"My preference is for independent bookstores. Used bookstores. Small places with off-the-wall staff and books you can't get anywhere else. Once you find one you like, it's like your own fridge--open it up and see what's yummy in there."--Toronto author Gil Adamson in an article for CBC Radio's website.
RiverRun Bookstore, Portsmouth, N.H., is "the city's bookstore," Seacoastonline said, and owner Tom Holbrook "loves [books] and his community with dedication and active commitment."
According
to Holbrook, "Right from the start, when people came in they were going
to see books, books and more books, and they were going to be serious
books and they were going to be good books, and anyone who walks
through our door is going to think, 'This is the real deal.'"
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At
Bonnie Slotnick's Cookbooks, New York City, the owner "would rather you
didn't buy a book from her, than buy for the wrong reasons," the New York Sun
reported, adding that "people who want to purchase to impress others
are not welcome in the store, and that can be a frequent source of
consternation for book dealers."
Slotnick, whose 350-sq.-ft.
vintage cookbook store in the West Village will celebrate its 10th
anniversary soon, said, "I love when people find that book from their
childhood. I try to help people get to where they want to be."
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Why doesn't Johnny read? The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
reported on the difficulty of getting boys interested in reading. "I would say
there is a crisis," said children's book author Walter Dean Myers. "Too
many parents have walked away from this idea . . . that education is a
family concept, is a community concept, is not simply something that
schools do."
According to Pamela LaBorde, children's librarian
at the Seattle Public Library's Ballard branch, "A lot of times, when
boys get to middle school they are feeling sort of disenfranchised from
the educational experience."
Publishing more titles
specifically for the market is suggested as one solution. "The real
requirement is that there is a male protagonist," said John Martin, a
novelist who started BoysRead.org. "Boys will not read books that have a girl protagonist."
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In October 22's PNBA: Picks of the Reps article, we accidentally omitted George Carroll's pick, What God Hath Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press, $35, 9780195078947, November 5, 2007). Carroll of Redsides Publishing Services sums it up this way: "In 1815, we were basically a third world country and by 1848 we were on our way to becoming a major player on the world stage." History is not his favorite subject ("My high school history teacher doubled as the football coach. He did a little pro wrestling under the name of Gentleman Jack Garfano. I sat in the back row reading Captain America."), and Howe's book is almost 1,000 pages long; still, Carroll found it fascinating, even page-turning. In the October 29 New Yorker, reviewer Jill Lepore calls it "both a capacious narrative of a tumultuous era in American history and a heroic attempt at synthesizing a century and a half of historical writing about Jacksonian democracy, antebellum reform, and American expansion."
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Effective immediately, Midpoint Books has signed sales, marketing and distribution agreements with:
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From the front pages of Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth by the Onion (Little, Brown, $27.99, 9780316018425/0316018422), "A Note to Barnes & Noble Browsers":
"What do you think you're doing? Seriously, what does this look like to
you? Some kind of library? Did you really think you could just come in
here and spend the afternoon reading this book for free? The line to
pay is over that way, buddy. What's that? Just trying to decide whether
or not you want to buy the book? You don't think we're really that
stupid, do you? You know what? Fine. Why don't you just make yourself
at home. Pull up a chair. They don't close until 10 p.m., after all.
"You [expletive] prick.
"Do you know how hard people worked to write this book? No, of course
you don't. Maybe you should check out the Self-Help section once you're
finished leafing through this. That's right, we said it. You need help.
And you know what else? You don't even deserve this atlas. You heard
us--we don't want your money. Honestly, just put it back on the shelf
and get out. Get the [expletive] out of here. . . . Now!
Sadly two booksellers with similar arcs in life, particularly early careers in advertising, died this week:
Peter Greeman, owner with his wife,
Tammy, of Anderson's Bookshop in Larchmont, N.Y., died suddenly on Tuesday.
Greeman is a former adman who left the business at age 50 and purchased
Anderson's in 2000 when he was in his mid-60s. Not long after buying the store, he told the New York Times, "I have a place in my heart for this particular bookstore. I grew
up in Larchmont, and so did my father, and the bookstore was there, and
Mr. Anderson wrote my college recommendation. I wanted to do Larchmont
a favor. All my friends and acquaintances bemoaned the fact that they
thought it would go under, and the store's manager [Annabelle Siegel]
lives across the street from me, and she's a dear friend.''
Last year, Greeman told the Times
that each year he had to cover store deficits. "Some people call me an
angel, but I think of the store as my charity. Especially since I don't
make any money on it, what else would you call it?"
