"Ninety percent of our authors are first-time authors, and most of them have platforms in other media. And what we decide to publish is greatly affected by our publicity department--who we can get on the Daily Show or who might be great on a radio tour."--Jennifer Bergstrom, publisher of Simon Spotlight Entertainment, as quoted in today's New York Times in the latest story on how publishers are wooing readers in their 20s.

Another title related to Rosa Parks, who died on Monday:

Published to mark the 50th anniversary of the events it covers, The Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People Who Broke the Back of Jim Crow by Donnie Williams and Wayne Greenhaw (Lawrence Hill Books/Chicago Review Press, distributed by IPG, $24.95, 1556525907) discusses the legacy of Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and others who were involved in the bus boycott, which brought the civil rights struggle to national attention. Parks started the boycott when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger.

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The vacant lot in downtown Santa Cruz, Calif., that had been home to Bookshop Santa Cruz before the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake will finally be developed, according to the Associated Press. Facing city seizure of his lot, the owner sold the space to a developer for $1.9 million.

After the earthquake, Bookshop Santa Cruz operated in tents in a parking lot and then relocated across the street from its earlier location.

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An Arizona Republic columnist sings the praises of Thrifty Joe's Books & Music, Glendale, Ariz., a 12-year-old bookstore that sells used and collectible books, music, DVDs and video games. One customer said, "Everybody is really nice and friendly. It feels kind of old-fashioned, kind of like a little library." The store is setting up a Postal Service outlet.

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The House of Books is a new bookstore in Fishers, Ind., that sells new, used and collectible books, the Indianapolis Star reported. Owners Derrick and Vicki Allison offer about 30,000 titles in 1,700 square feet of space.

House of Books is located at 11680 Commercial Dr., Fishers, Ind. 46038.

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Magic Door IV in Pomona, Calif., was opened recently by Dwain Kaiser, who has run three other Magic Door stores over the past 40 years, according to the Ontario Daily Bulletin. This one stocks 10,000 used books in 700 square feet of space.

Kaiser said approvingly that many younger customers buy Blake, Hesse, Castaneda and Nietzsche, whose works he read when he was a teenager.

Magic Door IV is located at 155 W. 2nd St., Pomona, Calif. 91766.

Because Books-A-Million has filed its delayed 10-Q report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Nasdaq has stopped the process of delisting the company's stock. As of today, Books-A-Million will again use its usual trading symbol, BAMM, on Nasdaq. It had been using BAMME, an indication of its potential delisting.

Yesterday, on a down day on Wall Street, Books-A-Million closed at $9.34, up 3.9%.

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Also yesterday, the day after Amazon.com reported a drop in earnings and made cautious predictions for the holiday season, the company's stock closed at $39.75, down 13.9% on extraordinarily high trading of more than 30 million shares, five times the usual volume.

Today's Today Show gets comfortable with Michael Chiarello, author of At Home with Michael Chiarello: Easy Entertaining, Recipes, Ideas, Inspiration (Chronicle, $40, 0811840484).

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Today on WAMU's Diane Rehm Show: Joan Didion, author of The Year of Magical Thinking (Knopf, $23.95, 140004314X).

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Today on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show: James Shapiro, author of A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 (HarperCollins, $27.95, 0060088737).

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Today on KCRW's Bookworm: Campbell McGrath, author of Pax Atomica: Poems (Ecco, $23.95, 0060745649). As the show describes it: "Campbell McGrath has figured out how to perform a wonderful trick: he writes ecstatic comic poetry about the decline of America. Here, he discusses how he decided that even in dark times he could still fulfill the poet's essential task--the celebration of life as it is."

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Today the View checks out former Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall, author of Sexual Intelligence (Bulfinch, $30, 0821261754), which accompanies the HBO documentary that begins airing on November 15.

The View also elects to talk with comedienne Margaret Cho, author of I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight (Riverhead, $23.95, 1573223190).

