Most booksellers surveyed by Bookselling This Week reported healthy sales on Black Friday and last weekend.

Perhaps because we've read (and edited) so much Robert Gray on the subject, one item stood out in the report: John Evans, owner of Lemuria Bookstore in Jackson, Miss., told BTW that November online sales were the highest ever for the store, topping a record-setting October. Why the jump in sales this fall at Lemuriabooks.com? Apparently the store has added staff so that it's become more efficient and timely in servicing online orders.

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BTW also reported on the 15th birthday party last Saturday for Readers' Books, Sonoma, Calif., owned by Lilla and Andy Weinberger. The 2,000-sq.-ft. store intends to create more space for larger events by turning its "untended backyard into a usable outdoor room."

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The only authorized edition of the Iraq Study Group Report, issued by the panel headed by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, will be published by Vintage Books in paperback next Wednesday, December 6. The book's pub date is the same day the report will be released to President Bush and members of Congress.

The book is officially called The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward--A New Approach ($10.95, 0307386562). Elements of the group's recommendations are being disseminated in the press, and the president appears to be rejecting some of the advice already.

"I think interest in the Iraq report depends on what's in it," Barbara Meade, co-owner of Politics & Prose, Washington, D.C., told the AP. "I think it will sell better if there's some dividing up of the blame for how we got into this in the first place, instead of just having scenarios for improving the situation."

It will be a busy few days at Vintage. The publisher is receiving the report today, editing and printing it this weekend and shipping it early next week, according to the AP. The committee apparently talked with several publishers about printing the report; Vintage will donate some of the proceeds to a charity that benefits people in the military and their families.

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Slate outlined a great suggestion for what to do with all the copies of If I Did It.

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More of the same: November general retail sales were mixed. On the one hand, overall sales in November rose a modest 2.1%, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, but on the other hand, Wal-Mart's drop in sales of 0.1% at stores open at least a year is taken out of the equation, sales rose 4%, the New York Times reported.

On the one hand (again), sales at department stores open at least a year rose 4.6%, but on the other hand, mergers and closings have resulted in fewer department stores in which to shop.

On the one hand (yet again), unseasonably warm weather in parts of the country held the usual sales of winter clothing down. On the other hand, sales comparisons were hurt since ales rose significantly in November 2005 because of strong post-Hurricane Katrina spending.

Definitive news about sales in the fourth quarter will take a while to relate. As analyst Jennifer Black told the Times, "The real sales battle is taking place the last 10 days before Christmas."

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Cool idea of the day: As part of Dickens in Dundee, an annual event celebrating both Christmas and Charles Dickens held in East and West Dundee, Ill., people portraying Dickens, characters from his work and others will sit in downtown store windows tonight, the Chicago Tribune reported. Among the portrayers is June Wolk, who will be with her dog in the window of Steeplejack Bookstore. Little Ollie is getting into the spirit by wearing round-rimmed glasses and a wizard's cape, aiming to be a kind of canine Harry Potter.

The Dickens portrayer will be in the window of Emmett's Tavern and Brewing Co.--writing and perhaps tippling, too.

Other Dickens in Dundee events include a Spirit of Christmas parade tomorrow and a holiday tent with activities for children.

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In October next year, Barnes & Noble plans to open a store in Clarence, N.Y., near Buffalo, in the Shops at Main/Transit shopping area at the intersection of Main St. and Transit Rd. The day before the store opens, the B&N at 7370 Transit Rd. in Williamsville, N.Y., will close.

 

Today on Good Morning America: Maryanne Vollers, author of Lone Wolf: Eric Rudolph: Murder, Myth, and the Pursuit of an American Outlaw (HarperCollins, $25.95, 006059862X).

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Today on the Ellen DeGeneres Show: Rhonda Byrne, author of The Secret (Beyond Words, $23.95, 1582701709) and creator of the movie of the same name, which is about the law of attraction. The movie has been sold only online or in bookstores, and has been a major seller at many New Age bookstores (Shelf Awareness, November 1, 2006).

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Today on the Martha Stewart Show: Jim Botsacos serves up savory dishes from The New Greek Cuisine (Broadway, $29.95, 0767918754).

