Peter Glassman, president and founder of Books of Wonder in New York City, writes:

Regarding Joni Evans's quote yesterday on how books haven't lived up to the pace of technology, I couldn't disagree more. Nearly every stage of the production of books has gone digital, from editing and typesetting to printing, billing, and sales analysis. As for the final product itself, there is little benefit to books being provided to consumers in digital form. Oh sure, there are some who will prefer reading books on their laptop or Palm Pilot, just as there are those who'd rather watch a movie on their laptop rather than in a movie theater. But just as it is a different experience to watch a film projected on a huge screen in a dark theater than on one's laptop, so is it a different experience to hold a book in one's hands, turn paper pages, and experience a book physically as opposed to simply seeing the words appear on a screen. The main reason other media Joni Evans listed--music, newspapers, movies--have gone digital is to make them conveniently portable. Books--especially novels and biographies--have been portable for over 50 years. Maybe it's those other media who are finally catching up with us!

BookStream, the Poughkeepsie, N.Y., wholesaler that aims to sell to all bookseller-customers at a 42% discount to "level the playing field," as president Jack Herr put it, will have a soft opening in a matter of weeks.

The company, which had hoped initially to open late last year (Shelf Awareness, September 8), has been working with 20-30 bookstores that have been in effect testing BookStream's shipping and EDI and phone ordering procedures. "Their hit rate is not great now," Herr said, "but it will be great soon. We will open with a robust title base."

Herr emphasized that the company's 111,000-sq.-ft. warehouse is building up stock and is "moving to a point where we will represent at a satisfactory level virtually all publishers in the U.S. We have the means to make happen what we want to have happen, and we will."

Sales and operations people at publishers have been "enthusiastic and encouraging," Herr said. "We're attempting to bring their credit colleagues to the same level."

BookStream has four buyers and one salesperson. More salespeople will be added as business grows, Herr indicated. Three of the buyers are from bookstores and will work in an unusual way: they will have responsibility both for booksellers and publishers, whom Herr calls "clients" rather than suppliers.

The company's market area is essentially what UPS two-day service covers from Poughkeepsie--the northeast as far south and west as parts of Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. BookStream exhibited at NEBA and NAIBA, where it talked with "hundreds of booksellers," and aims to get its message out via word of mouth, networking--and a little bit of press.

Tower Records, which has two bookstores and sells a limited selection of books in most of its music stores, is up for sale again, the Book Standard reports. Apparently the investment banking firm that had acted as advisor to the company will soon be shopping the company.

In the past several years, Tower has been in some financial turmoil, restructuring and spending a short time in Chapter 11. The Book Standard estimated Tower's annual total sales at $450 million-$500 million, down from nearly $1 billion in its heyday.

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James Frey's spokesperson has confirmed a New York Post report yesterday that the author's two-book deal with Riverhead Books, signed in January, has collapsed. One of the two books would have been his first official work of fiction.

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In related news, the latest suit involving A Million Little Pieces, filed in Chicago, is distinguished by including Borders Group among the defendants--along with Random House, Doubleday and Vintage Anchor--but not author Frey.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Sara Brackenrich seeks to prevent the companies from advertising and promoting the book. She claims the publishing companies and Borders--she bought a copy of the book at one of its Chicago stores--should have known that the book was fiction. Among the charges: consumer fraud and unjust enrichment.

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Yesterday, Harry Potter day in the Spanish-speaking world, some million copies of Harry Potter y el Misterio del Principe were distributed in Spain and are expected to sell out, according to the AP via the Washington Post.

By the way, answering a query raised by several readers who wondered why "the Half-Blood Prince" was translated as "el Misterio del Principe," the AP said that mestizo has too many "different connotations" in Spanish-speaking countries.

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On Wednesday, May 17, the day before most of BEA gets underway, the ABA will offer its first Legislative Day, according to Bookselling This Week. The aim is "to brief booksellers about current public policy issues affecting the book industry and to provide them with the opportunity to meet with their senators and representatives."

The event ends with a reception on Capitol Hill honoring Rep. Bernie Sanders (I.-Vt.), to which all members of Congress from states and districts of attending booksellers will be invited.

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Globe Pequot Press has appointed Chris Grimm director of field sales, effective next Monday. He will direct the company's 12 field sales reps as well as its commission rep groups. He was formerly sales director, distributor sales and retail marketing, at Simon & Schuster, and has 15 years of sales and sales management experience.

Today WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show hears from Bruce Bartlett, columnist and former director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress who also worked for Reagan and Bush, about his new book, Imposter: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (Doubleday, $26, 0385518277).

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CBS Sunday Morning chooses to interview Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less (Harper Perennial, $13.95, 0060005696).

