"Shopping at the Cornerstone Bookstore is like going to church at Barnes & Noble."--The Groton Times in article about the Groton, Conn., Christian bookstore owned by Liz and Dennis McGee since 1992. Among other things, the store has a media room with giant widescreen TV tuned constantly to the Sky Angel network.

While Hurricane Wilma was less destructive than Katrina two months ago, it has knocked out power in a huge section of south Florida and resulted in short gasoline supplies. Many areas continue to have curfews, and electricity may not be restored in many towns for weeks.

Bookstores apparently have survived with minimal damage, but those in the path of the storm were closed for several days. In Key West, for example, the Key West Island Bookstore shut its doors for three days but opened yesterday morning. "The hurricane didn't have much of an effect," one employee told Shelf Awareness. "Some places closer to the water had damage from the storm surge." He added that the first day open was "slow businesswise. There aren't many tourists."

The Classic Bookshop in Palm Beach lost an awning and the building has only partial power, but it reopened Wednesday, according to owner Jeff Jacobus. "Some of our lights are working, and some aren't," he told Shelf Awareness. "We have no air conditioning. The front door is open." The store is closing around 5 p.m. each day to give employees time to get home before 7 p.m., when the nightly curfew starts.

While Wilma "turned business upside down," Jacobus said, "all in all, it's a minor inconvenience. It's good character building."

The Vero Beach Book Center in Vero Beach "came through fine," according to manger Sheila Grange. The store closed only Monday although "it was kind of quiet leading up to it and the day or two afterwards." While the store is "pretty much back to normal," losing power only until Tuesday morning, many customers still do not have power back. As a result, the store is selling "a lot of book lights."

Books & Books's Miami Beach store was back in business Wednesday, but its other three stores--in Coral Gables, Bal Harbour and Levenger--were just getting power yesterday, owner Mitch Kaplan said in an e-mail. He has no power at home, and school is closed (which his children don't mind). The latest estimate is for power at his house to be restored by November 19.

Scheduled for November 13-20, the Miami Book Fair International is still on schedule although "there are some logistic issues since the college is closed this week," Kaplan added. "I'm certain they'll be resolved, and the fair will go off without a hitch."

For more reporting on the hurricane, see Bookselling This Week.

It took several hours, but we've already sighted the first instant book celebrating the Chicago White Sox's World Series victory late Wednesday night. It's White Sox: 2005 World Series Champions ($19.95 hardcover 1596701390, $14.95 softcover 1596701021), which Sports Publishing is publishing in the next 10-14 days with the Chicago Sun-Times. The book's lineup includes contributions from Sun-Times sports writers as well as photos from the paper.

Although the national media attention on the White Sox pales in comparison to that devoted a year ago to the Red Sox, the book still should do well in the Windy City and around, shall we say, White Sox Nation. The Sun-Times will go to bat for the title both in print and online.

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The ABA is making two new membership offers, which are explained in detail in Bookselling This Week. One is a $100 trial offer for booksellers who are not currently members, which runs through next March. The other allows Canadian booksellers who are members of the CBA to join the ABA for half the regular price. The Canadian cousins will enjoy most benefits of ABA membership; however, they will not be able to join Book Sense or vote.

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Green Apple Books and Music has received first place honors in the San Francisco Neighborhood Business Awards, according to the San Francisco Examiner. Owner and founder Rich Savoy is in the process of selling the store to three longtime employees, Kevin Ryan, Pete Mulvihill and Kevin Hunsanger, the paper said.

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Just in time for Halloween, the Kirkwood Communique sheds a little light on the Haunted Bookshop of Iowa City, Iowa--a used bookstore that the owners and some customers believe "harbors a presence." Among the signs of the ghost or ghosts: a flickering light and a creaking sound above the shop.

Still in public relations training mode, Wal-Mart is providing low-cost publicity for a documentary critical of it--as well as for a tie-in book that appears next month.