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Today on World AIDS Day, Gil L. Robertson IV, editor of Not In My Family: AIDS in the African-American Community (Agate, $16, 1932841245), appears on CNN Newsroom, the Tom Joyner Show and the Russ Parr Show. Over the weekend, he will appear on the Tavis Smiley Show and NPR's News and Notes with Farai Chideya.

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Tonight on the Charlie Rose Show: Josef Joffe, editor and a publisher of Die Zeit and author of Ueberpower: The Imperial Temptation of America (Norton, $24.95, 0393061353). 

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This evening on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Senator Barack Obama continues to campaign for his new book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Crown, $25, 0307237699).

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On Sunday's Today Show: Michael Flocker, author of The Metrosexual Guide to Style, will talk about his new book, Death by Powerpoint: A Modern Office Survival Guide (Da Capo, $12.95, 0306815125).   

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Sunday on Weekend Edition, Scott Simon interviews Kitty Burns Florey, whose new book is Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences (Melville House, $19.95, 1933633107).

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This weekend CBS Sunday Morning serves up morsels from Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition (Scribner, $30, 0743246268).

The following are the New York Times Book Review's 10 best books for 2006, which will be published in old-fashioned print on Sunday, December 10. For longer descriptions, go to the Times's Web site.

Fiction

• Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart (Random House, $24.95). "Equal parts Gogol and Borat."
• The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel (Scribner, $27.50). "Her compact fictions, populated by smart, neurotic, somewhat damaged narrators, speak grandly to the longings and insecurities in all of us, and in a voice that is bracingly direct and sneakily profound."
• The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud (Knopf, $25). A "superbly intelligent, keenly observed comedy of manners, set amid the glitter of cultural Manhattan in 2001."
• The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford (Knopf, $26.95). "As ever the drama is rooted in the interior world of its authentically life-size hero, as he logs long hours on the highways and back roads of New Jersey, taking expansive stock of middle-age defeats and registering the erosions of a brilliantly evoked landscape of suburbs, strip malls and ocean towns."
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl (Viking, $25.95). "The antic ghost of Nabokov hovers over this buoyantly literate first novel."

Nonfiction

• Falling Through the Earth: A Memoir by Danielle Trussoni (Holt, $23). An "intense, at times searing memoir revisits the author's rough-and-tumble Wisconsin girlhood, spent on the wrong side of the tracks in the company of her father, a Vietnam vet."
• The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright (Knopf, $27.95). "In the fullest account yet of the events that led to the fateful day, Wright unmasks the secret world of Osama bin Laden and his collaborators and also chronicles the efforts of a handful of American intelligence officers alert to the approaching danger but frustrated, time and again, in their efforts to stop it."
• Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking, $29.95). "This absorbing history of the Plymouth Colony is a model of revisionism."
• The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press, $26.95). "In an uncommonly good year for American food writing, this is a book that stands out."
• The Places in Between by Rory Stewart (Harvest/Harcourt, $14). This "report on [Stewart's] adventures--walking across Afghanistan in January of 2002, shortly after the fall of the Taliban--belongs with the masterpieces of the travel genre."

In the spirit of its invitation-only open house/parties held several times a year in-store and at a nearby restaurant, the Frugal Frigate, the Redlands, Calif., children's bookstore, is planning a three-day conference next September at the historic Mission Inn Hotel and Spa in Riverside, to which it will invite some 200 teachers. The conference will feature appearances by a range of children's authors, illustrators, publishers and others in the industry who will aim to give the participants "ammunition to go back to their schools and teach the reading of children's literature," as Frugal Frigate co-owner Brad Hundman put it.

"We're breaking new ground," Hundman continued enthusiastically. "We wanted to do something to differentiate ourselves, something fun. This is nothing more than filling a need."

The event will likely be called either the Mission Inn Literacy Celebration or take on some variation of its informal in-store name, the September Event, perhaps the September Literacy Celebration.

Scheduled for September 27-29, the September Event, let us say, will feature authors such as Michael Buckley, co-author of the Sisters Grimm series, Nikki Grimes and Diane Adams. Each attendee will pay about $245 and receive several books in addition to the three days of events, which will include a Friday evening roundtable and a lunch on the Inn's patio with a violinist and celloist. Hundman envisions a casual atmosphere, with a big room where people can "come and go as they please," and authors will not be expected to work all day. "We will offer great books from great authors," he added. "And if nothing else, we will be astounded at the knowledge that will flow."