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Front and center tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Janis Karpinski, former commanding general of the Abu Ghraib prison when Americans tortured some prisoners and author of One Woman's Army (Miramax, $24.95, 1401352472).

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Tonight the Charlie Rose Show hears arguments from Richard Posner, the federal appellate court judge whose new book is Preventing Surprise Attacks: Intelligence Reform in the Wake of 9/11 (Rowman & Littlefield, $18.95, 074254947X).

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More Lincoln: Yesterday All Things Considered had an inspiring conversation with Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness (Houghton Mifflin, $25, 0618551166).

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Yesterday Fresh Air was debriefed by former National Security Adviser Richard Clarke about his novel, The Scorpion's Gate (Putnam, $24.95, 0399152946), set in the Middle East five years in the future.

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Yesterday on Morning Edition, Thomas P.M. Barnett discussed his Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating (Putnam, $26.95, 0399153128).

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On Talk of the Nation yesterday, Edmund Morris beat the drum for his latest biography, Beethoven: The Universal Composer (Eminent Lives, $21.95, 0060759747).

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's Web site.

Saturday, October 29

7 p.m. Encore Booknotes. In a segment that first aired in 1996, professor Louise Barnett talks about her book Touched by Fire: The Life, Death, and Mythic Afterlife of George Armstrong Custer (Owl, 080505359X).

11 p.m. History on Book TV. From Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C., authors Mike Tidwell and John Barry discuss the relevance of their books to Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. Tidwell's Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast (Random House, $14.95, 0375725172) is an elegy to Louisiana's tidal coast, which even before Katrina, was sinking and dying because the levees and dams don't allow silt to replenish the land. Barry's book is Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America (S&S, $16, 0684840022).

Sunday, October 30

11:30 a.m. Public Lives. Hosted by the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., Donald Critchlow discusses the life and career of antifeminist leader Phyllis Schlafly, the subject of his book Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman's Crusade (Princeton University Press, $29.95, 0691070024).

6 p.m. After Words. Thomas P.M. Barnett, who as managing director of Enterra Solutions offers security advice to the government, discusses his book Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating (Putnam, $26.95, 0399153128), which aims to provide plans for U.S. foreign policy and national security. He is interviewed by Rep. Tom Feeney (R.-Fla.). (Re-airs at 9 p.m.)

The Reading Room at Mandalay Place in Las Vegas, Nev., perhaps the world's only serious bookstore connected to a casino, is "turning a corner this year," according to Irma Wolfson, the buyer for the store. "Sales jumped in 2005."

On the eve of the store's two-year anniversary next month, Wolfson described the 1,000-sq.-ft. space (the Mandalay Place is a shopping arcade between the Mandalay and Luxor casino hotels) as "stuffed with books." Although gaming is an obvious strong category, she emphasized that the Reading Room is a general bookstore. It sells "all bestsellers" as well as titles from regional publishing houses such as the University of Nevada Press, Stephens Press and Huntington Press.

Because the Mandalay has a beach, Wolfson said that "timeless" easy fiction really can be called beach books. But the store also sells much "sophisticated nonfiction and literary fiction," some of it to people attending conventions. For example, "two years running," Wolfson said, veterinarians have met at the Mandalay and proven to be major book buyers. "They inhale books," she said. "I can tell from the sales reports the three or four days they're there."

The store has also become the bookseller for an upcoming Reason magazine conference and has done "lots of other off-site sales," Wolfson said. Supplying books at events is "becoming a large part of what we do."

"Oddly" the Reading Room sells a lot of children's books from just two floor displays of children's books, which Wolfson attributed to two things: the books are either "guilt gifts" parents take home to their children after playing in Vegas or are for children visiting the city, which has become family-friendly in recent years.

In a locked case, the Reading Room offers rare books ranging in price from $500 to as high as $15,000, "which gives us a little specialty." The store also sells some sidelines, including special handmade cards.

The Reading Room is located at 3930 Las Vegas Blvd. S., Las Vegas, Nev. 89119; 702-632-9374.