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Steve Fischer, executive director of the New England Independent Booksellers Association, writes:
Bill Banks, longtime co-owner of the former Market Bookshop in
Falmouth, Mass., died last Thursday at Falmouth Hospital as a result of
injuries sustained in a fall. He was 86.
In 1942, while at Harvard Business School, Bill enlisted in the Army
Air Corps, which included serving for a year and a half in Italy as a
statistical control officer. He went on to have a successful career in
international advertising and marketing with J. Walter Thompson and
Ogilvy and Mather in New York. In 1970 Bill and his wife Caroline
bought the Market Bookshop in Falmouth, which they operated until their
retirement in 1999. Bill and Caroline lived above the shop for many
years and later expanded it to include the Market Barn Gallery, which
sold paintings, prints, and sculptures. For some years they also had a
second store in Woods Hole.
Bill served as president of, then, NEBA for two years as well as
several committees of the ABA. He is survived by Caroline, his fellow
bookseller and wife of 65 years, three sons, six grandchildren, three
great-grandchildren. He will be fondly remembered by his many
bookseller and publishing friends in New England and beyond.
A memorial service will be held November 10 at 2 p.m. at the Unitarian
Universalist Fellowship, Sandwich Road, East Falmouth. Memorial
donations may be sent to Hospice or Cape Cod Healthcare Foundation for
the VNA, P.O. Box 370, Hyannis, Mass. 02601.
This morning on the Today Show: Missy Chase Lapine, author of The
Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids
Favorite Meals (Running Press, $17.95, 9780762430758/0762430753).
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Today on KCRW's Bookworm: Rupert Thomson, author of Death of a Murderer
(Knopf, $23, 9780307265845/0307265846). As the show described it: "A
factual series of murders provides the background for this novel: the
Moor Murders that haunted the British imagination in the 1960's. The
book traces a day in the life of a policeman who has been assigned to
sit in the morgue, guarding the Moor Murderer's body. The policeman
spends twelve hours reliving those murders, talking with a ghost and
regretting his life. We spend a mere half hour on the nature of evil."
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Today on Fresh Air: Steve Levine, author of The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea (Random House, $27.95, 9780375506147/0375506144).
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Today on the Martha Stewart Show: James Lipton, author of Inside Inside (Dutton, $27.95, 9780525950356/0525950354).
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Today on the Diane Rehm Show: David Michaelis, author of Schulz and
Peanuts: A Biography (Harper, $34.95, 9780066213934/0066213932).
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Today on the View: Julianne Moore, whose new picture book is
Freckleface Strawberry (Bloomsbury USA, $16.95,
9781599901077/1599901072).
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Tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Lynne Cheney, author of
Blue Skies, No Fences: A Memoir of Childhood and Family (Pocket, $26,
9781416532880/1416532889).
The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E Konigsburg (Ginee Seo Books, $16.99 Hardcover, 9781416949725, August 2007)
Sixth-grader Amadeo Kaplan and his mother have just moved from New York City to St. Malo, Fla. When classmate William Wilcox gives Amadeo an opening, the two begin a tenuous friendship; as that friendship solidifies, it becomes their best defense against the challenges they confront--and the greatest strength of the novel. Amadeo and William's bond grows as they help William's mother prepare an estate sale for Mrs. Zender, a retired opera singer who established her reputation in Europe and who is preparing to move into a retirement home. William made somewhat of a name for himself helping Mrs. Wilcox secure a handsome offer for a silk screen she discovered in one of the previous estate sales she managed. Amadeo, too, dreams of making such a discovery and the opportunity arises when he finds a Modigliani sketch (The Moon Lady) tucked into a far corner of Mrs. Zender's library. The threads of this novel may not be as smoothly intertwined as in Konigsburg's previous novels, but when taken together with 19 Schuyler Place, the details pack a wallop. While Amadeo and William help Mrs. Wilcox assess Mrs. Zender's belongings, Peter Vanderwaal, a curator and Amadeo's godfather (as well as one of the key players who helped save the towers of Schuyler Place), is assembling a show about "Degenerate Art," a label bequeathed by Hitler to dismiss works by Impressionists, Jews, homosexuals and any other groups he had targeted. Clues surrounding the mysterious Modigliani lead back to 1942, to a decorative arts gallery owned by Peter's uncle in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Konigsburg explores here what it means to use art to wreak violence, and, as we experience this perverse use of art as a weapon through the eyes of Amadeo and William, the wounds feel fresh. Can someone who has been privy to such violence be redeemed? Forgiven? The author exposes the gray areas and once again mines fertile territory for discussion.--Jennifer M. Brown
The Halloween card did it.