The huge retailer's p.r. agency has sent out information critical of the documentary maker, Robert Greenwald, and the trailer for the film, according to the New York Times. As sometimes happens in these situations, there have been more stories about the attacking than about the subject of the attack.

The documentary, called Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, opens in Los Angeles and New York next Friday, November 4, and goes into wider distribution on Sunday, November 13, which marks the beginning of a grassroots campaign called "Wal-Mart Week." As part of the "Week," Greenwald and others aim to have more than 3,000 screenings of the film. The documentary will be available on DVD on Tuesday, November 15.

Carrying the same title, the tie-in book by Greg Spotts (The Disinformation Co., distributed by Consortium, $9.95, 1932857249) appears November 13 and focuses on the nine-month creation of the documentary. In addition, the book intends to act as a primer on how to make political and activist documentaries.

Wal-Mart is intentionally promoting a different documentary, Why Wal-Mart Works, which Ron Galloway is rushing to finish so that it can be released on DVD on November 15.

Of course, Wal-Mart has been in the news again this week. After launching a charm offensive and a public pledge to provide medical insurance for more of its workers, a leaked memo indicated that the company was considering ways to pay and insure less.

Today on WAMU's Diane Rehm Show: Caryl Phillips, author of Dancing in the Dark (Knopf, $23.95, 1400043964).

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Today WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show looks back at the life of historian John Hope Franklin, whose new memoir is Mirror to America (FSG, $25, 0374299447).

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Today on the View: Jerry Lewis, author of Dean and Me: A Love Story (Doubleday, $26.95, 0767920864)

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On tonight's Tonight Show, Jay Leno turns the microphone on himself and talks about his own How to Be the Funniest Kid in the Whole World (or Just in Your Class) (S&S Children's, $12.95, 1416906312).

The following are the bestselling titles during the week ended Sunday, October 23, at Northern California Independent Booksellers Association stores and reported to Book Sense.

Hardcover Fiction

1. Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan (Putnam, $26.95, 0399153012)
2. On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Penguin, $25.95, 1594200637)
3. Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire (ReganBooks, $26.95, 0060548932)
4. Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan (Tor, $29.95, 0312873077)
5. The March by E. L. Doctorow (Random House, $25.95, 0375506713)
6. The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown, $26.95, 0316734934)
7. A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon (Delacorte, $28, 0385324162)
8. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (Morrow, $26.95, 006051518X)
9. Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosley (Little, Brown, $24.95, 0316073024)
10. Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie (Random House, $25.95, 0679463356)
11. The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich (HarperCollins, $25.95, 0060515104)
12. Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon, $21.95, 0375422994)
13. A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve (Little, Brown, $25.95, 0316738999)
14. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (Little, Brown, $25.95, 0316011770)
15. Consent to Kill by Vince Flynn (Atria, $25.95, 0743270363)

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester (HarperCollins, $27.95, 0060571993)
2. Healthy Aging by Andrew Weil (Knopf, $27.95, 0375407553)
3. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Morrow, $25.95, 006073132X)
4. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Knopf, $23.95, 140004314X)
5. The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt (Penguin, $25.95, 1594200580)
6. The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (FSG, $27.50, 0374292884)
7. Spook by Mary Roach (Norton, $24.95, 0393059626)
8. Mao by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (Knopf, $35, 0679422714)
9. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, $25.95, 0316172324)
10. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle (Dutton, $24.95, 0525948023)
11. What Remains by Carole Radziwill (Scribner, $25.95, 0743276949)
12. Don't Try This at Home edited by Kimberly Witherspoon (Bloomsbury, $24.95, 1596910704)
13. California by Kevin Starr (Modern Library, $24.95, 0679642404)
14. The Universe in a Single Atom by the Dalai Lama (Random House, $24.95, 076792066X)
15. The Assassins' Gate by George Packer (FSG, $26, 0374299633)

