Because of the Columbus Day holiday, this is our last issue until Tuesday, October 9. See you then!

 

The Wall Street Journal explores the contradictory aspects of the sale this year of Explore Booksellers, Aspen, Colo., which was founded by the late Katharine Thalberg, a very liberal activist, to Sam Wyly, "the Texas billionaire who was a top supporter of George W. Bush and helped fund the 'swift boat' ads that helped defeat Mr. Kerry."

Although the store hasn't changed in the time Wyly has owned it, some Thalberg fans are avoiding shopping there. Wyly himself told the Journal that his politics is irrelevant in owning the store and that he bought Explore to save it--the Thalberg daughters' asking price of $5 million, which included the valuable building in which the store is housed--made it likely that the business would be sold to developers wanting to take advantage of a town where real estate prices have risen dramatically.

"My motivation is that this was my favorite place to walk to in Aspen," Wyly continued. "I wanted to keep it. It's got such a good feeling. It's cozy and comfortable."

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Bookselling This Week profiles ABDebs Books & Gifts, Knightdale, N.C., which Alyce Boyd-Stewart, a retired civil rights lawyer, opened in March.

The store had an amusing beginning, according to BTW: "In 2005, both Boyd-Stewart and her husband, Edward Stewart, were at home trying to enjoy their retirement. 'We were sitting around doing nothing,' said Boyd-Stewart. 'And I said, "I'm opening up a bookstore." My husband said, "You're nuts," as usual. And I ignored him . . . as usual.' "

The 900-sq.-ft. store stocks 12,000 books, and there is additional space for a community center. The store's major areas include a "young folks" section, history, classics, poetry, humor, biography, health, history, African-American literature and fiction.

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BTW also marks the 25th anniversary of Prince Books, Norfolk, Va., owned and co-founded by Sarah Pishko, who said that to celebrate, the 2,800-sq.-ft. store will have a 25% off sale and refreshments next Wednesday, October 10.

Earlier this year, Pishko took action to prepare for the August opening of a 28,000-sq.-ft. Barnes & Noble College store at a mall two blocks away--an "academic superstore" that is affiliated with Tidewater Community College. Among other things, she hired a PR firm, which developed materials to use for publicity that emphasized the store's strong points; stories and columns about the merits of independently owned businesses and Prince Books ran in local media.

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There appears to be a new contender for world's worst poem. The Guardian reported that the reigning champ, by 19th century Scottish bard William McGonagall ("And the cry rang out all o'er the town, Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down") is now being challenged by Brussels native Theophile Jules-Henri Marzials ("Drop / Dead. / Plop, flop. / Plop"). Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.  

 

This morning on the Today Show: Peter Greenberg, author of The Complete Travel Detective Bible (Rodale, $17.95, 9781594867088/1594867089).

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Today on Oprah: Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (Penguin, $15, 9780143038412/0143038419). Also on the show, Oprah makes her next book club pick.

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Today on NPR's Fresh Air: Robert Satloff, author of Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands (PublicAffairs, $26, 9781586483999/1586483994).

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Tomorrow on Larry King Live: 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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Sunday on Larry King Live:  Jenny McCarthy, author of Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism (Dutton, $23.95, 9780525950110/0525950117).

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On CBS's Sunday Morning: Lynne Cheney, author of Blue Skies, No Fences: A Memoir of Childhood and Family (Pocket, $26, 9781416532880/1416532889).

Michael Clayton, starring George Clooney as a "fixer" at a New York City law firm, opens today. Michael Clayton: The Shooting Script (Newmarket Press, $19.95, 9781557047953) includes the complete screenplay by writer and director Tony Gilroy, a foreword by William Goldman, a Q&A with Gilroy, 39 color photographs and more.

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Lust, Caution, Ang Lee's new movie that opens today, is based on a short story by Eileen Chang. A tie in version is available (Anchor, $9, 9780307387448/0307387445). In addition, Pantheon offers Lust, Caution: The Story, the Screenplay, and the Making of the Film ($22.95, 9780375425240/0375425241). The screenplay is by Wang Hui Ling and James Schmaus.

 

 

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 website.

Saturday, October 6

11 a.m. Edwidge Danticat, author of Brother, I'm Dying (Knopf, $23.95, 9781400041152/1400041155), talks about her Uncle Joseph, a Baptist minister who fled to the U.S. in 2004, at the age of 81, was imprisoned by Homeland Security and died in custody. (Re-airs Sunday at 3 a.m.)
     
6 p.m. Encore Booknotes. In a segment first aired in 1993, Richard Reeves, author of President Kennedy: Profile of Power (S&S, $22, 9780671892890/0671892894), said that John F. Kennedy surrounded himself with experienced staff in order to compensate for his limited experience.

