In her plan to open a bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y., Jessica Stockton Bagnulo has gained a partner--Rebecca Fitting, a bookseller who has worked for Random House--and the pair now have two-thirds of the capital they need to start their store, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported.
Some 300 people gathered at a party in Brooklyn Tuesday night that was a kickoff for the Fort Greene Indie Bookstore Initiative and the bookstore Bagnulo and Fitting are working on.
Concerning the Fort Greene neighborhood, Bagnulo commented: "The more time I spend here, the more I see it's a perfect fit. It's distinct, diverse, full of energy, with a kind of peace, too."
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Given the meltdown on Wall Street, it's no surprise that "economists say the 2008 holiday season will have the weakest sales gains in 17 years," as the Wall Street Journal put it. Luxury retailers may be affected more than others. Predictions include sales growth in the fourth quarter of 1.5% and 2.5%-3%.
"I can't tell you for sure that it's going to be the worst season in the last decade and a half, but we expect this season to be as challenging as any in recent memory," Scott Krugman, a v-p at the National Retail Federation, told the paper. The NRF doesn't expect the retail economy to begin improving until the middle of 2009.
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"The thing is, you can't assume anyone gives a damn about an author talking," Dave Weich, director of marketing for Powell's Books, Portland, Ore., told Willamette Week, which examined the Out of the Book film series. "A movie about a book has to be interesting in and of itself. If it's not, you're doing something wrong." The most recent Out of the Book offering is State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America.
"The OOTB films are extremely innovative," said ABA's chief marketing officer Meg Smith. "They can be run continuously on a monitor, shown at a one-time event, or even linked on YouTube, so they give booksellers an original way to add to the indie bookstore experience."
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Jane Belson, the widow of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams, has given permission for a sixth book to be added to the series. The Guardian reported that And Another Thing . . . will be written by children's author Eoin Colfer, who said being chosen by Belson for this task was "like suddenly being offered the superpower of your choice'."
The book, which is scheduled to be published next fall by Penguin, will "make no claims for Eoin being Douglas," said Joanna Prior, the publisher's marketing and publicity director. "It's not Eoin Colfer writing as Douglas Adams, as was the case with Sebastian Faulks [who wrote as Ian Fleming]. It's absolutely about him being himself--Eoin the author, but with the cast of Hitchhiker."
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Media Bistro's GalleyCat pointed out that among Vanity Fair's New Establishment--also known the 0.00000002% of Americans not currently obsessed with rising prices and falling wages--the world of literature is, to put it kindly, underrepresented "unless you count Bill Clinton, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert's status as bestselling authors. . . . Seriously, Vanity Fair couldn't find a single author with the cultural clout to outrank Matt Drudge and Jimmy Buffett? Heck, even if the ability to create a cottage industry around oneself were the only benchmark, James Patterson could've made the cut, or J.K. Rowling--remember, she's now powerful enough to keep other people's books from being published!"
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In the London Times, Richard Wilson suggested 10 Books Not to Read Before You Die, "his definitive list of books that just aren't worth the bother."