Trade Paperback Fiction

1. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead, $14, 1594480001)
2. Snow by Orhan Pamuk (Vintage, $14.95, 0375706860)
3. Wicked by Gregory Maguire (ReganBooks, $15, 0060987103)
4. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (Vintage, $14.95, 1400079497)
5. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Penguin, $15, 0143034901)
6. The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst (Bloomsbury, $14.95, 1582346100)
7. How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers (Vintage, $13, 1400095565)
8. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury, $15.95, 1582346038)
9. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (Back Bay, $13.95, 0316010707)
10. The Known World by Edward P. Jones (Amistad, $13.95, 0060557559)
11. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (Harvest, $14, 015602943X)
12. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Vintage, $12.95, 1400032717)
13. I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe (Picador, $15, 0312424442)
14. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (Perennial, $13.95, 0060529709)
15. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Washington Square, $14, 0743454537)

Trade Paperback Nonfiction

1. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (Anchor, $14.95, 0307276902)
2. Chronicles by Bob Dylan (S&S, $14, 0743244583)
3. Zagat San Francisco Bay Area Restaurants (Zagat Survey, $13.95, 1570067384)
4. The End of Faith by Sam Harris (Norton, $13.95, 0393327655)
5. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Back Bay, $14.95, 0316346624)
6. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Vintage, $14.95, 0375725601)
7. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Vintage, $14, 0679745580)
8. The Book of Secrets by Deepak Chopra (Three Rivers, $14, 1400098343)
9. Bad Dog by R. D. Rosen et al. (Workman, $9.95, 0761139834)
10. Imperial Ambitions by Noam Chomsky (Metropolitan, $15, 080507967X)
11. Why Do Men Have Nipples? by Mark Leyner et al. (Three Rivers, $12.95, 1400082315)
12. Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs (Picador, $14, 0312315953)
13. People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (HarperCollins, $18.95, 0060838655)
14. Bad Cat by Jim Edgar (Workman, $9.95, 0761136193)
15. When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? by George Carlin (Hyperion, $13.95, 140130821X)

Mass Market

1. Dressed for Death by Donna Leon (Penguin, $7.99, 0143035843)
2. The Constant Gardener by John le Carre (Pocket, $7.99, 1416503900)
3. Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (HarperTorch, $7.99, 0060502932)
4. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (Pocket, $7.99, 0671027360)
5. London Bridges by James Patterson (Warner, $7.99, 0446613355)
6. The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason (Dell, $7.99, 0440241359)
7. Twisted by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine, $7.99, 0345465261)
8. Hour Game by David Baldacci (Warner, $7.99, 0446616494)
9. Good Morning, Midnight by Reginald Hill (Avon, $7.99, 0060528087)
10. The Colorado Kid by Stephen King (Hard Case Crime, $5.99, 0843955848)

Children's (Fiction and Illustrated)

1. The Penultimate Peril (A Series of Unfortunate Events #12) by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Brett Helquist (HarperCollins, $11.99, 0064410153)
2. Eldest by Christopher Paolini (Knopf, $21, 037582670X)
3. Inkspell by Cornelia Funke (Chicken House, $19.99, 0439554004)
4. Eragon by Christopher Paolini (Knopf, $9.95, 0375826696)
5. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic, $29.99, 0439784549)
6. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd (HarperCollins, $7.99, 0694003611)
7. High Rhulain (Redwall #18) by Brian Jacques, illustrated by David Elliot (Philomel, $23.99, 0399242082)
8. Dragonology by Ernest Drake, illustrated by Helen Ward and Douglas Carrel (Candlewick, $19.99, 0763623296)
9. A Family of Poems by Caroline Kennedy, illustrated by Jon J. Muth (Hyperion, $19.95, 0786851112)
10. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic, $8.99, 0439139600)
11. Flush by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf, $16.95, 0375821821)
12. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (children's movie tie-in edition) by C. S. Lewis (HarperCollins, $7.99, 0060765461)
13. Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler (Puffin, $6.99, 0142501123)
14. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic, $9.99, 0439358078)
15. One Witch by Laura Leuck (Walker, $6.95, 0802777295