"It's a different clientele; it's a different market. They're much more mass-culture-oriented. It's the difference between a gourmet food stores and a big supermarket. We hope that someone who needs a quart of milk will come to us to buy it."--Robert Contant, co-owner of St. Mark's Bookshop, in the New York Times in a story about the closing of the nearby Barnes & Noble Astor Place bookstore.

 

Barnes & Noble won't renew the lease on its 41,700-sq.-ft. store on Sixth Avenue and 21st St. in the Chelsea section of New York City, the New York Post reported. B&N did not confirm the report, but real estate agents acting for the building's landlord are marketing the space. The lease ends next spring. Citing high rents, B&N is also closing its Astor Place store at the end of the year.

The Chelsea store on the old Ladies' Mile, which opened 15 years ago, was striking both because of its unusual, architecturally rich space, which includes a mezzanine, and its location so close to the flagship B&N store on Fifth Avenue at 18th St.

B&N is expanding in Manhattan, however. The company will open a store later this year at 270 Greenwich St. in TriBeCa and at Lexington Ave. and 86th St. next year, the Post reported.

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Congratulations to the Book Barn, Leavenworth, Kan., owned by Barb and Bob Spear, which has won a Kansas Governor's Award for the planning and coordinating of a Harry Potter/Diagon Alley experience on Harry Potter 7 eve in July that drew more than 3,000 people for a scavenger hunt involving 34 stores downtown. Other events included costume contests; the showing of the first Harry Potter movie in a blocked-off street; free hot dogs and hamburgers; a cardboard box maze that children navigated with help from glow sticks; and live coverage of the Tour de France at the bicycle shop "for bored fathers." The award will be presented October 11 in Hutchison, Kan.

Bob Spear added in a note: "Harry Potter is a hard act to follow; however, we think next spring's 'Stroll Back Into the 1950s/'60s' event with real antique hot rods, the showing of either 'American Graffiti' or 'Highschool Musical,' a dynamite oldies band with the requisite limbo, stroll, and twist contests, a costume contest, and another hunt might just have a chance of competing. The Book Barn plans to offer memorabilia collectible books and others with a '50/'60s themes." 

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Required Southern reading: On her Reading Life blog at BiblioBuffet, SIBA's Nicki Leone lovingly recounts how she set up the books SIBA members picked for the "ultimate Southern library" in the Martha Washington Inn in Abingdon, Va., a book collection for which the owners, the Camberely Hotels, spent more than $15,000. The entry includes a series of wonderful pictures. 

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Kathy Wiess has joined Ingram International as v-p, international sales. She had worked 16 years at Random House, most recently as senior sales director of the international division with responsibility for selling Random and its distribution clients in all markets outside the U.S. and Canada.

 

800 CEO READ, the business book sister company of Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, Milwaukee, Wis., is founding an award program to recognize the best business books of 2007 and "the authors who committed time and energy to their writing." Each book will be judged on "the originality of its ideas and content."

There are 15 categories and one overall award, the Best Business Book of 2007. Publishers, authors and book contributors may nominate titles. One award will be judged by authors; another award will be judged by readers during the month of November. Staff will judge the rest of the awards. Winners for all prizes will be announced next January 15.

800 CEO READ founder and president Jack Covert said in a statement: "For the past 23 years, we've been the only bookseller in the country focused exclusively on the business audience. This experience has put us in the unique position to highlight the best of the genre."

V-p Todd Sattersten added, "This awards program is a natural extension of our work to not only sell books, but also provide discernment for the business reader in a category where over 6,000 titles are published annually."

For more information, including the categories and to make submissions, go to the book awards section of 800 CEO READ's website.

Robert Jordan, the author of the Wheel of Time fantasy series, died on Sunday of the rare blood disease amyloidosis. He was 58.

Tor publisher Tom Doherty called Jordan "one of the great storytellers of the 20th and early 21st centuries; Jim's Wheel of Time is a towering epic of power and scope, he was a man of courage and heart and vision but for me, first of all, he was my friend of 30 years."

Jordan, whose given name was James Oliver Rigney Jr., taught himself to read at age four and began reading Mark Twain and Jules Verne a year later. He was a graduate of the Citadel, where he studied physics, and was a Vietnam veteran. He started writing in 1977. He wrote the Michael Fallon historical romance trilogy under the nom de plume Reagan O'Neal and seven of the Conan novels. His Wheel of Time series, which includes 11 volumes and a prequel, has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. Jordan was reportedly working on an 12th volume at the time of his death. His blog is at dragonmount.com.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in the name of James Rigney to:

Mayo Clinic Department of Hematology -- Amyloidosis Research
200 First Street SW
Rochester, MN 55905

Starting with the September 23 issue, the New York Times Book Review is adding a bestseller list and expanding existing lists so that it will now rank 110 bestsellers, up from 70, according to Crain's New York Business.

The Book Review will split the paperback fiction list into mass market and trade paperback and include 20 titles, rather than 15. (Paperback nonfiction will continue to appear on one list.) And the hardcover and paperback lists in Advice, How-to and Miscellaneous will include 10 titles rather than five.

Book Review editor Sam Tanenhause said of the fiction list changes, "Now you have a list that corresponds closely to what we review in the section and what we gauge our readers are interested in."

One publisher told Crain's that the addition of a third page of lists is "completely ad driven. People want to buy a position next to the lists."

This morning on the Today Show: Robert Irvine, author of Mission: Cook!: My Life, My Recipes, and Making the Impossible Easy (HarperEntertainment, $24.95, 9780061237898/0061237892).

