Michael Powell, owner of Powell's Books in Portland, Ore., is
"preparing to hand over the business" to his daughter, Emily, according
to the
Oregonian.
Emily Powell, who has been working for the last two years at the
company, will soon become director of the used book division. Over the
next four to six years, she will gain experience in all of the
company's divisions and then take charge of the business.
Coincidentally just last week Neal Coonerty announced that he is giving
over day-to-day management of Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, Calif.,
to his daughter, Casey Coonerty Protti (
Shelf Awareness, March 24).
After attending
Haverford College, Emily Powell, 27, worked as a pasty chef and a real estate market
analyst. "I always knew that I wanted to come back," she told the
paper. "If I had spent my entire life at Powell's, I'd have a very
narrow view of the world."
---
One of the giants of science fiction in the 20th century, Stanislaw Lem died yesterday in Krakow, Poland. He was 84.
Among the themes he addressed, as the
New York Times put it,
"the meaning of human life among superintelligent machines, the
frustrations of communicating with aliens, the likelihood that mankind
could understand a universe in which it was but a speck."
His books have sold 27 million copies.
---
Summary of
Wall Street Journal story today. Online book
summaries hot. Readers just so busy. Some services free, some not. Most
sent via e-mail. Business books biggest focus. (500,000 subscribers for
Business Book Review, e.g.) Also politics. Publishers work with
summarizers but are wary: do book digests sell books? One digester says
yes; a happy subscriber says he buys fewer books.
---
In another program begun since reopening last fall, Kepler's Books &
Magazines, Menlo Park, Calif., is launching a travel series in partnership with a local
travel agency, Town and Country KB [Karen Brown] Travel. Called Journey
the World with Kepler's, the program includes regular events--at least
monthly--featuring travel authors, Kepler's staff members and travel
agents who will focus on travel, culture, cuisine, art history and
more. This coming Saturday the series begins with an appearance by
Frances Mayes, whose new book is
A Year in the World.
Other authors who will journey to Kepler's to appear as part of the program are:
-
Travel writer and novelist Tony Cohan, whose new title is On Mexican Days: Journeys into the Heart of Mexico, appearing May 2.
-
Twice a Lowell Thomas Award winner, Maxine Rose Schur, whose latest
book is Places in Time, an autobiographical travel narrative about her
unusual honeymoon, May 16.
-
Stevie Smith, who in Pedaling to Hawaii: A Human Powered Odyssey
chronicled a trip with a friend using pedal-power--bicycles, skates,
pedal boats--from Europe to the 50th State. June 14.
-
Jason Roberts, whose A Sense of the World explores the life of the 19th century blind explorer James Holman. June 21.
---
Dr. Paul M. Lerner, an owner of the Owl & Turtle Bookshop, Camden,
Me., died last Wednesday at the age of 68. Lerner was an authority on
the Rorschach Test, a professor at several medicine schools and had a
thriving private practice.
Lerner's family has owned the store since 1998.
---
Beginning this Saturday, Chronicle Books will begin offering podcasts downloadable from its
Web site
and iTunes. Designed by two former NPR producers, the podcasts will
include title features, author interviews, "man-on-the-street
commentary" and short features. The first program will feature Craig
Ferguson, talk show host and author of
Between the Bridge and the River; an ongoing feature from the Worst Case Scenario series; and an interview with the authors of
The Meatclub Cookbook: For Girls Who Love Their Meat. A new show will be broadcast every two weeks.
---
Penguin Young Readers Group and Walden Media, the film and educational
services company, are creating a publishing, film and TV joint venture
under which film and TV properties will be made from new and old titles
for which movie rights are available and Penguin will co-publish books
adapted from Walden Media screenplays and related tie-in titles.
Walden will have a "presence" in Penguin's New York office. The
companies will together promote and publicize their joint projects
to the education, library and trade markets.
---
David Taylor, managing director of Lightning Source UK, has added the
position of senior v-p of global sales of Lightning Source, Ingram's print on demand subsidiary. Taylor will
have offices in both the U.S. and the U.K.
"We need to engage ever more closely with our publishers to ensure that
we understand their needs and are fitting our offer to meet to meet
those needs," Taylor said. "This increasingly means that we need a
single approach rather than a separate U.S. and U.K. approach."
Taylor joined Lightning Source UK in 2003 as business development
director and earlier co-founded Swotbooks.com, which sells books and
e-books to the academic community, and was a director of Blackwell's Book
Services, among other positions.
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