Notes: VNU Bid; Tattered Cover's Neighbor; Greenspan Green
VNU has accepted an $8.9 billion bid from six private equity firms to
buy the Dutch media company, Bloomberg reported. Some major
shareholders have been pushing for a breakup of the company, which owns
Nielsen BookScan, the Book Standard, Kirkus Reviews, the Bookseller and
Watson-Guptill. It is not certain that those shareholders will agree to
the deal.
The private equity group is overwhelmingly American and includes firms that have owned book-world companies, including the Carlyle Group, Thomas H. Lee Partners and KKR. The group told Bloomberg that it planned to keep VNU "substantially together as an integrated company."
The usual pressures involved in dressing up a company for sale have already been felt--last month company-wide reductions in force affected several people at Watson-Guptill.
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The last piece in the development at the Lowenstein Theater in Denver, where Tattered Cover's flagship store moves June 26, has fallen into place. In November, Neighborhood Flix Cinema & Café will open three movie theaters and a café. (The largest of the theaters, "an expanded living room," will include couches, dining tables, love seats and stadium seats.) The other major tenant is Twist & Shout, a music store. Developer Charles Woolley told the Denver Post, "Books, music, film and food--these are the core anchors for any great community retail project."
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Bill Rickman, onetime general manager of Kroch's & Brentano's in Chicago, Ill., and a former head of the ABA, is celebrating his 10th anniversary owning the Island Bookstore in Duck, N.C., on the Outer Banks. He's doing so by opening a third store, in Kitty Hawk.
Speaking with Shelf Awareness, Rickman said he has signed a lease and fixtures have arrived, but he has not yet set them up. The new store should open in the next few weeks. "We're pretty excited about opening in Kitty Hawk to serve the local population better," he said.
In the last 10 years, Rickman has expanded the Duck store and doubled the size of its offerings. Located in the Scarborough Faire shopping center, the store has more than 44,000 titles in 2,400 square feet on two floors. He has also opened a second store, about the same size, in nearby Corolla.
---
One of the two plaintiffs in the plagiarism case concerning The DaVinci Code conceded to a Random House lawyer in court that he had exaggerated the material Dan Brown might have taken from his book, according to the New York Times. "I think my language was infelicitous, and I think I have to agree with you on that," Michael Baigent said.
---
In the major-public-figure-memoir sweepstakes, former Federal Reserve Bank chairman Alan Greenspan's book deal of more than $8.5 million with Penguin Press is on a par with Pope John Paul II's advance for Crossing the Threshold of Hope and Ronald Reagan's An American Life and lags only Bill Clinton's estimated $10 million for My Life. For more on the deal, see the New York Times.
---
The Raleigh News & Observer offers a thoughtful piece on the often-neglected art of translations. Translation: the book world should give more credit to translators, who "are like priests who mediate our relationship with the literary gods. We depend on them even as we wish for direct contact."
Another problem in this area: although "literature from foreign lands is one of the best ways to understand and experience distant cultures," only 891 of the 195,000 new titles printed in English in 2004 were works of adult literature in translation, according to Bowker statistics.
---
A Saturday fire in an apartment above Bob's Beach Books in Oceanlake, Ore., has caused smoke and water damage in the store, which is temporarily closed, according to the News Guard. The store is conducting business through its twin store, the Book End, also in Oceanlake. Bob's Beach Books opened seven years ago.
---
Baseball hall-of-famer and former Minnesota Twin Kirby Puckett, who died Monday at 45, was the author of three books:
Jerry Bilek, trade book manager of St. Olaf Bookstore, Northfield, Minn., in prime Puckett country, remembered a signing at which Puckett signed 800 copies of one of his books in an hour and then went off to batting practice. "He was a pro," Bilek said.
---
The Mississippi State University Reflector notes that the new Barnes & Noble store on campus will have the first escalator in Oktibbeha County.
---
Michele Crim has joined Ten Speed Press as director of sales. She was formerly senior director of marketing at National Book Network.
Also at Ten Speed, Zak Nelson has been named senior publicist and marketing specialist. He was formerly marketing and publicity director at Heyday Books.
---
Bill and Geri Bruso have opened the Franciscan Religious Books and Gifts Shop in Rutland, Vt., the Rutland Herald reported. The 1,700-sq.-ft. shop sells books, rosaries, crucifixes, devotions, statues, artwork, greeting cards, DVDs and religious games. (There are also several books critical of The DaVinci Code.) The new store is located at 17 Center St.
