A federal appeals court has thrown out an agreement between publishers and freelance writers to pay the writers for electronic reproduction of their work, according to today's New York Times, which reported that, "in a 2-to-1 decision, an appellate panel ruled that the courts had no jurisdiction over the copyright dispute and that a lower court erred in accepting the writers’ lawsuit and approving the settlement."

The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 2001 that "digital reproduction of newspaper, magazine and other articles without the writers’ permission violated their copyrights." Although that ruling had not resolved claims for earlier violations, a subsequent suit was followed by a negotiated settlement in March, 2005 that "provided for mostly modest payments to freelancers, and capped the publishers’ payout at $18 million. But yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan voided the settlement."

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A survey of bookstores nationally by Bookselling This Week produced mixed reactions to Black Friday sales, though most booksellers interviewed expressed optimism about the upcoming weeks. Regional association holiday catalogs were cited by many as a key sales spur. 

Allan Schmid, owner of Books Etc. stores in Portland and Falmouth, Me., "anticipates an increase in business" with the help of the New England Independent Booksellers Association holiday catalog. Books Etc. will send a copy to customers on its mailing list and local papers. They will also offer discounts on books in the catalog if customers bring in a coupon.

Lisa Sharp of Nightbird Books, Fayetteville, Ark., noting that sales were up 42% from last year for Black Friday weekend, said, "We placed the [Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance] regional catalog in Saturday's newspaper. . . . one person bought $250 worth of stuff right out of the catalog."

Bobby Tichenor, owner of Annie Bloom's Books, Portland, Ore., "credited the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association holiday catalog, distributed in the local paper, with driving sales, as well as customers perceiving books as 'good value' when many are cutting back their budgets. 'People are spending less in general, but more on books,' she said. 'It's a good thing for us.'"

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BTW also reported that the ABA is following up on a letter written by 30 New York State booksellers to Governor Eliot Spitzer "urging him to require online retailers with affiliates in the state to collect sales tax" by asking booksellers in the other 44 states charging sales tax "to urge their governors to equitably enforce existing tax laws." A template letter is provided.

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It may no longer qualify as headline-making news, but the Guardian reported that a "generation of 10-year-olds are losing confidence in books, spending fewer hours a week reading at home and enjoying it less than five years ago."

The catalyst for this reaction was yesterday's release of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls) study for 2006, "based on questionnaires and reading, writing and comprehension tests taken by 215,000 children around the world." The last Pirls report was released in 2002. 

The United States ranked 18th in the new study, just ahead of England and just behind Latvia. The top five countries or regions are the Russian Federation, Hong Kong, Canada/Alberta, Singapore and Canada/British Columbia. Full "Literacy League" standings are available in the Guardian piece.

"It's outside school and in children's attitudes where we have seen more changes since 2001," said Britain's children's secretary, Ed Balls. "Today's 10-year-olds have more choice than in 2001 about how they spend their free time. Most of them have their own TVs and mobiles, and 37% are playing computer games for three hours or more a day--more than in most countries in the study. I'm calling today for everyone's help to get our children reading more and to kick-start a new national debate about the value of reading."

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If the imminent death of traditional books is the number one bell-tolling subject in the publishing industry, the decline of the author tour must be at least a distant second. The Christian Science Monitor offered the latest elegy.

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Erol Karaaslan, the Turkish publisher and translator of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, may be tried on the grounds that the book allegedly "incites religious hatred" and is an assault on "sacred values," according to the Guardian. Karaaslan said he expected to be questioned by an Istanbul prosecutor regarding the book that has sold about 6,000 copies in Turkey since it was published in June.

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In a piece headlined, "One Less Children's Bookstore," the Washington Post bemoaned the demise of A Likely Story, Alexandria, Va., which "rang in the holiday season by shutting its doors after 23 years. . . for good, Nov. 21, the day before Thanksgiving."

In the shop's final e-mail newsletter, the staff wrote: "If you loved A Likely Story, we hope you will remember that you have to support small businesses in order to keep them in business. Locally owned, independent business play a vital role in making communities what they are today in terms of funding, character, and values."
 
