It's summertime, and in an effort to make the livin' easy, we're off in the mountains, sending this via excrutiatingly slow dial-up AOL. For a time, we thought the phone arrangement would resemble something out of Green Acres, but we were spared that. Next week we're skipping issues on Monday and Friday.

See you Tuesday!

"If they hadn't been able to get books, I think they would've been quite frustrated."--Jonathan Daniel, the supervisor of a Borders store at Heathrow Airport, in a Los Angeles Times article about business travelers' reactions to not being allowed to take laptops as carry-on luggage on flights to or from London yesterday. Daniel noted that "laptop-free travelers" were among the store's best customers; popular titles included Freakonomics and The World Is Flat. It was unclear whether the travelers could take the books on planes or whether they read them during the long waits.

Wow. Rueben Martinez, who has two Libreria Martinez Books and Art Gallery locations, in Santa Ana and Lynwood, Calif., and who won a MacArthur "genius award" two years ago, will direct the selection of Latino-related books and magazines at three Hudson News stores at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, according to the Orange Country Register.

"They know the Latino population is growing," Martinez told the paper. "They're going to have libros en español. My job is to lead people in that direction." He also said that he is a 15% owner of the stores.

According to the Register, Hudson bought the stores earlier this year and is remodeling them. The completed stores, with Martinez's selections, should be unveiled in two months. Martinez is also consulting with the company on a Spanish-language section at Los Angeles International Airport and may do so at other Hudson airport stores.

---

Michael McDermott is closing the Bookstore, in Warwick, N.Y., according to the Warwick Advertiser, which has published several letters from anguished customers. The store was open for eight years.

---

In Bookselling This Week, Melissa Lion, a handselling maven at Diesel, A Bookstore, with shops in Oakland and Malibu, Calif., offers the delightful 10 "Rules of the Handsell." Here's No. 6:

Always up-sell. Here are some of my favorites:

Customer comes up with a travel book for Thailand.
Me: Have you read Bangkok 8?
Customer comes up with a travel book for Boston.
Me: Have you read Dennis Lehane?
Customer comes up with Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus
Me: Have you read this obscure '60s SciFi book?

---

The Los Angeles Times profiles Abril Books, "which claims to be the largest of the half-dozen Armenian-language bookstores in the U.S." The Glendale store began nearly 30 years ago when Harout Yeretzian, an Armenian from Lebanon, and his brother founded a magazine devoted to the Armenian language and Armenian culture, which "spawned a print shop, which spawned a bookstore, which spawned a small publishing house." Now the magazine and print shop are gone, and Abril Books offers some 5,000 books, half in Armenian (some of which it publishes) and half in English, as well as periodicals, greeting cards and music CDs.

---

Bookselling This Week unlocks the Open Door Bookstore, Schenectady, N.Y., a general store with a strong children's section that has expanded to 3,000 square feet from the 500 square feet it had when bought by Betty and John Fleming in 1992. Besides books, Open Door has a gift gallery with jewelry, pottery, glass and fashion accessories. The store celebrated its 35th anniversary in May.

---

In two articles, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune recently paid visits to a total of four used bookstores in the greater Sarasota area. One striking story: in 2001, John and his wife bought a used bookstore near their home in Oregon and "shipped it, book by book, to Punta Gorda, a city they found on the Internet and fell in love with." At the time, John's Pennywise Books and Art Supplies was one of at least six used bookstores in the county, but Hurricane Charley forced two of them out of business. The store is open long hours and recently began to make a profit.

Linda Mello, owner of the Paper Pad Bookstore in Port Charlotte, Fla., since 1997, said that sales are off but she is happy to have survived Hurricane Charley. In one of the more unusual ways of expressing a desire to keep working, she said, "I'd love to be here until I'm 90 years old and crippled."

The other Sarasota Herald-Tribune story featured Dearborn Books, South Venice, Fla., which Joan Wells founded 15 years ago. The store specializes in used paperbacks, particularly "romantic suspense, murder mystery and true crime." Business has slowed so much that sometimes she "doesn't see a single customer walk through the door."

Husband and wife Sviat Makohon and Peggy Sienecki opened the Sanddollar Bookstore in South Venice four months ago, a shop whose opening inventory was the pair's hard-to-find and collectible titles. Makohon said he hopes that the store's "living-room" feel will help make it "a place to sit and relax and maybe buy a book."

