Baker & Taylor is moving its wholesale club book division, Baker & Taylor Marketing Services, to its Indianapolis, Ind., distribution center from the one in Woodland, Calif. The move will take place during the next 60 days and should be completed by Friday, May 15.

B&T said that Indianapolis is "the ideal location to consolidate these operations, as it is centrally located to better serve BTMS customers, it has sufficient space to handle the additional business, and the company's national returns center is located there."

In a statement, B&T CEO Tom Morgan said that the company is "fully committed to the wholesale club book channel and will continue to provide superior products and services to our customers. This move is simply the result of greater efficiencies we have realized throughout our supply chain, and it will create even more cost savings and logistical improvements that will make our business stronger."

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Discovery Communications, which operates the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, the Science Channel and other cable channels, has sued Amazon.com, charging that the Kindle and Kindle 2 infringe on a Discovery e-book encryption patent. Discovery said that it and founder John S. Hendricks were "significant players in the development of digital content and delivery services in the 1990s. Hendricks' work included inventions of a secure, encrypted system for the selection, transmission, and sale of electronic books."

Discovery asks for triple damages and regular royalties, according to the Wall Street Journal. Apparently the encryption system at issue is used by other e-readers, but Amazon was singled out because of the Kindle's popularity, the Journal said.

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The Christian Science Monitor profiled Nancy Traversy, co-founder of Barefoot Books, the children's book publisher that sells its publications through a bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., and "made Inc. magazine's list of the fastest-growing businesses" in 2007.

Barefoot Books, which launched in London in 1993, "doubled, then tripled profits before expanding to the U.S. in 2001, eventually becoming an $8 million company," the Monitor reported. "And despite the dismal economy and a slowdown in British sales and trade, Barefoot's North American website and store sales grew nearly 40 percent in 2008."

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Last week at the Association of American Publishers annual meeting (Shelf Awareness, March 12, 2009), former president Bill Clinton spoke passionately about several books he had recently read. For one of these books, however, the passing (albeit glowing) reference to its title was not only brief but also misleading. In this reporter's attempt to identify "a biography of Joseph Priestley," which Clinton rather puzzlingly had called Into Thin Air, the most likely title seemed to be Robert Schofield's The Enlightenment of Joseph Priestley, published by Pennsylvania State University Press. Wrong. As author Steven Johnson gently pointed out in an e-mail, word had come to him that Clinton has been touting his book The Invention of Air (published by Riverhead Books) on the speech circuit--a happy situation to be sure--but under the title of the ill-fated Everest expedition chronicled by Jon Krakauer. Thanks to Johnson not only for pointing out the error but also for graciously praising Schofield's work. Now can we get someone to correct Bill?--Cynthia Clark

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After Fox Valley Technical College, Appleton, Wis., decided to switch its campus bookstore contract to Barnes & Noble College, effective July 1, Conkey's Book Store has begun to deal with the impending loss of 50% of its business, the Post Crescent reported.

Among measures taken at its downtown store: opening an hour later and closing earlier some evenings; two part-timers have been let go; managers have cut their hours; the gift section is focusing less on "knickknacky things" and more on "things with a purpose, like fashionable reading glasses, scarves, soap and games"; and the store is stocking local art on consignment.

With a Facebook page and local publicity, the community appears to be rallying to the store, and some school districts have placed orders with Conkey's for the first time.

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It's all about community for three bookstores in the Newark, Ohio, area, according to the Newark Advocate, which observed,: "Step into Readers' Garden on East Broadway in Granville, and you soon discover the small shop is more than a bookstore: It's a community center abuzz with activity."

The Book Nook "draws avid readers from as far away as Zanesville and Mount Vernon, said Patricia Luckeydoo . . . who often works together with Cindamar Books on Granville Street to help customers find what they are seeking."

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Ack! From the "maybe I don't want to know this" department: Boing Boing linked to Bill O'Reilly reading the audiobook version of his "terrible pornographic novel [Those Who Trespass] in 1998."