The guest list the first year will be invitation-only for the most part because the store wants the event to be "a benefit for the people we come into contact with," Hundman said. There will be other benefits: 10% discounts on many books, and participants who purchase $3,000 worth of books within 60 days after the event will be reimbursed their fee.

Hundman wants to have at least two of such events a year. "I've already talked with some authors for the 2008 events," he said. That year, the store plans to hold two Literacy Events, in May and September.

While he said he understands the attraction to children of "all the cool stuff"--from video games to the Internet to text messaging--Hundman said, "It's so critical that we teach this next generation the value of reading. It's not an issue of selling books, but getting the right literature into people's hands. We as an industry have to concentrate on this."

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The Frugal Frigate continues to hold several open house/parties a year to which it invites 250-350 customers, local officials, "the people we come into contact with and the people who have supported us," as Hundman put it. On a Saturday afternoon, they see the store and then go to the nearby Farm restaurant for several hours of fine artisanal food, music and the opportunity to meet several authors, usually two established authors and one "comer"--and buy books although there is "never any push" to have anyone make purchases. "When we close the door, there's nothing but magic," Hundman said. The Frugal Frigate is considering eventually putting on similar events in other areas.

(For previous stories about the remarkable open house/parties, see our issues of August 21, 2005 and October 30, 2005.)

Hundman emphasized that the events are intended to honor both customers and authors. "A lot of this is nothing more than sharing blessings and treating authors with the respect they deserve," Hundman explained. "It is a privilege to have each author come to our store."

As usual, a desire for immediate financial return is not the key motivator for the Frugal Frigate in any of its events. "What we're doing is genuine," Hundman said. "It's from the heart and good business. Everyone wins."--John Mutter

The following were the bestselling titles at member bookstores of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association during the week ended Sunday, November 26, as reported to Book Sense:

Hardcover Fiction

1. The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman (HarperCollins, $26.95, 0060563451)
2. Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf, $25.95, 0307262995)
3. Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press, $35, 159420120X)
4. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Knopf, $24, 0307265439)
5. The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog by Dave Barry (Putnam, $15.95, 0399154132)
6. Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier (Random House, $26.95, 0375509321)
7. Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende (HarperCollins, $25.95, 0061161535)
8. What Is the What by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's, $26, 1932416641)
9. The View From Castle Rock by Alice Munro (Knopf, $25.95, 1400042828)
10. For One More Day by Mitch Albom (Hyperion, $21.95, 1401303277)
11. Lisey's Story by Stephen King (Scribner, $28, 0743289412)
12. The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig (Harcourt, $25, 0151012377)
13. Wild Fire by Nelson DeMille (Warner, $26.99, 044657967X)
14. Cross by James Patterson (Little, Brown, $27.99, 0316159794)
15. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (Algonquin, $23.95, 1565124995)

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (Crown, $25, 0307237699)
2. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson (Broadway, $25, 076791936X)
3. Thunderstruck by Erik Larson (Crown, $25.95, 1400080665)
4. I Like You by Amy Sedaris (Warner, $27.99, 0446578843)
5. I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron (Knopf, $19.95, 0307264556)
6. Marley & Me by John Grogan (Morrow, $21.95, 0060817089)
7. Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris (Knopf, $16.95, 0307265773)
8. You: On a Diet by Michael F. Roizen, M.D., and Mehmet C. Oz, M.D. (Free Press, $25, 0743292545)
9. Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker and Ethan Becker (Scribner, $30, 0743246268)
10. Among Wild Horses by Lynne Pomeranz (Storey Publishing, $16.95, 158017633X)
11. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press, $26.95, 1594200823)
12. Dream Golf by Stephen Goodwin (Algonquin, $24.95, 1565125304)
13. No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs and David Roberts (Broadway, $23.95, 0767924703)
14. Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides (Doubleday, $26.95, 0385507771)
15. Fiasco by Thomas E. Ricks (Penguin Press, $27.95, 159420103X)