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Promising "holiday books so eye-popping you won't need to bother with wrapping paper," USA Today continued its Gift Guide Week with some book suggestions.

Today's New York Times takes a somewhat Grinchier environmental view with its holiday book tips, headlining the piece "Reading Fun Before Frosty Melts Away," and noting, "Yes, Virginia, we used to have winter . . ." 

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Bill Ethridge, who will soon retire after 32 years as manager of the Kansas City Community College Bookstore, was profiled by the Kansas City Kansan. "I've stayed young being around college students," he said. "I may not look like it but I felt I did."

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The Bookseller, in partnership with the Random House Group, Play.com and the National Film & Television School, has launched a new project to create film "trailers" for books.

The Book Video Awards "will see NFTS students and alumni develop 90-second films based on three novels to be published by the Random House Group early next year. The videos will be launched in March 2008 and screened via Play.com, thebookseller.com, YouTube and other viral sites."

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Barnes & Noble has signed a lease for a new bookstore in Folsom, Calif., which is expected to open in the spring of 2009. According to the Sacramento Business Journal, the B&N will be located in a 50-acre regional commercial center to be known as Palladio at Broadstone.

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Britney's bookstore tour 2007.

Why offer a TMZ link to a video of Britney Spears rushing through the aisles of a Barnes & Noble, trailed by the requisite army of paparazzi? Because it's Friday, perhaps, and no other reason is necessary.

And, no, she didn't buy a book, though an onlooker asked her that pertinently impertinent question.

St. Helens Book Shop, St. Helens, Ore., was lauded by Bookselling This Week for adding "a new twist to its authorless events series."

Last month, the bookstore and a neighboring cafe joined forces to host an open house for eight home business reps from companies like Tupperware, Mary Kay Cosmetics and Pampered Chef. Their customers were also invited.

Luanne Kreutzer, owner of St. Helens Book Shop, called the event "a hit! It gave us a chance to share our Holiday Catalog . . . and we did gangbusters for three hours! It was very festive. A local cafe brought a cheese tray and information about their catering services. Displays were sent from a local florist."

Javier Bardem stars in a pair of book-to-film adaptations that are currently in theaters--Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera and Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men.

"Certain masterpieces depend more on description and imagination and are harder to film," he told USA Today, adding that the structure of McCarthy's dialogue-driven novel "is much more linear. As I read it, I knew it would be easier to perform."

1 2 3: A Child's First Counting Book by Alison Jay (Dutton, $15.99, 9780525478362/0525478361, 40 pp., ages 3-5, September)

Mother Goose: Numbers on the Loose by Leo and Diane Dillon (Harcourt, $17, 9780152056766/0152056769, 56 pp., ages 4-8, October)

A pair of witty, exuberant picture books playfully employs numbers and numerals for the nursery set. Ever since her first book, Picture This, Jay's interlinked visual details have helped budding readers pick up on clues to a larger story. In 1 2 3: A Child's First Counting Book (a companion to A B C: A Child's First Alphabet Book), "1 one little girl sleeping" in the opening scene plays the heroine in the fairy tales to follow, as the narrative counts up to 10 and down again. With the turn of a page, the girl rides a giant bird with "two soaring wings" (which later turns out to be the goose that lays "nine golden eggs"). Other duos dot the landscape: two squirrels, an owl couple and two pigs on their way to visit the third, which segues into the next spread, "three little pigs"--clearly laying out the nature of the game for youngest readers. The threatening wolf outside the window of the third pig's house shows up later in a Little Red Riding Hood scene (with his "ten sharp teeth"). A key in the back helps readers figure out the more challenging puzzles.