---

The National Association of College Stores is offering several free audio Webcasts featuring speakers at BEA's Day of Education who addressed issues of concern to college retailers. The Webcasts include the Manga Demystified session and Prospecting the Backlist Country and Creating Excitement with Bargain Books.

The Southern California Booksellers Association's tour to beach bookstores planned for Saturday, August 19, will have several special guests. At Diesel, A Bookstore in Malibu, bookstore tourists will be able to meet "Malibu surf-culture icon" Gidget (also known as Kathy Kohner Zuckerman), who will sign copies of Gidget, the 1957 novel by Zuckerman's father based on her life that was made into the movie and TV series. Incidentally SCBA describes the store as "the cutting-edge, high octane, community-radiating, independent neighborhood bookstore we all dream of hanging out in."

Also on the tour will be Larry Portzline, aka the founder of bookstore tourism, who has led similar tours on the East Coast.

The destinations on the tour besides Diesel:

• Hennessey + Ingalls, Santa Monica, "now the largest art and architecture bookstore in the western United States. Hennessey + Ingalls has become a landmark in the visual arts community."
• Village Books in Pacific Palisades, "a small store that offers a wide selection of books, weekly author events, and an inviting refuge for readers. With books stacked floor to ceiling and hand painted signs denoting sections of literature, the shop is a favorite among locals. Customers are often greeted by name upon entering the cozy space, and any dogs tagging along are offered biscuits."
• Under the Bridge Bookstore and Gallery in San Pedro offers Latino literature in English and Spanish for adults, children and young adults--and promotes art by local artists.
• Also in San Pedro, William's Bookstore, which was founded in 1909 by E.T. Williams, a Welsh immigrant, and "has earned the official distinction as the oldest, continuously operating bookstore in Los Angeles, 97 years old."

This Sunday on Meet the Press: former New Jersey Governor Thomas H. Kean, chair of the 9/11 Commission, whose new book is Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (Knopf, $25.95, 0307263770).

Mark your calendars! With plenty of advance notice, the International Thriller Writers has announced that the 2007 ThrillerMaster Award for outstanding contribution to the thriller genre will go to James Patterson. The award will be presented to Patterson during ThrillerFest 2007 to be held next July 12-15 in New York City.

Clive Cussler, who won the inaugural ThrillerMaster Award last month, will make the presentation. At the awards ceremony, ITW will also present its Thriller Awards.

"For more than 30 years, James Patterson has actively contributed to the thriller genre both through an outstanding body of work as well as his contributions to promoting literacy," M. Diane Vogt, v-p of ITW Events, said.

Patterson also edited ITW's first anthology, Thriller: Stories to Keep You up All Night (MIRA Books), published in June. Patterson wrote the introductions and prefaces to each story, which were written by 30 ITW members.

The following were the bestselling titles at member bookstores of the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association during the week ended Sunday, August 6, as reported to Book Sense:

Hardcover Fiction

1. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (Algonquin, $23.95, 1565124995)
2. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky (Knopf, $25, 1400044731)
3. Judge and Jury by James Patterson and Andrew Gross (Little, Brown, $27.99, 0316013935)
4. Pegasus Descending by James Lee Burke (S&S, $26, 0743277724)
5. The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig (Harcourt, $25, 0151012377)
6. The Messenger by Daniel Silva (Putnam, $25.95, 0399153357)
7. The Ruins by Scott Smith (Knopf, $24.95, 1400043875)
8. Phantom by Terry Goodkind (Tor, $29.95, 0765305240)
9. The Keep by Jennifer Egan (Knopf, $23.95, 1400043921)
10. Terrorist by John Updike (Knopf, $24.95, 0307264653)
11. Digging to America by Anne Tyler (Knopf, $24.95, 0307263940)
12. Gallatin Canyon by Thomas McGuane (Knopf, $24, 1400041562)
13. Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg (Random House, $25.95, 1400061261)
14. Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's, $26.95, 0312349483)
15. Telegraph Days by Larry McMurtry (S&S, $25, 0743250788)

