Notes: New Store; Reading Marathon Goes National
Pittsfield, Mass., has a new independent bookstore. iBerkshires.com
reported that Chapters Bookstore owners Aimee McLear and Kelly
Wright "have extensive bookselling and management experience. This is
their first independent enterprise together." The bookshop is scheduled
to open today.
"We are passionate about books and literacy, and
hope to provide Berkshire County residents a unique atmosphere and
personal service that exceeds their expectations," McLear said.
Chapters Bookstore is located at 78 North St., Pittsfield, Mass. 01201; 413-443-2665; Chaptersinc@yahoo.com.
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Great Expectations: A Reading Marathon, the 24-hour reading marathon that was organized earlier this year by RiverRun Bookstore, Portsmouth, N.H. (Shelf Awareness, February 18, 2008 and February 25, 2008), is raising expectations: booksellers around the country are invited to organize their own reading marathons in October.
Marathon readers are asked to have family and friends sponsor them to read for the full 24 hours, and prizes are then given out to the highest fundraisers. Profits are donated to a local nonprofit of the bookstore's choice. The marathons are intended to celebrate books and raise awareness about reading.
RiverRun collaborators Michele Filgate and Liberty Hardy are working with the help of Jenn Northington of the King's English Bookstore, Salt Lake City, Utah, on the project. For more information, contact Michele Filgate at riverrunevents@gmail.com.
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The Borders Books & Music on Wolf Road in Colonie, N.Y., is closing on September 6, according to the Schenectady Daily Gazette. The 31,000-sq.-ft. store opened in 1993 and is near a Barnes & Noble that 10 months ago moved from across the street to the Colonie Center, part of an upgrade of the mall. A company spokesperson said that the Borders is "under performing expectations." Borders still has several stores in the Albany area.
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The San Diego Jewish Journal profiles the Book Works, Del Mar, Calif., and its owner Lisa Stefanacci, who was, as she put it, "a scientist in my previous life"--at the Salk Institute. Concerning being a bookstore owner, she told the Journal: "In some senses it's very similar to science, because in science you have to come up with your own grant money, and you're constantly trying to market yourself . . . Running the store and [supervising] the staff is a lot like running a lab because you have a really cohesive group that's passionate about what they do and they don't mind not getting paid a lot . . . I've drawn from what I've learned in science."
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Pippi's pancakes and Paddington's elevenses. Author Jane Brocket picked her top 10 food scenes in children's literature for the Guardian.
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With Wings and a Halo,
a non-profit agency based in Wisconsin, has now teamed up with Illinois
police departments to equip patrol cars with B.A.C.K. (Be A Cheerful
Kid) packets of about a dozen books "to provide some comfort to
children who are forced to wait in the back seats of squad cars while
their parents deal with an accident, fire, crime or other crisis,"
according to the Chicago Tribune.
"If
we get called to a traffic accident or fire or some situation where
small children have witnessed something traumatizing, we hand out a
book . . . and try to make it something positive," said Deputy Police
Chief Todd Fulton, Huntley, Ill.
The program, which was started
last December by Paul Gilbertson, co-founder and
executive director of With Wings and a Halo, and the Dane County Chiefs of Police Association in
Wisconsin, is now active in all 72 Wisconsin counties.
"It's a
life-changing event when a child is in a crisis situation," Gilbertson
said. "This is about changing something negative into something
positive.
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F+W Publications has changed its name to F+W Media, which "better reflects the company's mission to deliver to passionate consumers the content, community, and data they desire--regardless of platform," F+W said.
The company has digital books, online purchasing channels, e-book selections, community sites, creates videos for online viewing and more, and aims "to dramatically grow its eMedia revenues while maintaining the core business." It is currently digitizing its catalogue of book titles and magazine archives.
The first annual Summer Quencher meetings sponsored by the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association, held last Wednesday and Thursday, drew a range of SCIBA members who heard from Amy Sandberg of Co-optimize, who is designing software to help stores claim coop money from publishers; executive director Jennifer Bigelow on the holiday catalogue and how it can be used to boost sales (she recommended stores in a community do newspaper inserts together); and Paige Poe, the ABA's IndieBound outreach liaison, who discussed how booksellers are using the new program. Poe (at computer above) runs a slideshow for, among others, (l. to r.) Bobby McGue, The Mystery Bookstore, Westwood; Linda Brown, The Mystery Bookstore; and Emily Pullen, Skylight Books/Emerging Leaders Council, Los Angeles. Reporting and photo: Guinevere Platt.
This is a story that deepens with each rereading. It is the true story of the pivotal summer of 1966, when Leap Forward grows up at the tender age of seven, as the Cultural Revolution begins. Guo Yue--translated as Leap Forward--and his co-author and wife, Farrow, keep the thrust of the book focused on the carefree feeling of being seven, before the Red Guards invade Beijing. Leap Forward leads readers through the "poor and overcrowded hutongs--a maze of dark, narrow alleys and high brick walls," where he lives, and which, just 40-some years before, housed the last Emperor's workers. Cann's detailed watercolors emphasize the shadowy, dank backdrop in predominantly beige and gray tones, with an occasional red door or window frame, and the residents all wear the requisite blue uniform. Yet the smells of dark rice vinegar and sesame seed oil fill the young hero's home, as spring onion makes a "whooshing sound" in the pan, and the addition of potatoes finely chopped sounds like "a clash of cymbals." Theirs is a musicians' compound; before the boy's father died two years before, he had played the Chinese violin. His father once told his son, "With music and your imagination, you can travel anywhere; you will always be free."