Amazon.com net sales rose 27% to $1.86 billion in the third quarter, ended September 30, while net income dropped to $30 million compared to $54 million in the same period a year ago. If the company's $40 million patent-infringement legal settlement with Soverain Software were excluded, the company's net income would have been $50 million.

The company predicted holiday sales would increase 13%-24%, weak numbers for Wall Street analysts.

The company has long stopped giving much information about book sales. This year it said only that the 1.6 million copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that it sold worldwide during the period was its "largest new product release" ever.

Sales in North America grew at a 28% pace (to $1.04 billion), mirroring sales growth in Amazon's international area, including the U.K., Germany, France, Japan and China. Sales of products from third party sellers continued slowly to rise as a percentage of company sales, to 30% from 28% last year.

Worldwide sales for the category "electronics and other general merchandise" grew 43% to $491 million, or about 26% of worldwide sales, as opposed to 24% the previous year.  The media category--books, music and movies--is still the single-largest Amazon sales category, but continues to lose ground, relatively speaking.

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In related news, online retailers are expected to keep shipping costs low or minimal despite fuel cost increases and rate hikes by carriers, according to today's Wall Street Journal. One survey found that four out of five online shippers are influenced by shipping fees when making buying decisions and that a similar number of online retailers plan to offer free shipping, although with some limitations.

More than a third of consumers in London and southeast England bought a book "solely to look intelligent," according to a poll in the U.K. reported by the Guardian. Many reached for shortlisted prize titles to accomplish this feat; older readers were less likely to buy a book for show.

Some respondents read two books simultaneously: a book for status and another for pleasure. On a more sane note, 40% of the respondents choose books based on recommendations from friends and family.

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On the eve of the author's appearance today on Oprah, Anchor Books happily updated the world on A Million Little Pieces, the James Frey memoir that Oprah selected for her book club.

Some 1.7 million copies are in print, up 1.1 million since Oprah's announcement, and it is apparently appealing to men and woman. Vintage and Anchor v-p and publisher Anne Messitte said, "It's clear that A Million Little Pieces is on its way to becoming the top-selling selection" of any Oprah title.

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More on titles having to do with Rosa Parks, who died on Monday:

Next month, just before the 50th anniversary of Parks' arrest, which started the Montgomery bus boycott, Sports Publishing's Spotlight Press imprint is releasing They Walked to Freedom: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-56 by Kenneth M. Hare and Jim Earnhardt ($24.95, 1596700106). The authors are editor of the editorial page and assistant editor, respectively, of the Montgomery Advertiser.

"A tribute to Ms. Parks and the impact her stand against inequality had on civil rights," the book is illustrated with stories and photos from the newspaper's archives.

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The Association of American University Presses's Books for Understanding program, an online bibliography of u.p. titles addressing current events and news issues, has updated its listing for Kashmir, which was originally compiled in 2002. It now has "the most recent scholarship on the long simmering conflict in the region and inclusion of newly republished classic travelogues which document this beautiful and dangerous landscape." It's all the more relevant for understanding the political and cultural fallout of the October 8 earthquake.

For more information, go to the AAUP's Web site.

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Some "obscure and first-time" writers have a positive view of the Google Print Library Project, the subject of Authors Guild and AAP suits, according to Wired. Other authors would at least like a royalty payment on any copies of their books scanned by Google. One observer thinks the service is most appropriate for out-of-print books published earlier than 1995.

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Simon & Schuster has consolidated its distribution services under "a single management umbrella." The new S&S Distribution Client Unit will be headed by Joe Bulger, who has been named v-p, client management and business development. He reports to Joe D'Onofrio, senior v-p of supply chain operations. Bulger had been v-p, business operations, in the supply chain department.

The Early Show features Doris Goodwin Kearns, author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (S&S, $35, 0684824906). Kearns also appears tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

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On today's Today Show:

• Jerry Lewis, author of Dean and Me: A Love Story (Doubleday, $26.95, 0767920864).
• Nobuyuki Matshuhisa, chef, restaurateur and author of Nobu Now (Clarkson Potter, $45, 0307236730).
• Kim Cattrall, author of Sexual Intelligence (Bulfinch, $30, 0821261754), which accompanies the HBO documentary that begins airing on November 15.

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Today on WAMU's Diane Rehm Show: H. W. Brands, author of Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times (Doubleday, $35, 0385507380).

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WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show speaks with Jerry Lewis (see Today Show listing above) and New York Times columnist Mark Bittman, author of The Best Recipes in the World (Broadway, $29.95, 0767906721).

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Today Oprah reminds everyone of the value of picking a book by a living author for her book club. Her main guest today is James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces (Anchor, $1400031087).

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Tonight the Charlie Rose Show hears arguments from Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, author of Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution (Knopf, $21, 0307263134).

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Yesterday Talk of the Nation had an ordinary conversation with Kevin O'Keefe, author of The Average American (PublicAffairs, $25, 158648270X).

The show also spoke with mystery novelist Brad Meltzer about his latest book, the graphic novel Identity Crisis (DC Comics, $24.99, 1401206883).

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Yesterday Morning Edition talked with former National Security Adviser Richard Clarke about his novel, The Scorpion's Gate (Putnam, $24.95, 0399152946), which begins with the overthrow of the Saudi royal family.

Perhaps because we're all working out of home offices now, one of the attractions of the new title Traveling Literary America: A Complete Guide to Literary Landmarks by B.J. Welborn (Jefferson Press, distributed by IPG, $19.95, 0971897425) are the descriptions of writers' work spaces and, in some cases, whole buildings that function as offices or studies. Consider these examples:

Christopher Morley's cabin in Roslyn, N.Y., called the Knothole, is outfitted with a fireplace and built-in bunks for reading. Eventually Morley installed a "Dymaxion" bathroom designed by his friend Buckminster Fuller.