9 p.m. After Words. New Republic editor Franklin Foer interviews Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Metropolitan, $28, 9780805079838/0805079831). Klein argues that in the wake of natural and man-made devestation, Chicago School-style economic reform is introduced to benefit investors and free market advocates. (Re-airs Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., and Monday at 3 a.m.)
     
10 p.m. Jeffrey Toobin, author of The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (Doubleday, $27.95, 9780385516402/0385516401), chronicles the Supreme Court from the Reagan administration to the present. (Re-airs Sunday at 11 p.m.)

Sunday, October 7

12 p.m. In Depth. David Horowitz, author most recently of The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America (Regnery, $16.95, 9781596985254/1596985259), fields viewers' questions. (Re-airs Monday at 12 a.m. and Saturday, October 13, at 9 a.m.)
    

Alice Notley's Grave of Light: New and Selected Poems 1970-2005 (Wesleyan University Press) has won the 2007 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, which honors the most outstanding book of poetry published the previous year. Sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, the prize carries a $25,000 award.

The finalist for the award is David Wojahn for his collection Interrogation Palace (University of Pittsburgh Press).

Judge Marie Ponsot wrote that Notley's "poems give us thirty-five years of political, personal, death-defying engagement. The nature Notley most loves is human nature. That urban passion propels her speculative dramas of gender, class, and race; of Vietnam and Iraq; of schemes of power and the claims of art. Ardent and agile, she is willing to cry out, to drift, to stammer, so as to put every turn of language to her use. Her aim is to speak to everyone; her book shows her success."

Michael Adamse, author of God's Shrink: 10 Sessions and Life's Greatest Lessons from an Unexpected Patient (HCI, $16.95, 9780757306174/0757306179), just published, is a clinical psychologist specializing in relationship issues. His first book, Affairs of the Net, studied Internet relationships. Adamse's second book, Anniversary, was HCI Books's first novel in over 25 years of publishing. Here he answers questions we occasionally put to people in the industry:

On your nightstand now:

When Prayers Aren't Answered by John Welshons
 
Favorite book when you were a child:

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

Your top five authors:

Malcolm Gladwell, Walter Isaacson, Mitch Albom, Patricia Cornwell, Marianne Williamson

Book you've faked reading:

Never faked one
 
Book you are an evangelist for:

The Progress Paradox by Gregg Easterbrook
 
Book you've bought for the cover:

Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
 
Book that changed your life:

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
 
Favorite line from a book:  

"Life is like riding a bicycle, you need to keep moving or you will lose your balance."--Albert Einstein quoted in Einstein by Walter Isaacson.
 
Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

In the time-honored way of publishing hype, Service Included is likened to Kitchen Confidential crossed with Sex and the City. Sorry. There are no tantrums (well, a few meltdowns), heavy drugs or scandals. Instead, Phoebe Damrosch presents a witty mélange of passions for great food, perfect service and a sexy sommelier named André.

A few years ago she started waiting tables at a small café in Willamsburg (in Brooklyn, N.Y.), a place best known for brunch, crowded with bed-headed hipsters whispering their Bloody Mary orders and impatient for coffee. Already enamored of food and cooking, Damrosch soon realized she was drawn to the pulse and energy of restaurants. Her ability to remember orders and to stay calm in chaos compensated for lack of experience when she moved to a chichi place in Midtown, after she figured out she was posing as a writer to rationalize working as a waiter.

Eventually she got a job as a backserver at Thomas Keller's new restaurant, Per Se. She had had a crush on his French Laundry Cookbook for ages, "[stalking] it in bookstores, ogling the glossy photographs in dark aisles and secluded corners," but considered it beyond her skill and her price range. Now she could fulfill a fantasy. The first few months with Keller and staff were spent in extensive, exhaustive training before the restaurant opened. "There were philosophies, laws, uniforms, elaborate rituals, an unspoken code of honor and integrity, and, most important, a powerful leader . . . we were all starting at the beginning and [we] all had the same goal: finesse." By the time Damrosch had memorized the acreage of Central Park, the sculptors of the visible statues, the lineage of the imported tile and linen and the three-page sample menu, she "wanted to kneel on the floor--made of imported Italian bronze--and beg for mercy."

She had an arduous and exhilarating time at Per Se. After she was promoted to captain, a typical night in her section might include Frank Bruni from the New York Times on table six, "Food & Wine doing a VIP menu on table three, the Zagats doing their usual abbreviated, high-maintenance menu on table four, and . . . some guy who had just written a biography of some restaurateur." One critic was notorious for asking many questions, and made one of Per Se's best runners (servers) cry when he asked not what was in the dish, nor the source of the ingredients, nor where the china was from, but when he asked what the escargot ate. Damrosch agrees that attention to food can be obsessive, especially in our status-obsessed society, but food merits serious consideration: "I don't want anyone reading this to feel guilty about paying for good food. Or reading about people paying for good food. Gas-guzzling cars and blood diamonds, yes. Organic, heirloom, sustainable, local, real food, no. Now go out and buy some cheese."

