Congratulations to Page After Page Bookstore, Elizabeth City, N.C., which was voted Business of the Year by the Downtown Business & Professional Association and Elizabeth City Downtown Inc. The president of the DBPA said that Page After Page is "great at promoting themselves and downtown. We feel they are a wonderful business."

Owned by Susan Hinkle, Page After Page was also cited for "a willingness to coordinate with other events, such as tying book-signings in with local celebrations."

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Speaking with former PGW publishers who went with Perseus in one form or another, Bookslut finds that "despite the chaos and the acquisitions, the money down the tubes, and the inordinate amount of time, energy, and tears spent on this publishing bankruptcy disaster, a phoenix does seem to be emerging from the fire. Publishers both large and small, non-profit and for-profit, express excitement, hope, and relief about the future with Perseus."

Among people she quotes: Morgan Entrekin of Grove/Atlantic; Eli Horowitz of McSweeney's; Rhonda Hughes of Hawthorne; Emily Cook of Milkweed Editions; and Richard Nash of Soft Skull, which was bought by Winton, Shoemaker & Co.

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In winter, it could be an especially cool idea: the Tempest Book Shop, Waitsfield, Vt., plans to have a "clothing optional" book signing tomorrow evening. The event, part of his Vermont Naturist Tour, features Jim C. Cunningham, whose new book is Nudity and Christianity (AuthorHouse, $28, 9781425975081/1425975089). Cunningham argues that "nudity is not erotic; it is a reflection of the human body through God's eyes," the Times Argus reported.

Event rules are that anyone planning to partake fully of the event must bring a towel and no gawking is permitted. Bookseller James O'Neill told the AP (via the Boston Globe), "There's already been a few little church ladies who've stopped by, who didn't seem too pleased. But I don't expect many people to show up."

Younger librarians as hipsters is the theme of a story in the Styles section of yesterday's New York Times. Describing a gathering of librarians in the hip Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, the paper writes with some awe, "With their thrift-store inspired clothes and abundant tattoos, they looked as if they could be filmmakers, Web designers, coffee shop purveyors or artists."

It continues: "With so much of the job involving technology and with a focus now on finding and sharing information beyond just what is available in books, a new type of librarian is emerging--the kind that, according to the Web site Librarian Avengers, is 'looking to put the 'hep cat' in cataloguing.' "

Evidence of the librarian as hipster includes our hipster friends Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum's Unshelved.com, public librarian Scott Douglas's contributions to McSweeney's Internet Tendency and Jessamyn West's librarian.net. Incidentally a standout hipster in our book is depicted in the main photograph illustrating the story: Jessica Pigza, who recently married hipster Sean Concannon of Parson Weems, the northeast rep group.

Among reasons for becoming librarians mentioned in the story:

• "Because it's cool," said Sarah Gentile.
• Because librarians she met earlier were "smart, well-read, interesting, funny people, who seemed to be happy with their jobs," Sarah Murphy said.
• Because "I wanted to do something different, something maybe more meaningful," according to Carrie Klein.
• Because the field is a haven for social activism, especially for "those of us who graduated around the same time as the Patriot Act," Michelle Campbell commented. "We see what happens when information is restricted."
• And because "a certain amount of nerdiness is now cool," as the hipster wannabe Times puts it.

Carl Lennertz, v-p of independent retailing at HarperCollins whose blog is publishinginsider, offers the following report on one of several writers' conferences offered each year by Book Passage, Corte Madera, Calif. Many thanks!

It was 91 degrees as I took the surprisingly easy AirTrain to JFK for a flight to the cooler west coast and the Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference. Author Neil McMahon and I were the Odd Couple, invited after Book Passage buyer Luisa Smith read and loved Neil's Lone Creek.

This long-running mystery conference--Elaine and Bill Petrocelli's brainchild--is quite the thing, drawing bestselling authors together with the goal of helping 75 aspiring mystery writers find their voice during four days of panels on plotting, character development and more, with the coolest session involving an FBI guy talking death facts. (The faculty would say that was too long a sentence.) There was also a judge, defense attorney and former P.I. to give insider tips to the students.

