"It can be like a drug in a positive way. If you get the book that makes the person fall in love with reading, they want another one."--Daniel Goldin, senior buyer at the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops in Milwaukee, Wis., in a story in yesterday's New York Times about the NEA study found that Americans are reading less for fun.
As reported widely, shoppers flocked to malls and big-box stores on
Black Friday, as early as 4 a.m. in many cases, and some stores opened
up Thanksgiving evening. Shoppers were lured by deep discounts, and
while sales were strong, each consumer spent less money, and
more consumers were shopping at discount stores, according to the New York Times.
ShopperTrak RCT estimated sales were $10.3 billion, up 8.3% compared
to last year's Black Friday, and Saturday sales rose 5.4% to $6.1
billion.
The Wall Street Journal
reported that many retailers, who are nervous about the holiday season,
are extending discounts this week in an effort to continue luring shoppers.
And today, Cyber Monday, many online retailers are offering
"one-day sales for the first time and offers akin to those in retail
stores on the Friday after Thanksgiving," according to the Journal.
Last year, online sales the Monday after Thanksgiving were $608
million, up 26% from the same day in 2005. This year some 72% of
e-tailers will offer some special today, including specific deals,
one-day sales and/or free shipping. ComScore predicts online holiday
sales will hit $29.5 billion, up 20% from last year.
"We were shoveling and people were coming in. We were ringing (up
sales) as we were opening. It’s good when (people) can be downtown
shopping. Everybody is really happy and really excited to be down here.
And there is a little snow on the ground that gives us the feel we need
(for Christmas shopping)."--Karin Beyer, Saturn Booksellers, Gaylord,
Mich., in the Herald Times.
"I
don't know if Friday will be a big day for us (local businesses). It
used to be a bigger day, and it's gone down over the years. I wish
people would take the time to come downtown and find out what there is
here, and maybe they'll do that Friday if they can't get out of town.
It'd be nice to have them try shopping here, then make the decision
whether to go somewhere else."--Jim Stalker, the Bookstore, Creston,
Iowa, in the News Advertiser.
"I had no expectations whatsoever, because I didn't know what I should expect. I've never been in retail and I've never been in New Bern, but I've seen four times as many customers today as I would on a typical Friday."--Judy Bryan, the Next Chapter bookstore, New Bern, N.C., in the Sun Journal.
"It's mostly sane people who shop at bookstores so we don't see that business. I went to the movies the night before and there were people camped out waiting for stores to open. That's just crazy."--Tom Holbrook, RiverRun bookstore, Portsmouth, N.H. at Seacoastonline.com
"And most importantly, we offer service. You've been here five minutes, and you've watched conversations going on here with customers that I don't think you're going to see at a Big Box Store."--Michael Cirivello, Literary Life Bookstore, Grand Rapids, Mich., at WOODTV.com.
"We
want to remind people to support the local economy during the holiday
season."--Margi LaPort, the Book Cellar, St. George, Utah, in the Spectrum.
"Historically,
the day after Thanksgiving has been only marginally better than a
typical weekend for us."--Paveen Madan, the Booksmith, San Francisco,
Calif., in the Chronicle.
"A
lot of people have been hovering, waiting for us to open. We beat
Wal-Mart and Best Buy."--Meghan Kaufman, Reader's Digest outlet store,
Hilton Head, S.C., in the Island Packet.
Bookselling This Week
profiles Book Culture, formerly known as Labyrinth Books, the 6,500-sq.-ft. store with some
50,000 titles store near
Columbia University in New York City. (Two Labyrinth stores continue to operate in New Haven, Conn., and Princeton, N.J.)
Since buying out co-founder Cliff Simms, owner Chris
Doeblin has not only changed the store's name but added new flooring,
carpeting, comfortable seating, sidelines and children's and travel
books. Still, Doeblin told BTW that he remains committed to "being a great academic store."
---
According to Reuters,
Pershing Square Capital Management, the hedge fund that has been slowly
increasing its ownership of Borders Group, took a big step in the last
month, reporting that it now owns 17.1% of the company, up from 11.7%
in October.
---
Boulder Bookstore, Boulder, Colo., will donate 20,000 books to Boulder County teachers, according to the Daily Camera.
"It's
just a little bit of everything," said Besse Lynch, the store's
community outreach coordinator. "Everyone is dedicated to ensuring all
of our children are literate and have books to read."
---
Touting the local bookstore as "your new best friend," the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza
noted that "walking into an independent bookstore is like walking into
a candy store." The paper profiled several area indies, including
Village Square Family at Incline Village, Nev.; Bookshelf at Hooligan
Rocks, Truckee, Calif.; Bookshelf at the Boatworks, Tahoe City, Calif.;
Neighbor's Bookstore, South Lake Tahoe, Claif.; and Truckee Book and
Bean, Truckee, Calif.