The following were the bestselling titles at New England Booksellers Association bookstores during the week ended Sunday, February 19, as reported to Book Sense:

Hardcover Fiction

1. In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant (Random House, $23.95, 1400063817)
2. Cell by Stephen King (Scribner, $26.95, 0743292332)
3. The 5th Horseman by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown, $27.95, 0316159778)
4. The Lighthouse by P.D. James (Knopf, $25.95, 030726291X)
5. The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury (Dutton, $24.95, 0525949410)
6. Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile by Verlyn Klinkenborg (Knopf, $16.95, 0679407286)
7. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday, $24.95, 0385504209)
8. Arthur & George by Julian Barnes (Knopf, $24.95, 030726310X)
9. Sea Change by Robert B. Parker (Putnam, $24.95, 0399152679)
10. The Good Life by Jay McInerney (Knopf, $25, 0375411402)
11. The Sea by John Banville (Knopf, $23, 0307263118)
12. On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Penguin, $25.95, 1594200637)
13. Saturday by Ian McEwan (Nan Talese, $26, 0385511809)
14. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (Atlantic Monthly, $24, 0871139294)
15. The Trouble With Poetry by Billy Collins (Random House, $22.95, 037550382X)

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. Marley & Me by John Grogan (Morrow, $21.95, 0060817089
2. The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (FSG, $27.50, 0374292884)
3. You're Wearing That? by Deborah Tannen (Random House, $24.95, 1400062586)
4. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Knopf, $23.95, 140004314X)
5. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (S&S, $35, 0684824906)
6. Teacher Man by Frank McCourt (Scribner, $26, 0743243773)
7. The Brothers Bulger by Howie Carr (Warner, $25.95, 0446576514)
8. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Morrow, $25.95, 006073132X)
9. Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter (S&S, $25, 0743284577)
10. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, $25.95, 0316172324)
11. Manhunt by James L. Swanson (Morrow, $26.95, 0060518499)
12. The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam (Hyperion, $24.95, 1401301541)
13. At Canaan's Edge by Taylor Branch (S&S, $35, 068485712X)
14. State of War by James Risen (Free Press, $26, 0743270665)
15. 1776 by David McCullough (S&S, $32, 0743226712)

Trade Paperback Fiction

1. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Picador, $14, 031242440X)
2. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House, $13.95, 081297235X)
3. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead, $14, 1594480001)
4. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Penguin, $15, 0143034901)
5. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (Back Bay, $13.95, 0316010707)
6. Wicked by Gregory Maguire (Regan Books, $15, 0060987103)
7. Close Range by Annie Proulx (Scribner, $14, 0684852225)
8. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (Harvest, $14, 015602943X)
9. Runaway by Alice Munro (Vintage, $14.95, 1400077915)
10. Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx (Scribner, $9.95, 0743271327)
11. Snow by Orhan Pamuk (Vintage, $14.95, 0375706860)
12. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Washington Square, $14, 0743454537)
13. Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult (Washington Square, $14, 0743454553)
14. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Vintage, $12.95, 1400032717)
15. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (Touchstone, $16, 0743227441)

Trade Paperback Nonfiction

1. Night by Elie Weisel (FSG, $9, 0374500010)
2. *A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (Anchor, $14.95, 0307276902)
3. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Vintage, $14, 0679745580)
4. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner, $14, 074324754X)
5. Collapse by Jared Diamond (Penguin, $17, 0143036556)
6. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins (Plume, $15, 0452287081)
7. Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson (Harvest, $15, 0156031442)
8. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Vintage, $14.95, 0375725601)
9. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (Random House, $14.95, 0812973011)
10. 365: No Repeats by Rachael Ray (Clarkson Potter, $19.95, 1400082544)
11. Smashed by Koren Zailckas (Penguin, $14, 0143036475)
12. The End of Faith by Sam Harris (Norton, $13.95, 0393327655)
13. Bad Cat by Jim Edgar (Workman, $9.95, 0761136193)
14. Why Do Men Have Nipples? by Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg, M.D. (Three Rivers, $13.95, 1400082315)
15. Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer (Oxford University, $17.95, 019518159X)

Mass Market

1. The Closers by Michael Connelly (Warner, $7.99, 0446616443)
2. Skeleton Man by Tony Hillerman (HarperTorch, $7.99, 006056346X)
3. The Broker by John Grisham (Dell, $7.99, 0440241588)
4. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (Pocket, $7.99, 0671027360)
5. Prince of Fire by Daniel Silva (Signet, $7.99, 0451215737)
6. Hard Truth by Nevada Barr (Berkley, $7.99, 0425208419)
7. State of Fear by Michael Crichton (Avon, $7.99, 0061015733)
8. The Third Secret by Steve Berry (Ballantine, $7.99, 034547614X)
9. Whiteout by Ken Follett (Signet, $7.99, 0451215710)
10. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (Vintage, $7.99, 1400096898)

Children's (Fiction and Illustrated)

1. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick, $18.99, 0763625892)
2. Small Steps by Louis Sachar (Delacorte, $16.95, 0385733143)
3. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd (HarperCollins, $7.99, 0694003611)
4. Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser (HarperCollins, $15.99, 0060542098)
5. A Family of Poems by Caroline Kennedy, illustrated by Jon J. Muth (Hyperion, $19.95, 0786851112)
6. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (children's movie tie-in edition) by C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, $7.99, 0060765461)
7. Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins (Greenwillow, $16.99, 0060092726)
8. Curious George by H.A. Rey (Houghton Mifflin, $6.95, 039515023X)
9. Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt (Golden, $9.99, 0307120007)
10. Duck & Goose by Tad Hills (Schwartz & Wade, $14.95, 037583611X)
11. Eldest by Christopher Paolini (Knopf, $21, 037582670X)
12. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (Chicken House, $7.99, 0439709105)
13. Dragonology by Ernest Drake, illustrated by Helen Ward and Douglas Carrel (Candlewick, $19.99, 0763623296)
14. Eragon by Christopher Paolini (Knopf, $9.95, 0375826696)
15. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (movie tie-in edition) by Ann Brashares (Delacorte, $6.99, 0553494791)

*ABA, NEBA and Book Sense acknowledge the controversy surrounding this title
due to statements made by its author and publisher.