's sales are now online, however, and over time, the store needed more space.

A former interior designer, Rosenzweig put a lot of effort into the new location's décor--particularly after visiting a ghoulish New York City theme restaurant, Jekyll and Hyde. As her husband, Gary Rosenzweig, who has a computer programming company and is a former journalist, put it in an announcement about the store: "Restaurants have been using extreme décor to attract people for years.  It helps differentiate them from each other, even though they all essentially serve the same food." The Rosenzweigs' goal: to adapt that strategy to the book business.

Despite appeareances, the store doesn't specialize in mystery and horror titles. Rosenzweig explained: "We've always been called the Attic, and we want it to be like what you'd find in an old attic, only creepier--and with a bit of humor."

Among the treasured finds for the new Attic is a suit of armor that's "really quite creepy," bought on eBay, as well as a few things that, Rosenzweig said, "people claim are haunted." These include old dolls, a full-sized mummy, full-sized skeletons, lots of ravens and a pirate. Inhabitants also include  "a three-foot alien, and lots of little stuff."

The ultimate in Attic creepy may be something Gary Rosenzweig is putting together: a huge painting of Edgar Allan Poe with a computer screen behind it so that the eyes will move and turn red, following customers as they mill around.

Rosenzweig is striving to find a balance, hoping to scare up sales but not scare off some readers, particularly the many older customers "who love us and will follow us." But she also wants to appeal to a "younger crowd--the 'goth group'--who read a lot of literature, poetry, philosophy. Something like this can attract them. When the destination concept came up, that wasn't the main idea, but as we moved along with it, we decided if it's a little creepy, the younger crowd might be a little more interested."

For the youngest readers, the Attic has "a fantastic children's section, with a great castle to walk through, with an archway, and bookcases. We bought it from a toy store that was going out of business. It's kind of like a haunted mansion at Disneyworld."

The Attic expects to take advantage of its new ambiance to organize many a murder mystery party. One of the Attic's employees does events coordinating part-time. Coming soon will also be a "Poe-etry" night, where guests can read from their own work or from favorite poems by others. The store also plans to host a "different type of book club," where members share the book they're reading with the group. These titles will become part of a recommended reading display.

Other Dimensions

The new store has 3,000 square feet of space, compared to about 1,700 at the original site. It currently has about 55,000 titles and can probably hold around 100,000. About 90%-95% of books are used. Online sales account for well over half the business.

At first, the Rosenzweigs did not plan to sell books online. But when they decided to put their titles on computer, they realized it would be easy to do online sales. Gary Rosenzweig urged Debby to stick to rare books and hardcover books, but she wanted to do them all. The outcome? "He was wrong, and I was right," says the Mrs.  

The new store has a warehouse, which will make fulfillment of online orders much easier. It's attached to the bookstore and includes a loading dock, which means "we'll be able to keep the mess in the back." The Attic currently has a staff of four, and Rosenzweig hopes to add more in the summer.

In the new store, history, philosophy, metaphysics and new age all needed to be a lot bigger than in the old store; health needed to be a lot smaller. "Self-help becomes obsolete so quickly, anything older than two years, we don't want," she said. Sci-fi and mystery have always been large sections, reflecting the Rosenzweigs' personal interest.

Romance has turned out to be "much bigger than expected--series romances especially," Rosenzweig said. "Lots of booksellers don't want to deal with them. For us, they fly out the doors."  Who's buying? "It's all over the place. Young girls and women in their 20s read the 'Oprah-type' books but also like a romance for a fun read. They may come in and buy three 'Oprah-type' books or chick-lits and a couple of romances they can breeze through."

Literature titles are perennial bestsellers for the Attic, including this holiday season. Popular authors include Ayn Rand, Jack Kerouac and the Beat poets, which "I can't keep in stock," Rosenzweig said. Literature is one of the areas where she supplements her used stock with new books.

