"It was obviously going to be somewhat provocative. I could have said A New Path to Peace or something like that."--Jimmy Carter about the title of his new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, in a story in today's New York Times about the reaction to his premise.

Many more readers are downloading The Iraq Study Group Report for free than buying Vintage's $10.95 book, according to the Book Standard, which quoted Nielsen BookScan data (38,000 copies of the book sold in the week ending December 10) and the U.S. Institute of Peace (which says the online version has been downloaded some 1.2 million times).

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Effective January 1, Langenscheidt Publishing Group will be the exclusive distributor in the U.S. for all Michelin titles. As of the new year, all orders should go to Langenscheidt at 800-423-0485, fax 888-773-7979; orders@langenscheidt.com. For information, e-mail lartis@langenscheidt.com. Returns should go to Langenscheidt, c/o Avarto, 15 Tyger River Drive, Duncan S.C. 29334. 

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Here's a tale with a lot of twists.

A Chicago company that has sold pretzels in Borders and Barnes & Noble cafés for seven and eight years, respectively, planned to stop selling in Borders, where it has annual sales of $500,000, and sell only in B&N because it wanted "an exclusive bookstore outlet," according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

But for contractual reasons, Kim & Scott's Gourmet Pretzels must continue selling in Borders' cafés, run by Seattle's Best Coffee. The company, which wants to strengthen its brand, plans to create special flavors to sell in B&N cafés.

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The Newport News Times in Newport News, Ore., celebrates the 35th anniversary of Canyon Way Restaurant and Bookstore, founded by Ed and Roguey Doyle. Ed oversees the restaurant. Roguey and Kate Scannell manage the bookstore. The food and food-for-the-soul enterprise includes a deli.
 

Bookstore sales in October were $1.006 billion, down 2.3%, from $1.030 billion in the same month in 2005, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The Bureau revised September sales downward to $1.483 billion from $1.497 billion.

For the year to date, bookstore sales were $13.067 billion, down 1.8% from $13.306 billion in the first ten months of 2005. Through June sales for the year to date had been up 0.8%, but with the 9.3% drop in sales in July compared to July 2005, year to date sales slipped into negative territory.

By comparison, total retail sales in October rose 4.3% to $319.0 billion from $305.8 billion in October 2005. For the year to date, total retail sales rose 6.6% to $3.2 trillion from $3.0 trillion in the same period in 2005.
 
Note: under Census Bureau definitions, bookstore sales are of new books and do not include "electronic home shopping, mail-order, or direct sale" or used book sales.

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In related news, retail sales in November rose 1%, according to the Commerce Department, the largest jump since July, Reuters reported.

"The holiday sales season has started in very good form," Richard J. DeKaser, chief economist at the National City Corp., said. "This could mean consumer spending growth of 3% or better."
 

Congratulations. The new Taschen bookstore at 107 Greene St. in the SoHo district of New York City had a soft opening on Tuesday. The store is not finished, but the artwork by Beatriz Milhazes and fixtures by Philippe Starck are in. Official opening is planned for late January. The store manager is Matthew Ricke.

Taschen has stores in Paris and Beverly Hills. This one has 1,700 square feet of space; 80% of stock is Taschen books, the rest is from other publishers. 

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's Web site.

Saturday, December 16

12 p.m. Public Lives. At an event hosted by the University of Virginia Bookstore in Charlottesville, Adrian Goldsworthy declaimed about his book Caesar: Life of a Colossus (Yale University Press, $35, 0300120486). (Re-airs at 8 p.m.)

3:30 p.m. History on Book TV. Addressing students at Columbia University taking a course on the American West, Hampton Sides, author most recently of Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West (Doubleday, $26.95, 0385507771), discussed the military expeditions led by former fur trapper Kit Carson, who, Sides said, was not a self-promoter, did not enjoy his celebrity and disdained the dime novels about his exploits. (Re-airs Sunday at 8 p.m.)

6 p.m. Encore Booknotes. In a segment first aired in 1992, Norman Schwarzkopf, the retired general who was commander of coalition forces in the Gulf War of 1991, talked about his book, It Doesn't Take a Hero: The Autobiography of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf (Bantam, $7.99, 0553563386).

9 p.m. After Words. Ron Kampeas, Washington bureau chief for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, interviews Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian-American and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan Books, $23, 0805080341), in which he argues that the only hope for peace is to create one state out of Israel and Palestine. (Re-airs Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.)