This is not at all a morbid affair; quite the contrary. Spirits were high, as the sun was shining and the espresso flowed freely. Conference organizers Karen West and Reese Lakota were models of grace and efficiency, and this was easily the best organized such conference I've ever attended. The likes of Michael Connelly (possible the nicest author on Earth) and co-hosts Jackie Winspear and Sheldon Siegel (both also quite nice) mixed with a range of veterans and newbies like Neil and me. I was there to talk publishing facts, as was the charming and wise Maggie Richards of Holt. Hallie Ephron led several panels; agent Amy Rennert another. Here's a full list of faculty and their books.

Neil and I also had time to go over the manuscript to the sequel to Lone Creek, and we are both psyched, as I was to make a foray into fog-shrouded S.F. proper to visit Neal Sofman's wonderful new store in West Portal. And what a delight to see friend Bridget Kinsella's face on the front page of the Saturday San Francisco Chronicle promoting a story in the next day's issue about her and her new book, Visiting Life. (We are both so indebted to Shaye Areheart.)

Alas, I did have to leave before the winner of the kill-someone-in-three-sentences contest was announced. As I left--no kidding--a large jet-black crow--or was it a raven?--sat in a tree near my car in the parking lot. Quoth the crow: "See youse next year." And it swooped down and killed me.

This morning on the Today Show: Emme Aronson, author of What Are You Hungry For?: Feed Your Tummy and Your Heart (HarperCollins, $15.99, 9780060543075/0060543078).

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Today on NPR's All Things Considered: Nicholas Kulish, author of Last One In (Harper Perennial, $13.95, 9780061189395/0061189391).

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Jo Tatchell and Nabeel Yasin, author and subject of Nabeel's Song: A Family Story of Survival in Iraq (Doubleday, $23.95, 9780385521215/0385521219).

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Today on the View, which has a "Special Edition: Summer Books" theme:

• Roni DeLuz, who discusses her new book, 21 Pounds in 21 Days: The Martha's Vineyard Diet Detox (Collins, $24.95, 9780061176173/0061176176).
• Tina Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles (Doubleday, $27.50, 9780385517089/0385517084).
• Jackie Collins, author of Drop Dead Beautiful (St. Martin's, $24.95, 9780312341794/0312341792).

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Tonight in a Colbert Report repeat: Vincent Bugliosi, former prosecutor and Warren Commission report defender whose new book is Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Norton, $49.95, 9780393045253/0393045250).

 

From last week's Book Sense bestseller lists, available at BookSense.com, here are the recommended titles, which are also Book Sense Picks:

Hardcover

Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician by Daniel Wallace (Doubleday, $21.95, 9780385521093/038552109X). "Daniel Wallace tells the story of Henry Walker, a magician who disappears as a child and spends the rest of his life trying to make himself reappear. A haunting, beautifully written story where nothing, including the truth, is what it seems."--Stephen Grutzmacher, Passtimes Books, Sister Bay, Wis.

Heart in the Right Place by Carolyn Jourdan (Algonquin, $23.95, 9781565124875/1565124871). "What a great memoir about a young woman coming home to a rural community to help (temporarily) with her dad's medical practice while her mother recovers from a heart attack. Although Jourdan is a top-notch attorney in Washington, D.C., she was in over her head as the receptionist for this rural medical office."--Patricia Worth, River Reader, Lexington, Mo.

Paperback

Now Is the Hour by Tom Spanbauer (Houghton, $14.95, 9780618872640/0618872647). "Get ready to take a trip down memory lane as Spanbauer gives us another classic tale, this one from the 1960s. Seventeen-year-old Rigby John Klusener exposes us to the small-town hangouts and hang-ups of Pocatello, Idaho, in this novel of family bonds, racial tensions, and sexual awakening. You can almost taste the vanilla Cokes and french fries!"--Barbara Theroux, Fact & Fiction, Missoula, Mont.

