Books & Crannies Bookstore in Middleburg, Va., will soon relocate from its side street location to the town's main thoroughfare. The Loudoun Times-Mirror described Books & Crannies as "a thinking person's bookshop" and Middleburg as "small, upscale, with residents who are famously resistant to franchises and chain stores [and] seemed a good bet for an independent bookstore."

Manager Pat Daly and her business partner Genie Ford opened the bookstore in 2004. "We wanted to be in a community where the kind of store we wanted to create would be well received," said Daly, adding that, after a long career as a corporate lawyer in Washington, D.C., she had decided to take an early retirement and throw her efforts into an independent bookstore that would "make a contribution to the community."

Daly looks forward to the increased space and exposure that the new location will offer. "We get a huge amount of community support," she said. "It allows us to grow the business the way we want to."

Books & Crannies customer Helen Walker lauded the bookshop's staff members, saying they "are all so accommodating. . . . They'll even call me up to inform me of a book or an author signing. That kind of service is like having your own personal trainer for your reading habits."

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Another bookstore profiled this week was Creekside Books & Coffee in Skaneateles, N.Y. The Auburn Citizen highlighted Creekside as a comfort zone for local residents: "If relaxation was tangible, Creekside Books & Coffee in the village of Skaneateles might be the definition."

Like most of her independent bookstore peers, owner Erika Davis said "community" was the prime directive when she moved back to Skaneateles from Texas and opened Creekside in December 2004. "I thought what's missing is a gathering place in the community, a place where there's no pressure to order a full meal, but just meet with friends," she said. "A big part of it is a warm, welcoming place for the locals, as well as a place for visitors to feel comfortable.”

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Sadly we learned that one of the people killed in the Virginia Tech shooting was the son of science fiction writer Michael Bishop. Christopher "Jamie" Bishop, 35, was teaching a German class when the murderer entered the room and shot him and others. He had collaborated with his father on some novels and short stories and illustrated the covers for two of his father's books, Brighten to Incandescence and A Reverie for Mister Ray, as well as Mike Jasper's short story collection, Gunning for the Buddha, according to the Newnan Times-Herald.

Also Nikki Giovanni, the poet and a professor at Virginia Tech, taught the killer and told CNN that she was not surprised to learn his identity. "I would have been shocked if it wasn't," she said, as quoted by the Cincinnati Enquirer. Giovanni also gave what were called "inspirational remarks" at a Tuesday convocation on campus to honor the victims.

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BenBella Books, publisher of two titles mentioned here yesterday that were to have been sold exclusively by Borders Group until September 1, has cancelled the general release of the two books. They will not be distributed to the general book trade by IPG.

The titles are The Great Snape Debate by Amy Berner, Orson Scott Card and Joyce Millman and The Unauthorized Harry Potter by Adam Troy Castro.

BenBella, which does some book packaging, has decided to keep its book packaging and general trade publishing operations separate. 

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In a plot twist worthy of his own mysteries, Vermont suspense novelist Daniel Hecht discovered Vermont publisher Chelsea Green's books while shopping at Powell's Books in Portland, Ore. Hecht, author of Bones of the Barbary Coast: A Cree Black Novel (Bloomsbury, $24.95, 9781596910867/1596910860), made his full confession in a commentary written for the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus.

"I had heard of Chelsea Green Publishing and had lived 40 minutes' drive from their main office for two decades, yet I'd never read one of their books," Hecht admitted. "But as I browsed the shelves at Powell's Books, my eyes were snagged by a series of lovely covers and intriguing titles, and on closer inspection I discovered that the books came from right here in Vermont."

Hecht, who also serves as executive director of the Vermont Environmental Consortium, turned his "confession" into a laudatory look at Chelsea Green, whose "slogan concisely states their focus as 'the politics and practice of sustainable living.' " Describing the publisher's books as "how-to manuals for Planet Earth," Hecht wrote: "A survey of their 400 titles reveals a concern with sustainability from perspectives that are at once technological, philosophical, personal and political."

Case closed. 

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What was the question again? We've noticed for some time now that, when it comes to writing headlines for articles about bookstore woes, editors tend to favor groan-inducing book references ("final chapter," "closing the books," "that's all she wrote," etc.). Another worrisome trend, however, is the increasing popularity of heads and sub-heads written by Jeopardy fans, who feel compelled to create them in the form of a question. Recent examples include "Is this 'The End' for local booksellers?" in the Maryland Gazette and "Wouldn't you hate to live in an area that felt more like a strip mall and less like a neighborhood?" in the Minnesota Daily.