Sunday, December 17

7:45 a.m. Print on Demand: A Revolution in the Making. In a talk that was part of the Fourth Annual International Conference on the Book hosted by Emerson College in Boston, Mass., Jason Epstein, co-founder of the New York Review of Books and of On Demand Books, talked about On Demand's Espresso Book Machine, which can print up to 20 books per hour. (Re-airs at Noon.)

11 a.m. Inside the New York Times Book Review. Editor Sam Tanenhaus shows how an issue is created, introduces many staff members, talks about how books are selected and rejected, how reviewers are chosen, how the publication is composed and laid out, how headlines, blurbs and artwork are created, and how letters from readers are edited and chosen. (Re-airs at 7 p.m.)

This morning the Early Show does it with Jonathan D. Pond, author of You Can Do It!: The Boomer's Guide to a Great Retirement (Collins, $26.95, 006112138X).

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This morning on the Today Show: Jude Milner, author of Fat Free: The All-True Adventures of Supersize Woman! (Tarcher, $10.95, 158542501X).

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Today on KCRW's Bookworm: Lynne Tillman, author of American Genius: A Comedy (Soft Skull, $15, 1933368446). The show describes the segment this way: "This haunting novel takes the form of an obsessive's monologue--consciousness masks pain; first-person narrative conceals repression. We discuss how a culminating breakthrough--a brief insight--illuminates the book's whole structure."

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Today the Martha Stewart Show serves up Suzanne Goin, author of Sunday Suppers at Lucques: Seasonal Recipes from Market to Table (Knopf, $35, 1400042151).

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Today on the Dr. Phil Show: Sharon Osbourne, wife of Ozzie and author of Sharon Osbourne Extreme: My Autobiography (Springboard Press, $24.99, 0821280147).

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Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (Knopf, $25.95, 1400044871). 

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Tonight on the Colbert Report: Daniel Pinchbeck, author of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (Tarcher, $26.95,1585424838).

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Tonight on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Pat Croce, author of Pirate Soul: A Swashbuckling Voyage through the Golden Age of Pirates (Running Press, $29.95, 0762427566).

Dick Bolles (more formally known as Richard Nelson Bolles) is the author of What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers, now in its 36th annual edition, with nine million copies in print. The 2007 edition (Ten Speed Press, $17.95, 1580087949) is Bolles' favorite. He has a related Web site, www.jobhuntersbible.com, is a frequent convention keynote conventions and runs two- to five-day workshops that are open to all.

Here Bolles responds to a series of queries we will occasionally ask people in the business:

On nightstand now:

The Influence of Jesus by Phillips Brooks (published 1879); The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (2005); Ask by Barbara Rollin (2001). Call me a "trampoline reader." I tend to bounce--between different books, rather than finishing one completely. Books illuminate each other. I love that kind of light.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Every Western that was ever written. No one book stands out in my memory; the plots were all similar but I came to love the West and the Western hero. I won "the summer reading contest" in the Teaneck (N.J.) public library every year, from the time I was 9, 'til I was 18, on nothing but an exclusive diet of Westerns.

Top five authors:

I tend to have favorite books rather than favorite authors. But for consistent, dependable, predictable excellence, I'd have to say I'm interested in anything by Phillips Brooks, Malcolm Gladwell, Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, Peter Drucker.
 
Book you've "faked" reading:

Oh, come on, there must have been at least one. Probably a lot more than one. But, being human, I just don't remember them. My memory is overloaded anyway, and I rarely store useless information like this. Those books' names are long-gone, dead, and buried.

Book you are an "evangelist" for:

I'd have to say Why Men Earn More by Warren Farrell (2005). I'd give it to every woman in the job market, if I had my way. What a careful researcher the man is! And practical, with brilliant strategies for curing the problem of women's pay; it's a book every working woman can use.
 
Book you've bought for the cover:

Paradise Found: The Visionary Art of Amy Zerner by Monte Farber, who is a devoted husband and No. 1 fan (1995). Beautiful, inside and out.
 
Book that changed your life:

The New Testament. (Written somewhere between 30 A.D. and 110 A.D.) I voluntarily read this, cover to cover, when I was 14. It changed my life, my vocation, everything.

Favorite line from a book:

"My father was the most even-tempered man I ever met. He was in a seething fury from morning 'til night." Don't remember which bio it was in--I came across it when I was 23. But I have always remembered that opening line for its cleverness. I love cleverness.
 
Book you most want to read again for the first time:

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (2000). Among many other things, it explained to me the long-term success of my book, What Color Is Your Parachute? (1972-2007).  It's No. 2 on Business Week's paperback bestseller list, as I write. Astounding for a 35-year-old title. I never understood why until I read Malcolm.