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In perhaps unrelated audiobook news, the Onion's radio news division featured "Audio Book Narrator Gets Drunk Around Chapter 13."

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Effective April 1, Bob McLaughlin is retiring from Fujii Associates. Before joining Fujii, he worked at Ward Parkway Bookshop, Wybel Marketing and Heinecken and Associates.

Fujii's Don Sturtz said that McLaughlin "has always been a reliable provider of quality service to independent booksellers in the Midwest. In his more than 30-year tenure in the publishing industry, Bob has consistently brought to his customers, co-workers, and colleagues unfailing service, integrity, knowledge and humor, which has earned him the respect and affection of the entire bookselling community."

McLaughlin may be reached at 913-897-9215 or rmclaug@earthlink.net.

Prospective scribes with questions about book ideas, cover treatment and cover copy, marketing and more received answers at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Ariz., last Saturday during an event called Meet the Buyers (Before You Go to Print!). A 15-minute session with either owner Gayle Shanks, who buys adult titles for the store, or children's buyer Brandi Stewart cost $25.

Changing Hands employee Shelly Segal came up with the idea and presented it to Shanks, who was in favor of it for several reasons. Offering their opinions on a book's shelf appeal is something she and Stewart do already. And being able to refer people to the formal session frees their time and that of other staffers who regularly field inquiries on the topic.  
 
"We need to monetize what we're doing so we can stay in business, and we think this is a great idea," said Shanks. Customers clearly agree. Pre-paid slots for the two-hour session filled up quickly, and an additional hour was added. Shanks saw a dozen people and Stewart eight, some of whom indicated they will be back for future sessions as they progress through the publishing process. That won't be a problem since, given the success of the first one, Meet the Buyers events will now take place three times a year.

The advice-giving gathering is part of an effort at Changing Hands to increase the number of authorless and other kinds of events and activities. Some require payment, such as a series of store-sponsored hikes (Shelf Awareness, January 21, 2009); others are free. "We're trying to think outside of the bookstore box," Shanks explained. "If you say you're a community bookstore, you need to do things in the community that are original and fun."

The store's marketing department has been given the challenge of devising a monthly children's event that brings in at least 100 kids. Earlier this month Dr. Seuss Day drew an abundance of young readers--and their parents, who were making purchases. "It was one of the best Saturdays we've had since the beginning of the year," Shanks said.

Superhero Day, with kids in costume, was also popular. Representatives from two area universities demonstrated animation and graphics, and physics instructors showed how to make things fly. Next up is Bugs & Butterflies Day with activities and lessons about science and insect lore.   

Besides drawing foot traffic into the store and providing parents with an afternoon of free entertainment for their children during a tough economy, there is a long-term benefit to these events. "We're building a group of kids who sees the bookstore as a place they want to come to," Shanks said.--Shannon McKenna Schmidt

This past weekend at a meeting in Pasadena, the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association announced two initiatives designed to help foster always-sought-after book buzz.

An idea from Random House rep Wade Lucas, the SoCal Booksellers Book Club has been widely welcome by member stores and other reps, SCIBA executive director Jennifer Bigelow said. The club invites reps to pitch titles on a seasonal basis. Booksellers then commit to reading and promoting one to three titles from the book club pick list: they will blog about the books in a new place on the SoCalBookScene part of SCIBA's website and are expected to write about them on store blogs, shelf talkers and anywhere else they want to buzz books from the club. (Twitter anyone?)

SCIBA plans to aggregate the rep picks before each selling season so that SoCal booksellers can continue to promote their favorite titles and interact with readers as a book club.

The SoCal Booksellers Book Club kicks off with a "Books, Wine and Cheese" party in late June in the courtyard of SCIBA's Pasadena headquarters at which reps will make their pitches for fall titles.

