Notes: B&N Settles Suits; Anniversaries and Awards
Without admitting liability, Barnes & Noble has settled all
shareholder suits arising from the improper dating of stock option
grants for B&N executives and staff, the company stated in a filing
with the Securities and Exchange Commission. B&N agreed, it said, "to
institute certain corporate governance and internal control measures
and to pay plaintiffs' counsels' fees and expenses in the total amount
of $2.75 million."
Earlier this year, a special committee formed by the company found that
over the past 10 years, B&N misdated and improperly backdated stock
options to the tune of $45.5 million (Shelf Awareness,
April 4, 2007). The special committee recommended
the company make several changes, including reconstituting the board's
compensation committee to consist of independent directors who were not
members of the committee during the last decade; adding independent
directors to the audit committee; reshuffling several other committees;
creating a general counsel position; and having the CFO with help from
the v-p of human resources oversee stock option policy.
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Congratulations to Tom Lowenberg and Judith Lafitte! Octavia Books, New Orleans, La., was voted "Best Locally Owned Bookstore" in Gambit Weekly,
which wrote: "If, like Groucho Marx, you'd never join a club that would
have you as a member, you're missing out at Octavia Books. In addition
to frequent author signings and readings, Octavia has a
well-established book club that meets once a month. A wide variety of
well-respected choices such as Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop and Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay showcase the intellectual integrity of the group and hint at some pretty thought-provoking topics for discussion."
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Speaking of Octavia, in a review of bookselling in New Orleans and on
the Gulf Coast in the two years since Hurricane Katrina struck, Bookselling This Week spoke with Tom Lowenburg, who
said that the store is "doing very well. Customers continue to be
strongly supportive of local business." Sadly, of course, the city
"continues to have all kinds of problems."
Pass Christian Books, Pass Christian, Miss., which re-opened last
December in a temporary location five miles north of the original
store, is also doing well, with sales at pre-storm levels, according to
co-owner Scott Naugle.
For more and comments by other booksellers, go to BTW.
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Bookselling This Week
also celebrates the 30th anniversary of the King's English, Salt Lake
City, Utah, owned by Betsy Burton and Barbara Hoagland, a store that has been thumping the thirty thing this year. "From January
through September 2007," BTW wrote, "shoppers have received a
30 percent discount on hardcover books in a different section of
inventory, on the 30th day of each month. A storewide 30 percent sale
is being held on September 10, along with a champagne reception, a
drawing for $30 Book Sense gift cards, and an appearance by author
Diane Ackerman."
In addition, a 30th anniversary commemorative edition of the store's
newsletter, Inkslinger, will have 30 lists of the staff's 30 favorite
books over the past 30 years.
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Librería Lectorum, the 47-year-old Spanish-language
bookstore in New York City, is closing its storefront on 14th Street in
Manhattan and will sell only on the Internet, the New York Daily News
reported. Owned by Scholastic, the store had considered moving but
decided against it because the area is no longer a center of the
Hispanic community. The landlord, whose father founded the store,
expressed disappointment in Librería Lectorum's decision, saying that
the new lease he offered was 30% below market rates. The store plans to
hold readings in Spanish and Latino-themed events at Scholastic stores
in SoHo and midtown.
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Cool, slim idea of the day. As fashion week in New
York City continues to move elegantly down the runway, on Monday models wearing
T-shirts advertising Skinny Bitch
by Kim Barnouin and Rory Freedman (Running Press, $13.95,
9780762424931/0762424931) will give away T-shirts at Bryant Park, where
the fashion shows take place, as well as at Grand Central Terminal, Penn
Station and the Virgin Megastore.
"We felt it was the right week to bring attention to the book," David
Steinberger, CEO of Perseus Books Group, owner of Running Press, told Shelf Awareness.
On the front, the T-shirts have a picture of the book's cover, and the back reads, "The Bitch Is Back," a reference to Skinny Bitch in the Kitch: Kick-Ass Solutions for Hungry Girls Who Want to Stop Eating Crap (And Start Looking Hot!) (Running Press, $13.95, 9780762431069/0762431067), which makes its debut December 10.
Skinny Bitch continues to strut its stuff on bestseller lists, including the Book Sense and some regional lists.
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Carolyn Reidy, who becomes president and CEO of
Simon & Schuster January 1, succeeding Jack Romanos, outlined a
major challenge for the company in today's Wall Street Journal:
"What we have to do is create a simultaneous digital business even as
we operate our traditional publishing company," she said. "We have to
invest in digital even though it isn't offering much yet in the way of
financial returns. And it's too early to know where the biggest returns
will come from."
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Bookseller makes good.
On September 24, Doug Jones will join HarperCollins as senior v-p and director of sales for the Collins division. He will direct sales for Collins's four imprints--Business, Reference, Wellness and Lifestyle and Design--as well as oversee sales for the distribution client TOKYOPOP. Jones is currently v-p, director of marketing, for Putnam and Riverhead at the Penguin Group. Earlier he spent 12 years at Random House and was v-p, sales director, for the Crown Publishing Group. Before that, he was a field rep for Random House and manager of the Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Tex.
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Congratulations
to Judith Roche, who won the Golden Umbrella Award for lifetime
achievement from One Reel, the producers of Bumbershoot, the annual
arts festival in Seattle, Wash.
An artist, teacher, mentor and literary arts director emeritus for Bumbershoot, Roche is also a poet. Her most recent title, Wisdom of the Body ($14.95, 9780930773816/0930773810), was published this year by Black Heron Press.
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Eliot Fremont-Smith, former book critic for the New York Times and Village Voice, a founding board member of the National Book Critics Circle and editor-in-chief of Little, Brown, died on Wednesday, the New York Times reported. He was 78.
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Publishing a book? Check the polls first. New York magazine
reported that Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's chief campaign strategist
and "high priest of that Washington religion, the poll," has put his
theories to the test in the publishing world. In anticipation of his
upcoming book, Microtrends, Penn gathered "a focus group of
about 200 book buyers to choose a cover image for him." His publisher's
original idea, a snowball, was the first casualty. Penn said it "really
died in the testing. A dud," and was replaced by a magnifying glass.
Also changed was an earlier title, Minitrends. (See Media Heat item below.)
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USA Today's Fall Books Preview section, "Here's what's big and why," features an interactive, book-reading leaf (Think we're kidding?).
Another highlight was an interview with first-time author Stephen Colbert, who described the crafting of I Am America (And So Can You!) in typical Colbertian style: "First of all, I didn't write it. I dictated it. I shouted it into a tape recorder, and then I gave it to my agent. He transcribed it and sold it as a book. I found out, after doing this book, that the real problem I had with most books was that they weren't written by me."
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In this Age of Anxiety, it's not hard to understand the popularity of works on human behavior like The Tipping Point, Blink and Freakonomics and a host of others trailing in their wake. Perhaps we hope they'll help us to a better understanding of ourselves and our fellow inhabitants of the planet and in the process relieve us of some of our own neuroses. Or maybe they're hot because they're simply entertaining works of pop psychology and sociology.