For Young Adults

Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah (Orchard, $16.99, 9780439919470/0439919479). "Amal, a Palestinian high school girl, decides to wear the hijab (Muslim head scarf) full-time to show the depth of her faith. Her actions challenge everyone she encounters, including her parents and the leadership at the private school she attends. The scarf becomes a metaphor for individual differences and the discoveries we make as we grow to embrace diversity."--Bev Denor, LaDeDa Books, Manitowoc, Wis.

[Many thanks to Book Sense and the ABA!]

Shelf Awareness recently had coffee with Scott McCredie, author of Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense, in between his balance-enhancing Ping Pong games, hiking and tai chi. We're quite interested in balance at our office, since the steps leading to our door are a bit off plumb, as is the sidewalk and the street. Better to get some tips now instead of waiting to practice on ice.

McCredie became interested in balance when he saw his father suddenly pitch over a boulder while pausing during a hike. This occurrence led him to research what he calls the sixth sense, a sense that is not just vital to our existence, but one that is becoming more of an issue as our population ages: "In this country, an epidemic of falls is mowing the elderly down like scythes, and soon it will be thinning the ranks of baby boomers." The good news is, like aerobic activity and strength training, balance is both learnable and refinable.

Beginning with the universal experience of motion sickness, he explains the three aspects of balance: the vestibular apparatus, which constantly measures the body's position in space relative to gravity; vision; and proprioception, the unconscious system by which the body senses its own motion and spatial orientation through movement of joints and muscles. It's a demanding job to balance a mass as large as the human body on two relatively small feet; furthermore, our bodies weren't designed for passive motion, i.e., riding in boats, planes, cars and rockets. We were designed for two-legged travel on the ground. McCredie has a fascinating chapter with recent discoveries about Neanderthals' hunting style and body structure, including their vestibular apparatus. Neanderthals and Sapiens were both strong, both intelligent, but the Neanderthal's vestibular system was smaller, positing lesser agility, ergo, lesser hunting ability. He also writes about NASA, Van Gogh, piloting planes and the early U.S. mail system, and takes us into the world of wire walkers, or funambulists, discussing the extreme equilibrium of Karl Wallenda, Crazy Wilson Dominguez and other performers.

Using the experiences of funambulists and studies of Chinese exercise, McCredie says the best thing we can do to increase and maintain balance is to do something that boosts tactile signals and our response to them. Stand on one leg while brushing your teeth or waiting for a stoplight; learn tai chi; walk on uneven ground. Most reasonably active people can maintain their equilibrium without much effort into their mid-sixties, but after that, proprioceptors on the bottoms of the feet lose their sensitivity quickly. Add the popularity of thick-soled shoes along with bifocals or progressive lenses to the mix, and it's amazing that we manage to stay upright at all.

Balance is not just a matter of having the ability to stay vertical, there's also a cognitive connection. Our balance system may play an important part in learning and thinking--there have been intriguing studies done with autistic and dyslexic children that support this. McCredie says that constantly challenging ourselves is vital, particularly as we age: "[As] we move into our sixties . . . we can't afford not to think about it. Not just to prevent a potentially lethal fall, but to be able to continue moving gracefully through the world, to stay glued to the tightwire of life."

So this is the Shelf Awareness Public Service Announcement for July: Watch where you're going. Do one thing at a time. Give your balance the attention it deserves. As the author says, this will "keep [you] dancing right on through to the last song."--Marilyn Dahl

During June, the following were the bestselling books at Abebooks.com:
 
1. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
2. Why We Want You to Be Rich by Donald Trump and Robert T. Kiyosaki
3. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
4. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
5. The Dangerous Book for Boys by Hal Iggulden
6. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Tolle Eckhart
7. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
8. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
9. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised by Joe Trippi
10. The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

[Many thanks to Abebooks.com!]