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. Marley & Me by John Grogan (Morrow, $21.95, 0060817089)
2. The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (FSG, $30, 0374292795)
3. Fiasco by Thomas E. Ricks (Penguin Press, $27.95, 159420103X)
4. I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron (Knopf, $19.95, 0307264556)
5. Cesar's Way by Cesar Millan and Melissa Jo Peltier (Harmony, $24.95, 0307337332)
6. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Morrow, $25.95, 006073132X)
7. Conservatives Without Conscience by John Dean (Viking, $25.95, 0670037745)
8. The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind (S&S, $27, 0743271092)
9. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, $25.95, 0316172324)
10. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Viking, $24.95, 0670034711)
11. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press, $26.95, 1594200823)
12. Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking, $29.95, 0670037605)
13. Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee (FSG, $24, 0374280398)
14. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Viking, $25.95, 0670034827)
15. The Mighty and the Almighty by Madeleine Albright (HarperCollins, $25.95, 0060892579)

Trade Paperback Fiction

1. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (Penguin, $14, 0143037145)
2. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (Random House, $13.95, 0812968069)
3. The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd (Penguin, $14, 0143036696)
4. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Penguin, $15, 0143034901)
5. History of Love by Nicole Krauss (Norton, $13.95, 0393328627)
6. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy (Vintage, $14, 0375706674)
7. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead, $14, 1594480001)
8. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Picador, $14, 031242440X)
9. March by Geraldine Brooks (Penguin, $14, 0143036661)
10. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Washington Square, $14, 0743454537)
11. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (HarperSanFrancisco, $13.95, 0061122416)
12. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (Penguin, $14, 0142001740)
13. Saturday by Ian McEwan (Anchor, $14.95, 1400076196)
14. A Sudden Country by Karen Fisher (Random House, $13.95, 0812973437)
15. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (St. Martin's, $14.95, 0312330537)

Trade Paperback Nonfiction

1. The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer (Hyperion, $14.95, 0786888768)
2. An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore (Rodale, $21.95, 1594865671)
3. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Vintage, $14.95, 0375725601)
4. Collapse by Jared Diamond (Penguin, $17, 0143036556)
5. 1776 by David McCullough (S&S, $18, 0743226720)
6. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner, $14, 074324754X)
7. The Places in Between by Rory Stewart (Harvest, $14, 0156031566)
8. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (Norton, $16.95, 0393317552)
9. Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (Picador, $14, 031242227X)
10. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Back Bay, $14.95, 0316346624)
11. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins (Plume, $15, 0452287081)
12. Rocky Mountain Wildflowers: Pocket Guide by David Dahms (Paragon, $6.95, 0964635925)
13. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library, $14, 1577314808)
14. Birds of Colorado Field Guide by Stan Tekiela (Adventure Publications, $13.95, 1885061323)
15. Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer (Anchor, $14.95, 1400032806)

Mass Market

1. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (Pocket, $9.99, 1416524797)
2. The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly (Warner, $7.99, 0446616451)
3. Crusader's Cross by James Lee Burke (Pocket, $7.99, 0743277201)
4. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Anchor, $7.99, 1400079179)
5. The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger (Anchor, $7.99, 0307275558)
6. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Warner, $6.99, 0446310786)
7. Pirate by Ted Bell (Pocket Star, $9.99, 1416510796)
8. Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's, $7.99, 0312985347)
9. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (Tor, $6.99, 0812550706)
10. Deception Point by Dan Brown (Pocket, $9.99, 1416524800)

Children's Titles

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic Paperbacks, $9.99, 0439785960)
2. Pirateology by William Captain Lubber (Candlewick, $19.99, 0763631434)
3. Eragon by Christopher Paolini (Knopf, $9.95, 0375826696)
4. Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson (Disney, $18.99, 078683787X)
5. Hoot by Carl Hiaasen (Yearling, $6.50, 0440421705)
6. Pirates by John Matthews (Atheneum, $19.95, 1416927344)
7. Eldest by Christopher Paolini (Knopf, $21, 037582670X)
8. Do Princesses Wear Hiking Boots? by Carmela Lavigna Coyle, illustrated by Mike Gordon (Rising Moon, $15.95, 0873588282)
9. Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson (Disney, $7.99, 078684907X)
10. Dial L for Loser (The Clique #6) by Lisi Harrison (Little, Brown, $9.99, 0316115045)
11. Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser (HarperCollins, $15.99, 0060542098)
12. The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick, $7.99, 0763625299)
13. Carnival at Candlelight (Magic Tree House #33) by Mary Pope Osborne, illustrated by Salvatore Murdocca (Random House, $4.99, 0375830340)
14. Olivia Forms a Band by Ian Falconer (Atheneum, $17.95, 141692454X)
15. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd (HarperCollins, $7.99, 0694003611)

[Many thanks to Book Sense and MPIBA!]