To create buzz for titles between seasons, SCIBA will launch SoCal Reads Advance Access Program this May. Like similar programs at other regional associations, SoCal Reads highlights titles written by writers from or about or set in its region. Bigelow noted that such regionally focused programs often give indie presses a chance to shine.

Another highlight at SCIBA's annual Spring Meeting was the discussion of a bill proposed by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner in the state legislature that calls for online retailers to collect sales tax, similar to a law enacted recently in New York State. The American Booksellers Association's Len Vlahos (who was in the area for the National Association of College stores meeting and CAMEX show) dropped by to discuss the pending bill, and Assemblyman Anthony Portantino--from local district 44--was on hand and took notes while they addressed the importance of a level playing field for all retailers, especially on Main Street. SCIBA president Sherri Gallentine of Vroman's said the discussion helped she and other members understand the bill better and made them feel heard.--Bridget Kinsella

Today on Fresh Air: James Balog, a photographer whose new book is Extreme Ice Now: Vanishing Glaciers and Changing Climate: A Progress Report (Focal Point, $24, 9781426204012/1426204019). He will also talk about a related Nova and National Geographic special called Extreme Ice.

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Tomorrow morning on Good Morning America: Joy Behar, author of Sheetzucacapoopoo: Max Goes to the Dogs (Dutton, $16.99, 9780525420811/0525420819).

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Tomorrow morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe: General Richard Myers, author of Eyes on the Horizon: Serving on the Front Lines of National Security (Threshold Editions, $27, 9781416560128/1416560122).

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Tomorrow on Oprah: Kevin Powell, author of The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life (Atria, $15, 9781416592242/1416592245).

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WETA's Author, Author! is posting two interviews this week. Now available is a Studio interview with Solveig Eggerz, author of Seal Woman (Ghost Road Press, $19.95, 9780979625534/097962553X).

On Friday, Author, Author! is posting an interview with Amy Dickinson, author of The Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter, and the Town That Raised Them (Hyperion, $22.99, 9781401322854/1401322859).

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Tomorrow on KCRW's Bookworm: part two of a two-part interview with Frank Bidart, author of Watching the Spring Festival: Poems (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $13, 9780374531720/0374531722). As the show put it: "For Frank Bidart, the act of reading poetry aloud involves the entire body. In this second conversation, the prize-winning poet discusses the importance of the body in his work, the mind-body schism and the art of performance that might bring them together."

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Tomorrow on the View: Jaime Pressly, author of It's Not Necessarily Not the Truth: Dreaming Bigger than the Town You're From (Morrow, $25.99, 9780061454141/0061454141). She will also appear tonight on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

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Tomorrow night on the Late Show with David Letterman: Richard Zoglin, author of Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America (Bloomsbury USA, $15, 9781582346250/1582346259).

Brad Pitt's Plan B is producing John Le Carre's The Night Manager, which has been acquired by Paramount Pictures. Variety reported that although several of the novelist's works have previously been adapted for the big screen, "Night Manager, first published in 1993, is one of Le Carre's longer and more critically lauded works." Variety also noted that Plan B has three films "in the can," including adaptations of  The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and The Time Traveler's Wife.

Of the 20 books comprising this year's Orange Prize for Fiction longlist, nine are by American authors and six are first novels, the Guardian reported. You can view the complete longlist at the Orange prize website.

Broadcaster Fi Glover chairs the panel of judges, which also includes entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox, journalist and academic Sarah Churchwell, writer Bidisha and the Guardian women's editor, Kira Cochrane. They will announce a shortlist of six books April 21, and the £30,000 (US$42,110) winner will be honored on June 3.

Jonah Lehrer is an editor at large for Seed magazine and the author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist. A graduate of Columbia University and a Rhodes Scholar, Lehrer has worked in the lab of Nobel Prize–winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel and written for the New Yorker, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. He edits the Mind Matters blog for Scientific American and writes his own highly regarded blog, The Frontal Cortex. His latest book, How We Decide, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt last month.