Carl Sandburg remodeled his 175-year-old farmhouse in Flat Rock, N.C., so that almost every room had bookcases, a fire extinguisher, green eye shades and a guitar--in case the mood to play struck him.

The "cabinet," or personal study, in Monticello, Charlottesville, Va., features a five-sided revolving bookstand that Thomas Jefferson designed that allowed him to read five books at once.

William Faulkner's Rowan Oak in Oxford, Miss., includes a small office where Faulkner worked. One wall still features the outline for A Fable, as scrawled by the author.

John Muir called the office in his Martinez, Calif., home his "scribble den."

Perhaps the most amazing study mentioned in Traveling Literary America was built by Lew Wallace, who wrote Ben-Hur. The free-standing building in Crawfordsville, Ind., which Wallace dreamed about for years, has a copper-domed roof and stained glass skylight reflecting a Turkish mosque, a columned entrance modeled on the abbey of the church of St. Pierre in France, a 40-ft.-high tower with arched windows based on the Cathedral of Pisa. . . . You get the idea.

On the other hand, Sarah Orne Jewett's house in South Berwick, Maine, includes the original chair for the desk at which she wrote in the second-floor hallway. The house has 13 rooms; apparently Jewett preferred working in the hall because it had a perfect view of the village crossroads.

There are also some amusing epitaphs--literally. Robert Frost's gravestone in Bennington, Vt., reads, "I had a lover's quarrel with the world." A plaque where Dorothy Parker's ashes are interred (at the NAACP's headquarters in Baltimore) includes her suggested epitaph: "Excuse my dust."

And then there are the oddities and thoughtful creations:

Rudyard Kipling lived four years in Dummerston, Vt. (his American wife's home), and built a house called Naulakha. It was purchased by the Landmark Trust of the U.K. and can be rented by the week or for shorter periods during the winter.

Like Thomas Wolfe, Carson McCullers was initially scorned by people in her hometown--in her case, Columbus, Ga. Now the town has a 31-site combination driving and walking tour of McCullers-related places. Likewise, Sinclair Lewis, once reviled by residents of Sauk Centre, Minn., the basis for Main Street, is now a favorite son. And John Steinbeck, disliked for a time by his former townspeople in Salinas, Calif., is the focus of the Steinbeck House and the National Steinbeck Center.

The Redwood Library and Athenaeum in Newport, R.I., claims to be the oldest lending library in the U.S. and continues today as an independent subscription library.

In Hartford, Conn., a group is currently creating the Wallace Stevens Walk, marking the two-mile path of Stevens' famous commute to and from the insurance company where he worked for nearly 40 years. On his walks, he composed verse in his head.

For 17 years, Melony Vance learned the bookselling trade up and down the West Coast at some wonderful bookstores. She has worked for Chuck and Dee Robinson at Village Books in Bellingham, Wash.; at Latitude 33 in Laguna Beach, Calif.; at Bloomsbury in Ashland, Ore.; at Local Hero in Ojai, Calif.; at the University of Oregon bookstore in Eugene; at Lido Village Books in Newport Beach, Calif. She was also an administrative assistant for Thom Chambliss at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association; and two years ago, with Irma Wolfson, she opened the Reading Room at the Mandalay Place in Las Vegas, Nev.

Throughout this period, Vance always worked for others. Then, six months ago, she did something she had wanted to do since she was 14: she opened her own bookstore, Books in Nooks.

Part of the delay was because "I had to raise a daughter and have a real job," she told Shelf Awareness. The decision to open was also made easier by her family's offer of space in a building in Julian, Calif., a former mining town in the mountains about an hour and a half drive east of San Diego. She decided to set up the store in January and spent a hurried two months setting it up "from scratch." (These days Vance is slowing down slightly. She works six days a week. On the seventh, she rests and has an employee who fills in for the day.)

Books in Nooks offers nearly 4,000 books in 850 square feet in a 100-year-old house with lots of rooms (hence its name) and "an awesome redwood deck under two big oak trees." (Vance holds some authors' events and reading group meetings on the deck.) She gathered "bits and pieces" of fixtures, some from an old Crown Books store, all of which work because they're in an old house. The store has a "cute children's room" with an antique table and chairs. Besides children's titles, Books in Nooks carries a range of titles, excluding, in general, sports and art books, the latter because "they're big and expensive," Vance said. Julian, she explained, is "artsy but not affluent."

The rural area has a population of about 3,000; Books in Nooks is the only bookstore with new books. "I'm really happy with the store, and the community seems to be happy with it," she said. Still, some residents continue habits created when there was no new bookstore in town, using Amazon or going to a Borders that is about an hour away. Vance is increasing her involvement in the community and was recently elected treasurer of the Julian Merchants Association. Last week, she and the local library did a joint event that featured Victor Villaseñor. She will also look at cooperating with schools, and she's working on sending out an e-mail newsletter. (As for a Web site, she said, "We're not there yet.")

Apple growing is a major business in the area and attracts many people who in the fall, pick apples and buy cider and apple pie. Julian merchants are trying to make the town into "a year-round resort town" with gift stores and bed and breakfasts. While she's supportive, Vance said, "My aim is to market to locals. Tourists would be frosting."

Books in Nooks is located at 4336 Highway 78, Julian, Calif. 92036; 760-765-2852.