Sidelines include bookmarks, "gifty-type" items, cards and "creepy-related things." Among the selection will be Edgar Allan Poe bobble-heads and Edward Gorey products. Although "quirky, goth-type" items are available in downtown Denver stores, they aren't readily available in the store's new neighborhood. Rosenzweig keeps an eye out for "anything with black cats" in honor of the store's resident felines. One treat the Attic will carry is Hint Mints, which come in a little curved tin, two of which, designed by the retro artist Shag, have black cats on them.

Among the main competitors in the Attic's new area are a Half Price Books, A Bargain in Books, a metaphysical bookstore that sells new and used books, a Christian bookstore and a Catholic bookstore. It's an old neighborhood that is now "a booming area" but was until very recently "not too great. Two years ago, I would never have bought this building."

Should the competition someday include a superstore, Rosenzweig professed not to be worried. "From day one, we've always offered 20% off on all our new books," a strong selling point particularly with literature. "You never get 20% off on literature at Barnes & Noble," she said. "They don't discount older titles."

Rosenzweig called the past holiday season "a little weird." Sales online were relatively slow--usually they boom during the holidays--while sales in the store were "really popping." Typically, trade-ins slow down at the end of the summer, but this year, she said, they just kept on going.

At tonight's opening party, a violinist will play creepy music, and the servers will include a butler and maid dressed to look dead. (Local actors wearing some white makeup.) The store plans to have some "fantastic giveaways," including some items from publishers such as boxed sets of books. The store is also hiding some old-fashioned skeleton keys around the store. Lucky guests who find one will take home a prize.

There will be regular food, but also special treats like chocolate eyeballs. Everyone will leave with a gift bag that includes essentials such as a skeleton puzzle, plastic spiders, a store mug, a bone-shaped pen.

That is, assuming the customers lured into Englewood's new bookstore ever actually leave. Between the black cats and the spooky interior design, it seems every day will be Friday the 13th at the Attic.--Maria Heidkamp

The following are the bestselling titles at Northern California Independent Booksellers Association stores during the week ended Sunday, January 8, as reported to Book Sense:

Hardcover Fiction

1. Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Knopf, $20, 140004460X)
2. S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton (Putnam, $26.95, 0399152970)
3. The Lighthouse by P.D. James (Knopf, $25.95, 030726291X)
4. On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Penguin, $25.95, 1594200637)
5. The March by E.L. Doctorow (Random House, $25.95, 0375506713)
6. Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan (Putnam, $26.95, 0399153012)
7. Amazing Peace by Maya Angelou (Random House, $9.95, 1400065585)
8. The Sea by John Banville (Knopf, $23, 0307263118)
9. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday, $24.95, 0385504209)
10. The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster (Holt, $24, 0805077146)
11. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (FSG, $23, 0374153892)
12. Veronica by Mary Gaitskill (Pantheon, $23, 0375421459)
13. Christ the Lord by Anne Rice (Knopf, $25.95, 0375412018)
14. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (Hyperion, $19.95, 0786868716)
15. The Trouble With Poetry by Billy Collins (Random House, $22.95, 037550382X)

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Knopf, $23.95, 140004314X)
2. Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter (S&S, $25, 0743284577)
3. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Morrow, $25.95, 006073132X)
4. Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman (HarperSanFrancisco, $24.95, 0060738170)
5. Healthy Aging by Andrew Weil (Knopf, $27.95, 0375407553)
6. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (S&S, $35, 0684824906)
7. The Elements of Style Illustrated by William Strunk et al. (Penguin Press, $24.95, 1594200696)
8. My Friend Leonard by James Frey (Riverhead, $24.95, 1573223158)
9. Marley & Me by John Grogan (Morrow, $21.95, 0060817089)
10. The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (FSG, $27.50, 0374292884)
11. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, $25.95, 0316172324)
12. Teacher Man by Frank McCourt (Scribner, $26, 0743243773)
13. A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Seven Stories, $23.95, 158322713X)
14. Love Smart by Dr. Phil McGraw (Free Press, $26, 0743272099)
15. A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester (HarperCollins, $27.95, 0060571993)