On your nightstand now:

My shiny new Kindle. Does that count? I swore I'd never get one, but then I realized that most of my traveling luggage was hardcover books. At the moment, I'm re-reading the essays of David Foster Wallace, which are even more brilliant than I remember. The only problem is that I've now started to insert unnecessary footnotes into everything, including e-mail.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Everything by Bill Peet.

Your top five authors:

An obviously impossible question. But here it goes: John Updike, Saul Bellow, Primo Levi, Borges and Virginia Woolf.

Book you've faked reading:

The Waves by Virginia Woolf.

Book you're an evangelist for:

The Waves. I'm pretty shameless, no? But you really should read it.

Book you've bought for the cover:

The collected works of Italo Calvino. I feel smarter just having them on my bookshelf.

Book that changed your life:

Which books haven't changed my life? But The Periodic Table by Primo Levi was one of those books that made me want to write about science.

Favorite line from a book:

Here's Levi, writing about carbon as the essential atom of life: "Carbon is that which at this instant, issuing out of a labyrinthine tangle of yesses and nos, makes my hand run along a certain path on the paper, mark it with these volutes that are signs: a double snap, up and down, between two levels of energy, guides this hand of mine to impress on the paper this dot, here, this one."

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

The Rabbit series by Updike. I want to start it again without knowing the end.

Picture yourself standing in the stairwell of an apartment house at 55 Jablonski Strasse in Berlin in 1940. A mail carrier climbs the stairs with a letter for the couple on the third floor. She rings the doorbell and a man answers. "He takes the letter from her without a word and pushes the door shut in her face, as if she were a thief, someone you had to be on your guard against," writes Hans Fallada as he begins the compulsively readable saga of Otto and Anna Quangel, first published in Germany in 1947 and only now available in a superb English translation by Michael Hofmann. The novel is based on an actual case.

Otto and Anna are simple people. He is a master carpenter whose factory is now producing bomb crates for the war effort; she is a housewife and mother. The letter, which announces the death of their only son in battle, shatters their fragile reality and leaves them alone with each other. Just as Rainer Maria Fassbinder did in his films, Fallada's novel observes Otto and Anna in their grief with unnerving clarity: the reticent, parsimonious Otto withdraws and the long-suffering Anna spirals into feelings of hopelessness and abandonment. When Otto comes up with a scheme to create and distribute anonymous postcards to foment dissent against the Nazis, Otto and Anna begin to share a renewed purpose. The knowledge that they are on a dangerous course does not deter them. Their first postcard dropped in a deserted stairwell proclaims: "Mother! The Führer has murdered my son."

The Quangels hope that the postcard will be read and passed around so that others will rise up. Although they know that the Nazis will be looking for them, they press on with their subversive project. Fallada, who suffered at the hands of the Nazis himself, trains his cold, satirical eye on the Gestapo investigation of the Postcard War to astonishing effect. As he tells it, if the Gestapo weren't so deadly, they and their bumbling techniques would be darkly funny. Nobody, however, would find their interrogation methods funny: "they will ask you questions, one man will take over from another, but no one will take over from you, however exhausted you get. Then when you fall from exhaustion, they'll rouse you with kicks and blows, and they'll give you salt water to drink, and when none of that does any good, they will dislocate every bone in your hand one by one. They will pour acid on the soles of your feet."

We expect to find sadistic goons in the Gestapo, but Fallada presents the trial court for the Quangels with equal disdain. Germany had gone mad, one character explains, with half the country arresting the other half. Otto and Anna Quangel were only two of many arrested, tortured and executed during those years, but we come to know them intimately in Fallada's unblinking, brilliant report from a living Hell.--John McFarland

Shelf Talker: Fans of the novels of Alan Furst and Irene Némirovsky will love the gritty "you are there" feel of this harrowing saga of a German couple fighting for their dignity in the face of unrelenting Nazi oppression and sadism.