I was working an otherwise normal
bookstore shift last weekend when a customer asked, "Where's your
Halloween card section?" Halloween cards? I knew there was such a
section, and I was happy to escort her there, but a little voice in my
head still yapped at me: Why would people send Halloween cards?
I've never received one.
Maybe I'm just bitter.
Still,
the question jolted me toward thoughts of Halloween, as, I suppose, did
one of the more irresistible cards, with its photo of a jolly, rotund
nun and the words: "Might as well have a great time on Halloween."
Inside, the punch line, literally and figuratively, was, "You're going
to fry anyway."
Since I now find myself wrenched into the true
spirit of the season, I have transformed the bookstore websiteseeing
bus into a jack-o-lantern pumpkin coach and set off to discover what
ghoulish Halloween delights are brewing among booksellers online.
At
first it gets really scary, kids. I check in with more than a dozen
websites, and it's as if the Grinch has struck again and stolen another
holiday. Halloween is nowhere to be found. One bookstore site sends a
chill up my spine with its announcement to "check out our new summer
hours." I picture a virtual Miss Haversham's wedding cake.
There's even a seasonally-appropriate word for such places: cobwebsite.
Now that's scary.
So
I take a deep breath, whistle past the graveyard of
abandoned websites, and head to the logical starting point for a
witching hour--Salem, Mass., where Cornerstone Books
promises "Lots of Treats, and No Tricks This October," including an
author appearance at the House of Seven Gables and "old-time Japanese
monster movies playing all month alongside horror master Vincent Price
on the silver screen."
Now we're talking.
In Richmond, Va., Fountain Bookstore
offers counter-programming to the candy frenzy by claiming that
"Creeeeepy books abound here at Fountain. . . . Books have less
calories and more fiber than candy." Since the National Confectioners
Association estimates that about 20 million pounds of candy corn sells
per year, what if 10 million pounds of that total were converted into
book sales instead? Certainly would make a lot of booksellers' lives
less frightening.
A "Halloweenie Puppet Show" is on tap at BookPeople,
Austin, Tex., "brought lovingly to you by the Almost Professional
BookPeople Playing Puppeteers," who will offer "a mishmash of Halloween
stories all put together (very cleverly) to make a puppet show for
you."
Olsson's Crystal City bookstore, Arlington, Va., will host an event with NPR Pop culture critic Eric Nuzum, author of The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula, which Chuck Klosterman calls "the definitive look at why society loves the man who's not in the mirror."
What's the scariest story you've ever read? Jabberwocky Bookshop,
Newburyport, Mass., is conducting a poll on its website. Shirley
Jackson's "The Lottery" gets my vote because I've always been convinced
that when it comes to horror stories, we have nothing to fear but each
other.
"Red wine, sharp cheese, the glow of candles. Bring a
friend and join us for ghost stories after dark." That's the spine-and
taste-tingling proposition offered by the Kaleidoscope: Our Focus Is You, Hampton, Iowa, which will offer "Stories By Candlelight."
Russo's Marketplace Books, Bakersfield, Calif., Wild Rumpus Books, Minneapolis, Minn., and Other Tiger,
Westerly, R.I., are among the booksense.com stores featuring a
selection called "Scary Spooky Books for Teens," designed for readers
who have "become too cool to ask for candy . . . and no way are you
dragging yourself around in a silly costume. Suddenly, Halloween is
more about exploring the darker, sinister side of the holiday--if not
yourselves."
Staff Picks have taken a ghoulish turn at University Bookstore,
Seattle, Wash., where appropriately spooky recommendations are listed
from "Jack O'Lantern" Jay, "Monster" Mechio, "Zombie" Zoska,
"Poltergeist" Pam and "All Hallow's Eve" Ann.
The Golden Notebook,
Woodstock, N.Y., showcases a selection of "Halloween Thrillers" with an
irresistible lead: "You're reading compulsively. One after another the
pages turn. The plot hurtles along. Your eyes scan the pages quickly.
Your pulse pounds. The pacing is quick, and the mystery runs deep and
unpredictable. Nothing beats a great mystery!"
And nothing beats
having some ghoulish literary fun next week. Read scary stories, eat
your fair share of candy corn and have a great Halloween. But please,
please beware of those truly horrifying cobwebsites. They'll be the
death of us yet.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)