---
Dustjacket Books, Hastings, Minn., has opened, and owner Rick Simonson told the Star-Gazette, "I fell in love with the downtown--the energy and the vibe."
---
"Battle over books breaks out in Westhampton Beach" was the Newsday headline for an article on the anti-censorship efforts of Terry Lucas, owner of the Open Book, Westhampton Beach, N.Y.
"Nobody
likes the censorship word, but if you're removing books because of
content, I think it's censorship, just pure and simple." Lucas was
responding "to an effort by several parents to remove two books from
Westhampton Beach High School's ninth-grade reading list over what the
parents say is inappropriate sexual content."
---
BookWoman bookstore, Austin, Tex., must raise a total of $50,000 by Christmas to stay open, according to the American-Statesman.
Owner Susan Post "quietly announced that she needed
to raise $25,000 by last week if she hoped to pay off debt and keep the
store open. The store would need another $25,000 by Christmas to pay
for the down payment on a new lease and the installation of new store
fixtures."
"I'm optimistic that we'll make our goal," she
said. "Little angels have always fallen out of the sky to help me along
the way."
---
Congratulations to Jessica Prentice, who coined the word "locavore,"
chosen by Oxford University Press as the 2007 Oxford Word of the Year.
The word means roughly someone who likes to eat food with local
ingredients--but there's more to it than that, which you can chew over here. By the way, Prentice is also the author of Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection (Chelsea Green, $25, 9781933392004/1933392002).
---
Here are the New York Times's 100 Notable Books of the Year, which appear in print in the December 2 issue of the Book Review.
In a review in the New York Times's Personal Tech column last week, David Pogue called Amazon.com's Kindle "an e-book reader that just may catch on."
Among negatives, the Kindle has a look with "all the design panache of
a Commodore 64"; the huge previous- and next-page clickers are easy to
hit by mistake; and there is no forward button.
Among the many more positives: "astonishing e-ink technology" with no
backlight, glare or eyestrain; free wireless cellular broadband service
allowing easy downloading and a "crude" web browser; 90,000 available
titles and aiming for "every printed book on the earth"; automatic
backup on amazon.com; and pricing that puts e-books at less than half
the cost of printed books.
Pogue imagined a situation in which "someone mentions a great book--any
book. You whip out the Kindle, download the book in 60 seconds and
start reading it."
His game wrapup: "So if the Kindle isn't a home run, it's at least an
exciting triple. It gets the important things right: the reading
experience, the ruggedness, the super-simple software setup. And that
wireless instant download--wow.
"Even though most people will prefer the feel, the cost and the
simplicity of a paper book, the Kindle is by far the most successful
stab yet at taking reading material into the digital age.
"No, it's not the last word in book reading. But once its price comes
down and its design gets sleeker, the Kindle may be the beginning of a
great new chapter."
At a workshop hosted by Harleysville Books, Harleysville, Pa., Marie
Lamba, author of the new YA novel What I Meant . . . (Random House
Books for Young Readers), helped Cadette and Senior Girl Scouts earn
Reading Interest Project patches. The workshop, which concluded with
each participant receiving a signed copy of the book, drew 36 Scouts
and 10 Scout leaders. From l.: Megan Katz, Becky Washel, Jessica
Brennan, author Marie Lamba, Rosemary Campellone, Katie Frueh and
Harleysville Books owner Shelly Plumb.
This morning on Morning Edition, Ira Flatow, author of Present at the
Future: From Evolution to Nanotechnology, Candid and Controversial
Conversations on Science and Nature (Collins, $24.95,
9780060732646/0060732644).
Also on Morning Edition: Steve Martin, author of Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life (Scribner, $25, 9781416553649/1416553649).
---
This morning on Good Morning America: Mehmet C. Oz, M.D., co-author of
You: Staying Young: The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty
(Free Press, $26, 9780743292566/0743292561).
---
This morning on the Today Show: Marci Alboher, author of One
Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success (Business
Plus, $14.99, 9780446696975/0446696978).
---
Today on NPR's Talk of the Nation: Ronald Kessler, author of The
Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack
(Crown Forum, $26.95, 9780307382139/0307382133).
---
Today on the Diane Rehm Show: Haifa Zangana, author of City of Widows:
An Iraqi Woman's Account of War and Resistance (Seven Stories Press,
$20, 9781583227794/1583227792).
---
Today on the View: Paula Bernstein, author of Identical Strangers: A
Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited (Random House, $25.95,
9781400064960/1400064961).