The private equity group is overwhelmingly American and includes firms that have owned book-world companies, including the Carlyle Group, Thomas H. Lee Partners and KKR. The group told Bloomberg that it planned to keep VNU "substantially together as an integrated company."
The usual pressures involved in dressing up a company for sale have already been felt--last month company-wide reductions in force affected several people at Watson-Guptill.
---
The last piece in the development at the Lowenstein Theater in Denver, where Tattered Cover's flagship store moves June 26, has fallen into place. In November, Neighborhood Flix Cinema & Café will open three movie theaters and a café. (The largest of the theaters, "an expanded living room," will include couches, dining tables, love seats and stadium seats.) The other major tenant is Twist & Shout, a music store. Developer Charles Woolley told the Denver Post, "Books, music, film and food--these are the core anchors for any great community retail project."
---
Bill Rickman, onetime general manager of Kroch's & Brentano's in Chicago, Ill., and a former head of the ABA, is celebrating his 10th anniversary owning the Island Bookstore in Duck, N.C., on the Outer Banks. He's doing so by opening a third store, in Kitty Hawk.
Speaking with Shelf Awareness, Rickman said he has signed a lease and fixtures have arrived, but he has not yet set them up. The new store should open in the next few weeks. "We're pretty excited about opening in Kitty Hawk to serve the local population better," he said.
In the last 10 years, Rickman has expanded the Duck store and doubled the size of its offerings. Located in the Scarborough Faire shopping center, the store has more than 44,000 titles in 2,400 square feet on two floors. He has also opened a second store, about the same size, in nearby Corolla.
---
One of the two plaintiffs in the plagiarism case concerning The DaVinci Code conceded to a Random House lawyer in court that he had exaggerated the material Dan Brown might have taken from his book, according to the New York Times. "I think my language was infelicitous, and I think I have to agree with you on that," Michael Baigent said.
---
In the major-public-figure-memoir sweepstakes, former Federal Reserve Bank chairman Alan Greenspan's book deal of more than $8.5 million with Penguin Press is on a par with Pope John Paul II's advance for Crossing the Threshold of Hope and Ronald Reagan's An American Life and lags only Bill Clinton's estimated $10 million for My Life. For more on the deal, see the New York Times.
---
The Raleigh News & Observer offers a thoughtful piece on the often-neglected art of translations. Translation: the book world should give more credit to translators, who "are like priests who mediate our relationship with the literary gods. We depend on them even as we wish for direct contact."
Another problem in this area: although "literature from foreign lands is one of the best ways to understand and experience distant cultures," only 891 of the 195,000 new titles printed in English in 2004 were works of adult literature in translation, according to Bowker statistics.
---
A Saturday fire in an apartment above Bob's Beach Books in Oceanlake, Ore., has caused smoke and water damage in the store, which is temporarily closed, according to the News Guard. The store is conducting business through its twin store, the Book End, also in Oceanlake. Bob's Beach Books opened seven years ago.
---
Baseball hall-of-famer and former Minnesota Twin Kirby Puckett, who died Monday at 45, was the author of three books:
- Kirby Puckett's Baseball Games (Workman, 1996)
- Be the Best You Can Be (Waldman House, 1993)
- I Love This Game! My Life and Baseball (HarperCollins, 1993)
Jerry Bilek, trade book manager of St. Olaf Bookstore, Northfield, Minn., in prime Puckett country, remembered a signing at which Puckett signed 800 copies of one of his books in an hour and then went off to batting practice. "He was a pro," Bilek said.
---
The Mississippi State University Reflector notes that the new Barnes & Noble store on campus will have the first escalator in Oktibbeha County.
---
Michele Crim has joined Ten Speed Press as director of sales. She was formerly senior director of marketing at National Book Network.
Also at Ten Speed, Zak Nelson has been named senior publicist and marketing specialist. He was formerly marketing and publicity director at Heyday Books.
---
Bill and Geri Bruso have opened the Franciscan Religious Books and Gifts Shop in Rutland, Vt., the Rutland Herald reported. The 1,700-sq.-ft. shop sells books, rosaries, crucifixes, devotions, statues, artwork, greeting cards, DVDs and religious games. (There are also several books critical of The DaVinci Code.) The new store is located at 17 Center St.