Trade Paperback Fiction

1. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (Penguin, $14, 0143037145)
2. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (Grove, $14, 0802142818)
3. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (Random House, $13.95, 0812968069)
4. Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan (Ballantine, $14.95, 034546401X)
5. Snow by Orhan Pamuk (Vintage, $14.95, 0375706860)
6. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (Back Bay, $13.95, 0316010707)
7. A Sudden Country by Karen Fisher (Random House, $13.95, 0812973437)
8. The Lighthouse by P.D. James (Vintage, $13.95, 0307275736)
9. Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Vintage, $11.95, 1400095948)
10. March by Geraldine Brooks (Penguin, $14, 0143036661)
11. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead, $14, 1594480001)
12. Light From Heaven by Jan Karon (Penguin, $13.95, 0143037706)
13. Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos (Grove, $13, 0802142109)
14. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (Norton, $13.95, 0393328627)
15. The Night Watch by Sarah Waters (Riverhead, $15, 1594482306)

Trade Paperback Nonfiction

1. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (Mariner, $14.95, 0618773479)
2. Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama (Three Rivers, $14.95, 1400082773)
3. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (Random House, $14.95, 0812973011)
4. 1491 by Charles C. Mann (Vintage, $14.95, 1400032059)
5. Bad President by R.D. Rosen, Harry Prichett, Rob Battles and James Friedman (Workman, $8.95, 0761146202)
6. Teacher Man by Frank McCourt (Scribner, $15, 0743243781)
7. The River of Doubt by Candice Millard (Broadway, $14.95, 0767913736)
8. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (S&S, $19.95, 0743270754)
9. An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore (Rodale, $21.95, 1594865671)
10. If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name by Heather Lende (Algonquin, $12.95, 156512524X)
11. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner, $14, 074324754X)
12. The End of Faith by Sam Harris (Norton, $13.95, 0393327655)
13. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Vintage, $14.95, 0375725601)
14. Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (Picador, $14, 0312425414)
15. Born to Kvetch by Michael Wex (Harper Perennial, $13.95, 0061132179)

Mass Market

1. The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, Fourth Edition (Merriam-Webster, $7.50, 0877799296)
2. No Regrets and Other True Cases by Ann Rule (Pocket Star, $7.99, 0743448758)
3. The Cell by Stephen King (Pocket, $9.99, 1416524517)
4. Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley (Bantam, $7.99, 0553589083)
5. Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (St. Martin's, $7.99, 0312938853)
6. School Days by Robert B. Parker (Berkley, $7.99, 0425211347)
7. A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin (Bantam, $7.99, 055358202X)
8. The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly (Warner, $7.99, 0446616451)
9. Death and Judgment by Donna Leon (Penguin, $7.99, 0143035827)
10. Thanksgiving by Janet Evanovich (HarperTorch, $7.99, 0060598808)

Children's Titles

1. Eragon by Christopher Paolini (Laurel-Leaf, $6.99, 044023848X)
2. The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13) by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Brett Helquist (HarperCollins, $12.99, 0064410161)
3. The Lost Colony (Artemis Fowl, #5) by Eoin Colfer (Miramax, $16.95, 0786849568)
4. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd (HarperCollins, $7.99, 0694003611)
5. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, illustrated by Eric Carle (Holt, $7.95, 0805047905)
6. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (Megan Tingley, $8.99, 0316015849)
7. Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson (Disney, $18.99, 078683787X)
8. Terrier by Tamora Pierce (Random House, $18.95, 037581468X)
9. Pirateology by Captain William Lubber (Candlewick, $19.99, 0763631434)
10. Into the Wild (Warriors #1) by Erin W. Hunter (Avon, $5.99, 0060525509)
11. Blizzard of the Blue Moon (Magic Tree House #36) by Mary Pope Osborne, illustrated by Sal Murdocca (Random House, $11.95, 0375830375)
12. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (Megan Tingley, $17.99, 0316160199)
13. The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick, $7.99, 0763625299)
14. Hoot by Carl Hiaasen (Yearling, $6.50, 0440421705)
15. The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore, illustrated by Richard Jesse Watson (HarperCollins, $16.99, 0060757418)

[Many thanks to Book Sense and PNBA!]