---
Tonight on Larry King Live: Paula White, author of You're All That!:
Understand God's Design for Your Life (FaithWords, $21.99,
9780446580236/0446580236).
From last week's Book Sense bestseller lists, available at
BookSense.com, here are the recommended titles, which are also Book
Sense Picks:
Hardcover
The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt
(Bloomsbury, $24.95,
9781596910409/1596910402). "Paul Erdos once asked G.H. Hardy, the noted
20th century British mathematician, to name his greatest contribution
to their field. Hardy unhesitatingly replied that it was the
'discovery' of Srinivasa Ramanujan, one of the great mathematical
geniuses in recent centuries. Across the chasm created by color,
nationality, education, language, and colonialism, they spoke to each
other in the language of pure numbers. Their collaboration plays out in
this novel of intellectual history against the clubby atmosphere of
British academics, homosexuality, food, and, finally, WWI."--Chris
Stier, Shaman Drum Bookshop, Ann Arbor, Mich.
The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine
and the Birth of al-Qaeda by Yaroslav Trofimov (Doubleday, $26,
9780385519250/0385519257). "As the Iranian Revolution of 1979 unfolded
next door, the Saudis were alarmed and embarrassed by an armed takeover
of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979. The counter-siege of Islam's
holiest shrine dragged on into bloody absurdity, revealing corruption
and incompetence in the highest levels of the Saudi government.
Trofimov illuminates a highly suppressed, almost-forgotten chapter in
radical Muslim terror."--James Tremlett, Schuler Books & Music,
Lansing, Mich.
Paperback
Samedi the Deafness by Jesse Ball (Vintage, $12.95,
9780307278852/0307278859). "James Sim is a mnemonist who one day finds
himself abducted and taken to a sprawling mansion. The mansion is a
psychiatric hospital, a home for chronic liars. Here, James discovers a
sinister conspiracy of epic proportions. The problem is, if everyone is
a liar, what, if anything, is true? This is modern literary fiction at
its experimental best."--Grant Outerbridge, DIESEL, A Bookstore,
Oakland, Calif.
For Ages 9 to 12
Middle School Is Worse Than Meatloaf: A Year Told Through Stuff by
Jennifer L. Holm, illustrated by Elicia Castaldi (Ginee Seo Books,
$12.99, 9780689852817/0689852819). "First the title caught my eye, then
the format hooked me. I read it through before I did another thing.
What a unique way to portray a middle schooler's life--through the
variety of stuff she uses, saves, and creates."--Gayle Wingerter,
Inklings Bookshop, Yakima, Wash.
Piper Reed: Navy Brat by Kimberly Willis Holt, illustrated by Christine
Davenier (Holt, $14.95, 9780805081978/0805081976). "This first book in
a new series details the life of Piper Reed, middle child of a Navy
Chief. She's lived in San Diego, Texas, Guam, Mississippi, and New
Hampshire by the time she's nine. Piper relishes each move, her older
sister resents it, and her younger sister goes with the flow. Using
experiences from her life as a Navy brat, Holt has created a delightful
new character."--Cathy Berner, Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston, Tex.
[Many thanks to Book Sense and the ABA!]
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan (Viking Books, $19.95 Hardcover, 9780670018277, November 2007)
As we follow Manny preparing to open--starting the soups, checking the temperature in the walk-in, changing the oil in the Frialators, greeting Ty, the cook, and Eddie, who sweeps and preps--we meet a man who has pride in his work and respect for his employees. Weighing on him as he sets up is his just-ended involvement with Jacquie, a waitress, and his difficult relationship with his pregnant girlfriend, Deena. It's also his first Christmas without his beloved abuelita, his grandmother, another loss that burdens him.
Manhandling the old snowblower in the parking lot--why? who cares? but Manny does. "Following along, blinking and sniffling, shuffling to keep up, he thinks [about] why he fell for Jacquie. Losing his grandmother and the only home he'd known, he needed something to cling to. But then, why not Deena? Why not Deena now? . . . He thinks with a sudden weariness that he doesn't love her enough, and probably never will."
Compact and intense, Last Night at the Lobster is a portrait of a good man on his last nerve, a man we used to call, and still want to, the backbone of the country. Manny takes pride in a job well done; he has compassion for his employees and his customers; he has a broken heart and soul, framed by O'Nan's stark depiction of the dying mall--fluorescent lights shining coldly on desultory shoppers, Zales, Penney, Finest Formals. A bleak portrait, yet one with hope, because we believe in Manny, and in his decency, even while he's in despair.--Marilyn Dahl