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Today on NPR's Morning Edition: Alan Bennett, author of The Uncommon Reader (FSG, $15, 9780374280963/0374280967), published today.

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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Mark Penn, author of Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes (Twelve, $25.99, 9780446580960/0446580961).

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Today on the View: Joy Behar, author of When You Need a Lift: But Don't Want to Eat Chocolate, Pay a Shrink, or Drink a Bottle of Gin (Crown, $19.95, 9780307351715/0307351718).

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Today on Oprah: Jenny McCarthy, author of Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism (Dutton, $23.95, 9780525950110/0525950117).

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Today on Hannity & Colmes: Paul Kengor, author of God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life (HarperCollins, $24.95, 9780061136924/0061136921)

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Today on Dr. Phil: Dr. Frank Lawlis, author of Mending the Broken Bond: The 90-Day Answer to Developing a Loving Relationship with Your Child (Viking, $24.95, 9780670018345/0670018341).

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Today on Charlie Rose: Orhan Pamuk, author of Other Colors: Essays and a Story (Knopf, $27.95, 9780307266750/0307266753). He will also appear today on NPR's Fresh Air.

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Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Alan Greenspan, author of The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (Penguin Press, $35, 9781594201318/1594201315). He also appears on NPR's Fresh Air.

Selected new titles appearing next Monday and Tuesday, September 24 and 25:

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam (Hyperion, $35, 9781401300524/1401300529) chronicles the strategic failure in November 1950 that left American troops outnumbered on snowy mountains in North Korea.

The Choice by Nicholas Sparks (Grand Central, $24.99, 9780446579926/0446579920) follows an unlikely romance between a veterinarian and his neighbor over many years.

Playing For Pizza: A Novel by John Grisham (Doubleday, $21.95, 9780385525008/0385525001) finds a disgraced former NFL quarterback playing for an Italian team.

An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris (Berkley, $23.95, 9780425217290/ 0425217299) is the third Harper Connelly mystery. The psychic crime fighter must find the killer of several runaway boys.

Bad Dogs Have More Fun: Selected Writings on Family, Animals, and Life by John Grogan for the Philadelphia Inquirer by John Grogan (Vanguard Press, $18.95, 9781593154684/1593154682) features more than 70 articles by the author of Marley and Me.

The Vixen Diaries by Karrine Steffans (Grand Central, $24.99, 9780446582261/0446582263) are the memoirs of a Hollywood socialite.


Appearing in paperback:

Dark Celebration: A Carpathian Reunion (The Carpathians (Dark) Series, Book 14) by Christine Feehan (Jove, $7.99, 9780515143546/0515143545).

The Séance by Heather Graham (Mira, $7.99, 9780778324652/0778324656).

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson (Broadway, $14.95, 9780767919371/0767919378).

Cross by James Patterson (Grand Central, $9.99, 9780446619059/0446619051).

True Evil: A Novel by Greg Iles (Pocket, $9.99, 9781416524533/1416524533).

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson (Three Rivers Press, $14.95, 9781400080670/1400080673).

The entrance to the Supreme Court of the United States is, by design, classical, magisterial and awe-inspiring. In his engaging and compulsively readable book, Jeffrey Toobin counters the impression of the building's intimidating façade with a zesty portrait of how the Supreme Court's work is accomplished by its all-too-human Justices. Individual egos, foibles and eccentricities loom large in Toobin's analysis of the Court's rulings; personal history, Toobin tells us, often is critical to how a vote on a case will go. His recounting of the distinct style and substance of the Court when led by Chief Justices Earl Warren, Warren Burger and William Rehnquist also illustrates the other critical element in determining how a vote will go: the leadership of the Chief Justice in directing or facilitating discussion of cases before the Court.

Toobin notes that from 1998 onward Chief Justice Rehnquist focused on his role as administrator to keep cases moving efficiently through the Court rather than on his role as persuader. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who prided herself on having a finger on the pulse of public opinion, then emerged as a lightning rod for discussing the merits of cases. Coming before the Court at that time were more and more cases that challenged existing rulings on the right to abortion, banning of prayer in public schools and rights of criminal suspects. Toobin argues that O'Connor's leadership and position of authority were central to the Court's narrow majority rulings on such cases and to preserving landmark precedents like Roe v. Wade. His deft reporting on these key cases brings the excitement of a horse race to reviewing the legal precedents at stake, the constitutional issues considered by the Justices and the many factors at play in the rulings.

Toobin is at his authorial best when he covers the disputed November 2000 election results in the state of Florida and the role of the United States Supreme Court in resolving the election: legal acumen, psychological insight, palpable fascination with the incredibly diverse cast of players and lively narrative style all come together to make the tale not only fresh but as harrowing as any cliff-hanger has a right to be.

When Justice O'Connor announced her departure from the Court in 2005, President Bush's first choice as nominee to the Court, Alberto Gonzales, was rejected by conservative bloggers and others who didn't consider him a solid enough conservative. Later nominee Harrier Miers suffered a similar ignominious fate. The successful nominees to replace Rehnquist and O'Connor were John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Each had well-established conservative credentials and a solid judicial history that survived scrutiny by conservative power brokers eager to see their agenda followed. Toobin is clearly worried about the future course of the Court, given the ideological profile of its sitting Justices. As we await more evidence on how well the new Justices' decisions serve the interests of American society at large, Toobin's arguments and predictions leave us in suspense and high anxiety about what will be coming down from our highest Court.--John McFarland