Barnes & Noble is unlikely to make a bid for Borders Group, according to today's Wall Street Journal, which cited "those familiar with the situation."
The causes include the tight credit markets and the length of some of the leases Borders holds. The company had announced that it would look into the matter but had never sounded particularly enthusiastic.
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Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing has signed a deal with the Gotham Group, a Los Angeles management firm, under which it has the option of publishing a book based on a film proposal if Gotham thinks the film project will make a solid book, the New York Times reported. S&S then would share a percentage of film as well as video games, comic book and other non-book project revenues.
"It's about having more control in the process," Rick Richter, president of S&S Children's Publishing, told the Times. "Typically publishers tend to stick their heads in the sand after the book hits Hollywood."
S&S's first project under the program is a middle-grade book series by David O. Russell, director of Three Kings and I Love Huckabees, among other films.
Russell's project is called Alienated and is about two children who work for "an old tabloid that covers the world of freaks and aliens," he said. With a co-writer, he has written drafts of a script for a film with the same title.
By the way, legend has it that Russell wrote the screenplay for Spanking the Monkey, his first feature, while working as an editor at the American Booksellers Association in a previous life.
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Sadly during the week the store marks its 20th anniversary, the future of Transitions Bookplace in Chicago, Ill., is in doubt, according to a notice on the store's website from manager Damien Varnado. He wrote: "We hope to remain open. That may entail a move to a smaller location nearby, a change in ownership and the possibility of the doors forever closing exists. . . . As soon as we are sure of our fate, we will commence with business as usual or exit gracefully. Negotations are taking place."
The spiritual store is holding a clearance sale but fixtures are not for sale "unless things take a turn for the worse."
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Congratulations to one of our favorite booksellers, Roberta Rubin, owner of the Book Stall at Chestnut Court, Winnetka, Ill., who reports that Chicago Magazine calls the store the "Best Nonchain Bookstore" in Chicago (and nearby). The Book Stall was cited for longevity, selection, helpful staff and "the all-important fact that it is connected to a Caribou Coffee." (!)
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Sharp-eyed Carin Siegfried of Baker & Taylor writes that The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 has a scene in which the character Carmen is at a cafe. In the background, "you can plainly see a sign for House of Books next door. This scene supposedly takes place in Vermont, but House of Books is an independent bookstore in Kent, Conn., where part of the movie was filmed. I just thought that was cool that an indie bookstore got a few seconds of screentime."
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The North Kitsap, Wash., Herald
featured the West Sound Independent Booksellers collective's first in a
series of "semi-regular columns enhancing the literary side of What's
Up with favorite books of the moment and all the rage straight from
local shelves."
The debut effort focused on "a few of our
current favorite reads and introductions to the bookstores that make up
the West Sound Independent Booksellers," a group that includes Bethel
Avenue Book Company, Port Orchard; the Dauntless Bookstore, Port
Gamble; Eagle Harbor Book Company, Bainbridge Island; Liberty Bay
Books, Poulsbo and the Traveler, Bainbridge Island.
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Belgian
native Vivianne Friedlich originally opened Pierre Books, Hollywood,
Fla., in 1997 because "she missed reading books in her native
language," according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
The bookshop's "business grew initially because of the local Haitian
population in Miami, visiting Europeans and French-speaking Canadians."
A
move to larger space about a year ago has proven to be a business
challenge, however. Vivianne's husband and co-owner, Pedro, told the Sun-Bulletin
that the move put their business at risk because, in a weak economy,
"books are not the first necessity. When we moved we did not expect to
lose customers."
Despite obstacles, Pedro notes that the
rewards of being a bookseller still outweigh the difficulties: "It's
just the pure joy of books."
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The U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Wednesday that copyrights to some
of John Steinbeck's best-known works, including The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, should belong to publisher Penguin Group.
According to Reuters (via Forbes
magazine), the decision "overturned a 2006 ruling by U.S. District
Judge Richard Owen in New York that had granted the rights to about 10
books to Steinbeck's son, Thomas Steinbeck, and granddaughter, Blake
Smyle."
Reuters also noted that the "case has been seen as
having ramifications for heirs of other artists seeking to control
future use of famous works.
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Ingram Publisher Services is distributing the following new clients:
- Mediane, an Italian publisher that specializes in photographic books focusing on cinema, culture and music.
- GemmaMedia, Boston, Mass., which publishes memoir, biography, fiction and current affairs.
Through the eyes of 11-year-old Dessa Dean, Nuzum (A Small White Scar) shows readers what grief feels like to a child and the way the companionship of a stray revives her. The book follows the narrator and her Daddy in the week leading up to Christmas. The father struggles to kill game for their dinner, to keep a pile of wood for their stove and to give his daughter material for her studies while he is away trapping. The story opens as the girl coaches herself to venture past the boundary of her cabin: "I was almost to the edge. Almost to where the porch stopped and the wide world began." But her ears start to ache, "the losing-Mama ache." She cannot leave the safe perimeter of her cabin. Nearly daily, she works to keep her "daymares" a secret from her father, fearing that he will think she's "daft." Dessa Dean continues to experience waking nightmares--flashbacks to when, on November third, her ears deadened with frostbite, and she watched her mother die in her arms, their snowshoe tracks erased by blowing snow. But on this day, the girl, alone in the cabin, is awakened from her daymare by a scratching sound, made by a "big, fudge-colored dog." Opening up to him introduces problems: he panics at a closed door, so the girl keeps the door ajar, and the wood supply dwindles; the food she leaves for him attracts first varmints, then predators.