Although it gave up $19 million in revenue when it decided in late 2004 to leave the retail bookstore business, the Booksource is much more profitable and the markets it is concentrating on now have high potential, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote. Owner Sandy Jaffe told the paper that 2005 was "the best the Booksource had in 30 years in business from a profit standpoint."

Besides narrow margins and high returns, the loss of a $10 million account supplying Hudson Group airport stores nudged the former regional retail wholesaler to concentrate on supplying schools as well as growing its binding division and Peaceable Kingdom Press subsidiary.

The Booksource sells to 877 of the more than 10,000 school districts nationwide. The market is dependable, and terms are better than in its old retail business, the Booksource said, because the wholesaler is buying and selling nonreturnable. Gross profit margins on retail store sales were about 8% for the company; its margins in the educational market were 28% last year.

The Booksource also recently bought a small competitor, Keith Distributors, Flint, Mich.

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In an effort to restock its shelves after Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Public Library is asking for donations of hardcovers and paperbacks for people of all ages. Library staff will decide which books should go into its collection; the rest will go to destitute families or be sold to raise funds for the library.

Please send books to: Rica A. Trigs, Public Relations, New Orleans Public Library, 219 Loyola Ave., New Orleans, La. 70112.

Apparently if donors mention to the Postal Service that the books are for the library in New Orleans, they will be able to send the books at the library rate, which is slightly less than the book rate.

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In related news, Ellis L. Marsalis III, the author and photographer and brother of Wynton and Branford Marsalis, is organizing an effort to provide books to a library at the Lusher Charter School in his hometown of New Orleans, La. Now a resident of Baltimore, Md., Marsalis aims to drive a truck full of books to New Orleans, leaving this weekend. He also plans to help bring a computerized circulation system, shelves and other material to rebuild the school's library.

In Baltimore, more than 1,000 books were gathered at the Red Canoe Children's Bookstore and Coffehouse and at the St. Francis of Assisi School for the first step in the campaign, called "1,000 Books to Go 1,000 Miles."

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They don't want MTV's version of their life, say many residents of Laguna Beach, Calif., the artsy expensive beach town that is the setting for the network's eponymous show, according to USA Today.

"I'd love to see the ratings on how many people in Laguna watch the show," Tom Ahern, owner of the Latitude 33 bookstore, told the paper. "I'll bet you could count them on two hands." He added that the store, which doesn't sell Westerns, romance novels or Cliffs Notes, has had just two customers ask for a copy of MTV's behind-the-scenes book, Laguna Beach: Life Inside the Bubble: a reporter and a tourist.

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McEvoy Group, owner of Chronicle Books, has joined with Hartle Media to buy Spin Magazine, the music magazine, from Vibe/Spin Ventures, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The deal is worth an estimated $5 million. Spin has not been hitting high financial notes lately: the paper said it has been losing up to $3 million a year and market share. Spin's headquarters will remain in New York City.

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Julie Marshall has been promoted to director of sales at Kaplan Publishing. She was formerly national accounts manager and in the past year and a half reorganized Kaplan's retail sales organization, increased sales to key accounts (including sales of other Kaplan divisions titles to retailers), opened new national accounts and expanded custom publishing.

Here story about new series done with World Book Day, well World Sort-of-Book Day, via CBC. Quick Reads program: books 128 pages, no more; no long words, three syllables and out; short sentences (no cheating semicolons, we bet); names like Ruth Rendell, Richard Branson (flyboy writer?), Joanna Trollope; cost about $6. Quick dozen titles now, more later. Find in supermarket. (Oops. Scratch that last, long word.) Find in big stores with lots of food and stuff; also bookstore and library. Idea to help people who don't read much or have trouble reading. Can't help but think there is better way.