The Dillons make visual logic from nonsensical text with a parade of animals, humans, a masked mixture of each and animated inanimate objects (clocks, numbers, letters) that march across the delightful pages of Mother Goose: Numbers on the Loose as if they are performing a play. The black sheep that doles out three bags of wool possesses an overlarge long-eared head and huddles under a comforter from which human legs and hands appear. Many of the spreads seem almost cinematic in the way the drama unfolds. For "Sing a Song of Sixpence," the 4-and-20 blackbirds line up to enter the pie on the left-hand page, then burst into song on the right. Because the king, the pie maker and even the cat wear a long pointy proboscis on an elastic band, there's no danger to "the maid . . . in the garden" when one of the blackbirds "snap[s] off her nose." Bald-headed Gregory Griggs with his 27 wigs will be a true crowd-pleaser, with his neatly arranged cabinet of nine shelves of wigs, three across, proudly modeling his exotic hairpieces. A large dose of whimsy, a unified palette and subtly repetitive shapes create a cohesive homage to Mother Goose.--Jennifer M. Brown

I didn't really need any clues to know it was Black Friday, but I drove straight into my first piece of evidence on the New York State Thruway as I was heading north to Vermont after spending Thanksgiving with friends in New Jersey.

Scheduled to work the bookstore's afternoon/evening shift, I was cruising comfortably on Route 87, knowing I had allotted plenty of travel time. My overconfidence was literally stalled, however, just a few miles south of the toll booths near exit 16, where I suddenly found myself stuck in what became a three-lane, interstate highway parking lot.

What had happened? An accident? Too many cars trying to squeeze through the toll booths? A tsunami on the Hudson River?     

The mystery wasn't solved for an hour; an hour spent driving at a cool 5 mph. Finally, as we neared exit 16, the gridlock culprit was identified--Woodbury Common Premium Outlets.

Black Friday had officially begun, and I was still three hours from home. By the time I hit the bookstore sales floor that afternoon, the crush of book buyers seemed like a nice change of pace. In fact, I soon realized that they were walking faster than I had been driving.  

What was Black Friday like?

One of the first stories I heard when I arrived was about cell abuse. A customer had approached one of my colleagues and asked if we carried a particular book. As he responded, her cell phone chirped and she turned away to answer it. She talked while he stood by, waiting patiently. Then she put her hand over the phone and asked if he'd show her where the book was. As he led her to the section, she went back to her cell conversation.

Human interaction is a beautiful thing.

Most of the day wasn't like that. Despite the rush, there were moments for simple conversations with good readers about good books. In the end, you have to catch your breath and realize that bookselling is bookselling. Black Friday numbers don’t change that. Somehow, in a bookstore, in a crowd, you can still have those conversations, one customer at a time.

Stanley Hadsell, a fine bookseller who works at Market Block Books, Troy, N.Y., wrote to me on the day before Thanksgiving, and what he said stayed with me through the weekend:

"I have to say, reading your columns this week added to my agita. What people go through and the chaos. Yes, there will be a new breed of customer in the store. Not just the regulars, but the Desperate Seekers for anything to fill the void. Those are the scary ones. They come with cell phones permanently on, scouting out the best bargain, seeing no one in front of them, just merchandise. Happily most of our customers are nothing like that. But this time of the year brings a heightened awareness of consumerism and what drives this country (mad). So, when I read your column, I tensed up. My back was in spasms. I managed to have two migraines in one week.

"But today I felt a calm and a realization that I don't have to go to any malls. I can walk to work or take the bus. I can only sell what is within reach. I have a limited amount of wrapping paper. And I have a great staff to work with. We are open on Thanksgiving Day. Yes, it's true and odd to tell folks that. But the Turkey Trot, a race that gets its fair share of international runners, starts and ends practically in front of our store. It's a delight to be there for it. We're only open a few hours and it's such a leisurely pace that it barely feels like work at all. But that's the way I feel about bookselling as a whole; it barely feels like work. It's a joy. I love it. I love seeing a customer interested in books, even when it's not one of my recommendations. Isn't that why we do this?

"As for Black Friday, well, we have that same flight to the malls. We're not overwhelmed or frantic. We start the season with a sensible surge in business because we're selling books, which have a different energy than the latest handheld gadget. So, I feel calmer today. I know it will be busy. I can handle it. I don't have to do it alone. I breathe. That's the key. I always have to remember to breathe."--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)