As for that hot sommelier, their romance is both rocky and sweet, carried on at various cafes and wine bars, during visits to cheese purveyors in Vermont and late-night meals at the neighborhood diner. Damrosch practices what she's learned in the kitchen--"The art of kneading, and the importance of letting things rest"--and gets to drink really good wine. Yum.--Marilyn Dahl

The following report is from Ed Southern, v-p of sales and marketing at John F. Blair, Publisher, who happily notes that at least one example of his esoteric vocabulary used here rivals and perhaps surpasses Chris Kerr's, as noted in his NEIBA report (Shelf Awareness, October 2, 2007). Thank you, Ed! 

The 2007 Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance trade show and convention, held at the Hilton Towers in downtown Atlanta, Ga., drew better numbers than in the last few years, along with a goodly amount of pre-show hand-wringing over the new, unconventional trade show hours.
 
More than 200 bookstores sent more than 500 of their finest, smartest, sexiest booksellers. Some 199 exhibiting companies competed for their attention. Fox's cameras should have been rolling.
 
To avoid a conflict between seminars and exhibit hours and to help attendees cut down on travel costs, SIBA scrapped the traditional daytime exhibit hours, instead filling that time with additional programming for booksellers. The trade show began at 5 p.m. Saturday. Exhibits were open until 10 p.m., and reopened at 8 a.m. Sunday.
 
Although the new show hours didn't compete with panels and other action-packed SIBA programs, most exhibitors worried beforehand that the new hours would compete--and lose--to action-packed dinners and early bedtimes. (They lost sight of the fact that the new hours allowed greater college-football-watching time, which is really what's important on a fall Saturday. This is the South, after all.)
 
Some booksellers worried that following the 7:30 a.m. author breakfast on Saturday, the later hours and open bar on the show floor would leave them in no mood for conducting business.
 
Were their worries justified? No, not at all. Well, maybe. Kind of. Yes, absolutely. It depends on whom you ask, and it depends on how carefully you phrase the question.
 
At 5 p.m. on Saturday, the trade show was active, either because of or in spite of a less cavernous, more circuitous exhibit hall layout that made conversation easier but strained almost everyone's lenticular* capabilities to find particular booths. On Saturday evening, there were substantial lines for authors at the many booth signings, which replaced the signing area from previous years, and orders flew left and right . . . until about 8:30. At that point, apparently someone saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's (in the Hilton's lower level, and, yes, his hair was perfect), because show-floor traffic after that was left to a few brave bookselling souls.
 
Similarly Sunday's first hour or so provided exhibitors with an excellent opportunity to raid each other's booths and carbo-load on the free doughnuts, although traffic picked up as the morning went on.
 
"We will definitely tweak the trade show hours" before next year, SIBA executive director Wanda Jewell said. "I'm still hoping to lay out the show so that exhibitors and front line booksellers can come in for only one hotel night if they'd like."
 
Another new feature was the Saturday morning Reps' Picks sessions, in which reps had the opportunity to stand before God and booksellers and push what they felt to be their strongest fall titles. Again, opinions on this addition ranged from "fantastic" to "a waste of time."
 
In fact, the 2007 SIBA could easily have turned into a cauldron of controversy, but most everyone--booksellers and exhibitors alike--seemed to stay in good spirits throughout the show. This could be because us folks down South are just so doggone nice, or it could be because the one nearly unanimous opinion is that this fall is shaping up to be a healthy season for "long tail" book sales in the South.
 
"It was rare that I would look at an exhibitor's display and not find two or three titles that had me thinking 'Oh could I sell that'," former Bristol Books manager and SIBA webmistress Nicki Leone said.
 
 
*  Pay up, Chris.

The following were the bestselling titles on AbeBooks.com in September:
 
1. Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results by Stephen C. Lundin
2. Zlata's Diary by Zlata Filipovic
3. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
4. The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan
5. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven R. Covey
6. Village by the Sea by Anita Desai
7. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
8. Ingles Todos los Dias: Una Adventura del Aprendizaje para los Jovenes by William C. Harvey
9. Accept No Mediocre Life by David Foster
10. Tea Time Stories for Women: Refreshment and Inspiration to Warm Your Heart by Linda Evans Shepherd

[Many thanks to AbeBooks.com!]