March is Small Press Month, sponsored by PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association and the Small Press Center. The organizers offer a top-10 list of suggestions of things bookstores and libraries can do to celebrate the event, which is marking its 10th anniversary:

1. Have a special National Small Press Month exhibit. Display Small Press Month posters, which can be obtained from Small Press Month Coordinator, Independent Book Publishers Association, 627 Aviation Way, Manhattan Beach, Calif. 90266; 310-372-2732. Posters come in units of five.
2. Display a selection of small press titles, perhaps focusing on local independent presses.
3. Discount small press titles this month.
4. Be sure to obtain catalogues from independent presses and their distributors to keep up with what new titles are coming out, especially this month.
5. Ask a local small press publisher to give a talk. One always-popular topic: "How to get published by a small press."
6. Include National Small Press Month information on your Web site.
7. Organize readings or signings by local small press authors during the month.
8. Start a reading group focusing on independently produced titles.
9. Recommend titles from small and independent presses to patrons and customers.
10. Link to the National Small Press Month Web site from your own.

This morning on the Today Show, Pulitzer Prize-winner Sonia Nazario discusses the perilous journey thousands of Central American children take each year to enter the U.S., as outlined in her new book, Enrique's Journey (Random House, $26.95, 1400062055).

Also this morning, the Today Show drags into the spotlight Norma Vally, the Discovery Channel's "tool belt diva" and author of Chix Can Fix: 100 Home-Improvement Projects and True Tales from the Diva of Do-It-Yourself (Viking, $14.95, 014200507X).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show, Bruce Bartlett offers more conservative criticism of the president, as discussed in his Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (Doubleday, $26, 0385518277).

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Today on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show:

• Former Senator Gary Hart opens up about his new book, The Shield and the Cloak: The Security of the Commons (Oxford University Press, $22, 0195306163).
• Shirley Jennifer Lim, author of A Feeling of Belonging: Asian American Women's Public Culture, 1930-1960 (New York University Press, $21, 0814751946), reviews the retrospective of Asian-American  star Anna May Wong at the American Museum of the Moving Image.

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Tonight the Late Show with David Letterman goofs with Office "manager" Ricky Gervais, whose Flanimals sequel, More Flanimals (Putnam, $15.99, 0399246053), will be let out later this month.

ABC News's Good Morning America is receiving the 2006 AAP Honors award, given annually to individuals and organizations outside the book industry who have "helped focus public attention on American books and their importance in our society." Previous winners have included Oprah Winfrey, USA Today, the Today Show, C-SPAN's Brian Lamb, National Public Radio, Dolly Parton (for creating the "Imagintion Library" literacy program) and Latino TV journalist Jorge Ramos.

"At a time when coverage of books is losing ground in many media outlets, Good Morning America continues to spread the word about good reading and noteworthy authors to a nationwide audience," AAP CEO and president Pat Schroeder said in a statement.

During the AAP's annual meeting in New York City on March 14, the award will be presented to GMA's coordinating producer Patty Neger, the show's liaison to the book industry and producer of all the show's book segments, and executive producer Ben Sherwood. Good Morning America is donating the $5,000 award to Literacy Partners.

Hear ye, hear ye! Author honored!

This coming Monday, Jane Isenberg will have a kind of old home day: at 7:30 p.m. she will appear for a book reading and signing at Symposia Bookstore in Hoboken, N.J., the mile square city where her eight Bel Barrett mysteries, including the latest, Hot Wired (Avon, $6.99, 0060577533), are set. Although she now lives in Washington state, Isenberg spent 23 years in the city. Hoboken Mayor David Roberts will present Isenberg with a proclamation noting that she has featured Hoboken in her Bel Barrett titles and "contributed to an understanding of the city." State Senator Bernard Kenny also will present a New Jersey Senate resolution honoring her.