Trade Paperback Fiction

1. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead, $14, 1594480001)
2. Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx (Scribner, $9.95, 0743271327)
3. Snow by Orhan Pamuk (Vintage, $14.95, 0375706860)
4. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (Vintage, $14.95, 0307275167)
5. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (Vintage, $14.95, 1400079276)
6. Runaway by Alice Munro (Vintage, $14.95, 1400077915)
7. Wicked by Gregory Maguire (Regan Books, $15, 0060987103)
8. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Penguin, $15, 0143034901)
9. Wolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith (Pocket, $14, 0671775952)
10. The Known World by Edward P. Jones (Amistad, $13.95, 0060557559)
11. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (Back Bay, $13.95, 0316010707)
12. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Vintage, $12.95, 1400032717)
13. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House, $13.95, 081297235X)
14. The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst (Bloomsbury, $14.95, 1582346100)
15. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (Harvest, $14, 015602943X)

Trade Paperback Nonfiction

1. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (Anchor, $14.95, 0307276902)
2. Collapse by Jared Diamond (Penguin, $17, 0143036556)
3. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins (Plume, $15, 0452287081)
4. Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson (Harvest, $15, 0156031442)
5. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Vintage, $14, 0679745580)
6. The End of Faith by Sam Harris (Norton, $13.95, 0393327655)
7. 365: No Repeats by Rachael Ray (Clarkson Potter, $19.95, 1400082544)
8. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Back Bay, $14.95, 0316346624)
9. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Vintage, $14.95, 0375725601)
10. Chronicles by Bob Dylan (S&S, $14, 0743244583)
11. Zagat San Francisco Bay Area Restaurants (Zagat, $13.95, 1570067384)
12. Bad Cat by Jim Edgar (Workman, $9.95, 0761136193)
13. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (Amber-Allen, $12.95, 1878424319)
14. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (Norton, $16.95, 0393317552)
15. Bad Dog by R.D. Rosen et al. (Workman, $9.95, 0761139834)

Mass Market

1. The Broker by John Grisham (Dell, $7.99, 0440241588)
2. The Motive by John Lescroart (Signet, $7.99, 0451215729)
3. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (Pocket, $7.99, 0671027360)
4. State of Fear by Michael Crichton (Avon, $7.99, 0061015733)
5. The Cat Who Went Bananas by Lilian Jackson Braun (Jove, $7.99, 0515139785)
6. In a Dark House by Deborah Crombie (Avon, $7.50, 0060525266)
7. Double Tap by Steve Martini (Jove, $7.99, 0515139734)
8. Whiteout by Ken Follett (Signet, $7.99, 0451215710)
9. The South Beach Diet by Arthur Agatston, M.D. (St. Martin's, $7.99, 0312991193)
10. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (Warner, $6.99, 0316769487)

Children's (Fiction and Illustrated)

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (children's movie tie-in) by C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, $7.99, 0060765461)
2. Ptolemy's Gate (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 3) by Jonathan Stroud (Miramax Books, $17.95, 0786818611)
3. Eldest by Christopher Paolini (Knopf, $21, 037582670X)
4. Eragon by Christopher Paolini (Knopf, $9.95, 0375826696)
5. A Family of Poems by Caroline Kennedy, illustrated by Jon J. Muth (Hyperion, $19.95, 0786851112)
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic, $29.99, 0439784549)
7. The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall (Knopf, $15.95, 0375831436)
8. The Penultimate Peril (A Series of Unfortunate Events #12) by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Brett Helquist (HarperCollins, $11.99, 0064410153)
9. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (Del Rey, $6.99, 0345413350)
10. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic, $8.99, 0439139600)
11. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd (HarperCollins, $7.99, 0694003611)
12. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic, $9.99, 0439358078)
13. Dragonology by Ernest Drake, illustrated by Helen Ward and Douglas Carrel (Candlewick, $19.99, 0763623296)
14. The Chronicles of Narnia (boxed set) by C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, $19.99, 0066238501)
15. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (Chicken House, $7.99, 0439709105)

[Many thanks to Book Sense and NCIBA!]