Notes: Booksellers Win BEA Digs; Changes at Candlewick
A pair of booksellers each from Kepler's Books, Menlo Park, Calif., and Brown University Bookstore, Providence, R.I., will be spending the night at apartments on Manhattan's Upper West Side during BookExpo America, courtesy of Cambridge University Press.
The press said it "recognizes just how expensive it is for booksellers to attend BEA, particularly here in NYC. At a time when we should all be focused on saving money for books, we found a way to help frontline booksellers still come to BEA but on the cheap. After putting a call out to interested bookstores, we raffled off accommodations at our Cambridge apartments on the Upper West Side which are usually reserved for our U.K. colleagues."
The publisher added that the promotion was "a great way to thank some of our loyal customers and to make sure BEA is still about the relationships between publishers and booksellers."
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Each month, Three Percent, the international literature in translation website, showcases an independent bookshop with a direct link to that shop's online store. For April, Shaman Drum Bookshop, Ann Arbor, Mich., is the featured retailer.
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The Book Shoppe in Court House Village Shopping Center, Cape May Court House, N.J., will close sometime in early May. The County Herald reported that owner Steven Pyfrin said "the store's Shore Mall location would remain until the end of December, should customers desire to special order books."
"We are keeping this location open in hopes of selling out our inventory," he added.
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Are your books arranged "by topic and aesthetics?" If not, perhaps Kinsey Marable can help. The New York Times went shopping for bookcases with the former investment banker who "gave up securities trading to deal in a more exotic commodity: rare and out-of-print books. Since then he has found a niche as a curator of private libraries."
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The Jamaica Observer profiled the Fuller family, who have made Kingston Bookshop the island's "top book retailer" and who were recently nominated for the Family in Business Award.
The company has "current gross annual revenue of over $1 billion [US$11.4 million]--a sales performance that makes this company the leader in Jamaica's book retail industry. The market leader provides full-time employment for 181 Jamaicans, and adds another 200 to its payroll each summer when there is a seasonal spike in the demand for textbooks ahead of the new school term in September."
"The big part of our success is to make the staff feel that they belong to a large family, that they have a friendly place to work," said Sonia Fuller, who is in charge a work experience program that is open mainly to students of non-traditional high schools. "When you see them grow and succeed, that is the greatest satisfaction for me."
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VietNamNet Bridge explored "the road of book addicts," noting that "amidst a bustling and noisy HCM City, there is still a place like Tran Nhan Ton, which is quiet, witnesses no bargaining--just books, books and book lovers."
VietNamNet Bridge also reported on the Phuong Nam Corporation's book discount fair, noting: "Besides the books by local writers on sale at the fair, there are also some Vietnamese translation books from the worldwide bestsellers books, like The Art of Power by Thich Nhat Hanh, Crazy in Love by Lani Diane Rich and Barack Obama: The Audacity of Hope by the U.S President Barack Obama."
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Candlewick Press has made the following changes:
- John Mendelson will join the company on May 18 as senior v-p, sales and digital initiatives. He is currently direct of trade sales at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, where he has worked for more than a decade in a variety of sales positions, including director of national accounts, director of field sales, national account manager and New England sales representative.
- Susan Batcheller has been promoted to v-p, marketing services and sales operations. She joined the company in 2001 and most recently was executive director of marketing services and sales operations.
- Sharon Hancock is being promoted to executive director, school and library marketing. She joined the company 2004 and has been director of marketing strategy for school and library since 2005.
The title of Brown's (Chowder) uplifting picture book plants a clue to the double entendre waiting within these pages. The green-thumbed, redheaded narrator stumbles upon a hidden (albeit modest) garden high above the city (how curious) on abandoned railroad ties, and the (modest) garden itself grows curious and begins to spread out, "explor[ing] every corner of the railway." The author-artist begins with a palette of clay, moss and eggshell, underscoring what a "very dreary place" the city is. Liam, the boy, "may not have been a gardener, but he knew that he could help." In a trio of vignettes, he waters the struggling plants, prunes a rather sad-looking excuse for a tree (about waist-high on Liam) and serenades the small patch of greenery. Soon colors cascade across the elevated garden, and blue returns to the skies. Liam becomes engulfed by daisies, like Dorothy in Oz's field of poppies. All too soon, fall and winter come. But as soon as signs of spring arrive, the boy is back with his watering can, pruning shears and songbook. A rooftop view shows that Liam's green thumb is contagious--small gardens in high places erupt across the city's skyline (children will especially enjoy hedges sculpted like zoo animals and a pair of treehouses four stories off the ground). A closing full-spread view depicts a city transformed into a skytop nursery with a scattering of windmills, a dog run and a hammock, alongside a blue-hued harbor with a sailboat where once there ran ink-black waters and a tugboat spewing fumes. Liam's enthusiasm will likely leak through the pages and inspire young readers to find their own corner of the yard or block to brighten up.--