Symposia is a network of community groups in the New York City area, and its store, managed by Corneliu Rusu, has an emphasis on events. This is how the store describes Hot Wired: "Bel Barrett, a post-menopausal fifty-something community college prof penetrates the alien world of urban hip hop to save herself, her reputation and her job. Set in gentrified Hoboken and gritty Jersey City, N.J., Hot Wired takes the reader into River Edge Community College, where Bel discovers herself to be the butt of a devastating online critique written as rap. When the rapper turns up dead, Bel is the police's primary suspect. She goes undercover to smoke out the real killer with the help of her new hubby, Sol, and her old friends, Betty and Illuminada."

The winners and honorees of the 2005 Golden Kite Awards, sponsored by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and given for the most outstanding children's books published during that year by members of the Society, are:

• Fiction Award Winner: A Room on Lorelei Street by Mary E. Pearson (Holt)
• Fiction Honor Book: Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles (Harcourt)

• Nonfiction Award Winner: Children of the Great Depression by Russell Freedman (Clarion)
• Nonfiction Honor Book: The Forbidden Schoolhouse: The True and Dramatic Story of Prudence Crandall and Her Students by Suzanne Jurmain (Houghton Mifflin)

• Picture Book Text Award Winner: Dona Flor by Pat Mora, illustrated by Raul Colon (Knopf)
• Picture Book Text Honor Book: Grandma's Pride by Becky Birtha, illustrated by Colin Bootman (Albert Whitman & Co.)

• Picture Book Illustration Award Winner: Baby Bear's Chairs by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Melissa Sweet (Harcourt)
• Picture Book Illustration Honor Book: Cinderella written and illustrated by Barbara McClintock (Scholastic)

The winners will have to wait until Sunday, August 7, to receive their statuettes and plaques. The Golden Kite Luncheon takes place during the Society's Annual Conference on Writing and Illustrating for Children in Los Angeles.

The following are the bestselling titles at Great Lakes Booksellers Association and Midwest Booksellers Association member stores during the week ended Sunday, February 26, as reported to Book Sense.

Hardcover Fiction

1. In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant (Random House, $23.95, 1400063817)
2. The 5th Horseman by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown, $27.95, 0316159778)
3. The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry (Ballantine, $24.95, 0345476158)
4. The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury (Dutton, $24.95, 0525949410)
5. The Old Wine Shades by Martha Grimes (Viking, $25.95, 0670034797)
6. Cell by Stephen King (Scribner, $26.95, 0743292332)
7. The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (Pantheon, $22.95, 0375423699)
8. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday, $24.95, 0385504209)
9. The Lighthouse by P.D. James (Knopf, $25.95, 030726291X)
10. The Two Minute Rule by Robert Crais (S&S, $24.95, 0743281616)
11. Sea Change by Robert B. Parker (Putnam, $24.95, 0399152679)
12. The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell by Lilian Jackson Braun (Putnam, $23.95, 0399153071)
13. The Hunt Club by John Lescroart (Dutton, $26.95, 0525949143)
14. The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons (Harcourt, $23, 0151012040)
15. Rasputin's Daughter by Robert Alexander (Viking, $23.95, 0670034681)

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. Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter (S&S, $25, 0743284577)
4. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Morrow, $25.95, 006073132X)
5. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Knopf, $23.95, 140004314X)
6. You're Wearing That? by Deborah Tannen (Random House, $24.95, 1400062586)
7. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (S&S, $35, 0684824906)
8. Manhunt by James L. Swanson (Morrow, $26.95, 0060518499)
9. Teacher Man by Frank McCourt (Scribner, $26, 0743243773)
10. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Viking, $24.95, 0670034711)
11. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, $25.95, 0316172324)
12. The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren (Zondervan, $19.99, 0310205719)
13. The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman (Penguin Press, $25.95, 1594200769)
14. Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman (HarperSanFrancisco, $24.95, 0060738170)
15. The Colony by John Tayman (Scribner, $27.50, 074323300X)

Trade Paperback Fiction

1. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Picador, $14, 031242440X)
2. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (Random House, $13.95, 0812968069)
3. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead, $14, 1594480001)
4. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Washington Square, $14, 0743454537)
5. Wicked by Gregory Maguire (Regan Books, $15, 0060987103)
6. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Penguin, $15, 0143034901)
7. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (Back Bay, $13.95, 0316010707)
8. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House, $13.95, 081297235X)
9. Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral by Kris Radish (Bantam, $11, 0553382640)
10. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (Vintage, $14.95, 0307275167)
11. Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos (Grove, $13, 0802142109)
12. Close Range by Annie Proulx (Scribner, $14, 0684852225)
13. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Vintage, $12.95, 1400032717)
14. Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult (Washington Square, $14, 0743454553)
15. Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx (Scribner, $9.95, 0743271327)

Trade Paperback Nonfiction

1. Night by Elie Weisel (FSG, $9, 0374500010)
2. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Vintage, $14.95, 0375725601)
3. *A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (Anchor, $14.95, 0307276902)
4. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner, $14, 074324754X)
5. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins (Plume, $15, 0452287081)
6. Collapse by Jared Diamond (Penguin, $17, 0143036556)
7. Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson (Harvest, $15, 0156031442)
8. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Vintage, $14, 0679745580)
9. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Back Bay, $14.95, 0316346624)
10. 365: No Repeats by Rachael Ray (Clarkson Potter, $19.95, 1400082544)
11. The End of Faith by Sam Harris (Norton, $13.95, 0393327655)
12. Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell (S&S, $14, 074326004X)
13. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (Norton, $16.95, 0393317552)
14. 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz (Workman, $18.95, 0761104844)
15. The Blue Pages: A Directory of Companies Rated by Their Politics and Practices (PoliPointPress, $9.95, 0976062119)

Mass Market

1. Skeleton Man by Tony Hillerman (HarperTorch, $7.99, 006056346X)
2. The Closers by Michael Connelly (Warner, $7.99, 0446616443)
3. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (Pocket, $7.99, 0671027360)
4. Hard Truth by Nevada Barr (Berkley, $7.99, 0425208419)
5. The Third Secret by Steve Berry (Ballantine, $7.99, 034547614X)
6. The Broker by John Grisham (Dell, $7.99, 0440241588)
7. Night by Elie Wiesel (Bantam, $5.99, 0553272535)
8. New Comprehensive A-Z Crossword Dictionary edited by Edy G. Schaffer (Avon, $7.50, 0380724251)
9. The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, 4th Edition (Merriam-Webster, $7.50, 0877799296)
10. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Warner, $6.99, 0446310786)

Children's (Fiction and Illustrated)

1. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick, $18.99, 0763625892)
2. Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins (Greenwillow, $16.99, 0060092726)
3. The Pretty Committee Strikes Back by Lisi Harrison (Little, Brown, $9.99, 0316115002)
4. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (children's movie tie-in edition) by C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, $7.99, 0060765461)
5. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd (HarperCollins, $7.99, 0694003611)
6. Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser (HarperCollins, $15.99, 0060542098)
7. Curious George the Movie: Touch and Feel Book (Houghton Mifflin, $5.99, 0618605878)
8. Small Steps by Louis Sachar (Delacorte, $16.95, 0385733143)
9. Curious George by H.A. Rey (Houghton Mifflin, $6.95, 039515023X)
10. The Hello, Goodbye Window by Norton Juster, illustrated by Chris Raschka (Michael Di Capua, $15.95, 0786809140)
11. Hoot by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf, $8.95, 0375829164)
12. Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick, $5.99, 0763625582)
13. Eldest by Christopher Paolini (Knopf, $21, 037582670X)
14. Dragonology by Ernest Drake, illustrated by Helen Ward and Douglas Carrel (Candlewick, $19.99, 0763623296)
15. Curious George's Big Adventures (movie tie-in) by R.P. Anderson (Houghton Mifflin, $3.99, 0618634495)

*ABA and Book Sense acknowledge the controversy surrounding the veracity of the contents of this book.

[Many thanks to Book Sense, GLBA and MBA!]