Book Passage, Corte Madera, Calif., has just released a great video (by Dana Kelley) promoting Bookstock 2009 (Shelf Awareness, April 11, 2009), which is, as the shop described it on its website,
"a summer celebration of art for the whole family, with partial
proceeds benefiting the Giants Community Fund. Join us for an
exceptional evening of art, entertainment, great food and plenty of
children's activities--all on the field at AT&T Park."
Sheryl
Cotleur, Book Passage's buyer, said the promotion actually begins next week when filmmakers Logan and Noah Miller,
authors of Either You're in or You're in the Way: Two Brothers,
Twelve Months, and One Filmmaking Hell-Ride to Keep a Promise to Their
Father, chronicle the making of Touching Home, starring Ed Harris, on Tuesday at the bookstore and then host an advance screening of the movie Wednesday at Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael.
In June, the big show comes to town with Bookstock 2009: Music, Art & Movie Festival. "We are
culminating our launch of this title with an event at AT&T
ballpark, the home of the San Francisco Giants on June
6," said Cotleur, "and I'm claiming it's the largest venue single title book event ever
in the world because I assume that is so. The authors arranged all
that. We are just having a ball with these authors and their book and
their events. They grew up near our store so we are ground zero for
them."
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"The spirit of independents" was celebrated by Martha's Vineyard Magazine in a detailed look at the "committed people who own, work in, and patronize our bookstores. Neither last year's Fourth of July fire nor the growth of big-box chain stores and online retailers is dampening that spirit."
That fire, of course, forced Bunch of Grapes Bookstore to close its location, but "two other bookstores, Edgartown Books and Riley's Reads in Vineyard Haven, continued to serve as worthy refuges for wayward book lovers."
"I see us as an island of readers," said Susan Mercier, manager and buyer at Edgartown Books. "I see us as an island of people that value the written word."
Zoe Pechter opened Riley's Reads children's bookstore in 2003. "I had a great bookstore growing up," she said. "I wanted to share that experience. . . . I have a love for books. I love kids, and I thought maybe there’s something there. I thought maybe there's a niche I can fill."
Dawn Braasch, who had served as Bunch of Grapes bookstore's events coordinator, "confesses that while she talked about purchasing the business before the fire, her interest truly peaked later." She bought the bookstore last October and has been operating in a temporary location until rebuilding can be completed. She hopes to reopen later this spring.
"After the fire, nothing was left except good will and the name," she said of her decision. "The store's future was far less certain. I couldn't imagine not having the bookstore in town. It was purely selfish really."
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Pass Christian Books, Pass Christian, Miss., re-opened April 1 near its
former location, which was leveled by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Bookselling This Week
reported that during the intervening years, co-owners Rich Daley and
Scott Naugle "operated online and out of their homes, then moved to a
temporary storefront on the outskirts of town." A grand reopening is
planned for the late spring.
The past four years have been "a monumental challenge," Daley told BTW,
noting that the continuing support of the community was a bright spot.
"Yesterday, someone dropped off a tin of cookies with a note that said,
'Welcome Home! We missed you.' I taped the note to the wall," he said.
"Once you lose everything you realize how insignificant it all is, if
you can walk away with your life. Several people I know died in that
storm. I wish the feds would have stepped up, helped small business
owners. But we can say that we rebuilt it ourselves, with the help of
our customers."
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The Columbia Spectator profiled Park Slope’s Community Bookstore & Café, Brooklyn, N.Y., calling it a "hip but accessible gem of a store" that "is at once whimsical, colorful, striking, cool, and fiercely independent."
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The Millions' NYC Indie Bookstore Tour is scheduled for Saturday, May 2. Bookshops included on the tour are Three Lives& Co. Booksellers, McNally Jackson Books, Housing Works Used Book Café, Bluestockings, BookCourt and Freebird Books & Goods. An updated itinerary is available on the website.
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Tomorrow is also the eighth annual Free Comic Books Day, during which "more than 2,000 comic shops are offering free comics, ranging from Wolverine and The Avengers from Marvel to a preview of DC Comics' "Blackest Night" event in Green Lantern. There's a Shonen Jump manga special, Archie, Cars, even a NASCAR comic," USA Today reported.
"It's like the peace summit of comic books when all of the major publishers work together," said Geoff Johns, writer of DC's Green Lantern. "There's always something for everyone."
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BTW
continued its series spotlighting ABA candidates with a profile of Michael
Tucker of San Francisco's Books Inc. He has been "an ABA Board
member since 2005 and vice-president for the past year [and] is up for
approval by membership to serve a one-year term as ABA president
starting this June."
As ABA president, Tucker said he "would like to continue the
accessibility and transparency of the Board. That's been a hallmark and
the expressed objective of the Board, and what I have seen since I've
come on. It's a very exciting time to be coming into the position of
ABA president."
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You know you've been waiting for this. The Bookseller.com
reported that Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan--whose handselling
reign as the U.K. equivalent of Oprah's Book Club has been somewhat in
decline of late--unveiled their Summer Reads for 2009:
- Past Imperfect by Julian Fellowes
- Guernica by Dave Boling
- Palace Council by Stephen L. Carter
- Mr. Toppit by Charles Elton
- The Great Lover by Jill Dawson
- Mystery Man by Colin Bateman
- The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller
- The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee
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Time magazine's annual list of 100 of the world's most influential people included diverse representation from the world of books, including Jeff Bezos, Jeff Kinney, Suze Orman, Rick Warren, Martin Lindstrom and David Sheff.
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Michael J. Oprins has been promoted to v-p, merchandising, for non-book products at Borders Group, a new position, and is responsible for leading buying teams in non-book categories including: music, DVD, bargain, digital, newsstand, calendars, games, trend gifts and candy. He has been with the company 18 years, most recently as v-p, Paperchase operations, and earlier held a variety of positions, including Waldenbooks district manager and director of merchandising, children's and calendars.
Since 2002, he has also been a member of the board of directors of the Borders Group Foundation, which helps employees in need. For part of the time, he was a v-p and secretary.
In a statement, Anne Kubek, executive v-p of merchandising and marketing, called Oprins "a seasoned leader with strong institutional knowledge of our company as well as a breadth of merchandising and operations experience. He has successfully developed several business categories here and will play an important role in providing the strategic direction to drive the non-book areas of our business as well."
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The following appointments have been made in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's Trade & Reference Division:
- Josh Harwood has been promoted to national accounts director and will be based in the New York office. Formerly a sales rep covering New York and New England, he joined Houghton in 1996.
- Beth Ineson has been promoted to director of field sales and distribution clients and will continue to work in the Boston office. She was previously distribution client manager, working with Beacon Press and The Old Farmer's Almanac, among others. She joined Houghton in 1997.
- Emily Holden has joined the company as telephone sales representative and will work in the Boston office. She was formerly worked at Hachette in customer service.
Young fans at Little Shop of Stories, Decatur, Ga., flock around store manager Terra Elan McVoy at the launch party for Pure, McVoy's debut YA novel (Simon Pulse, $16.99, 9781416978725/1416978720). McVoy (far right) appears here with three members of the Glam Girls book group (to whom the book is dedicated). More than 200 people attended the event.
Every city has a soundtrack. Looking at the New York City skyline, the taxi cabs leaning on their horns and the swinging staccato of pedestrian traffic, it's easy to conclude that the Big Apple is a hotbed of jazz improvisation. BookExpo America may claim your days, but the nights are open to catching a cool performance. So pack your dark glasses and your artfully distressed leather jacket and head down to the Village, the legendary haunt for free-flowing jazz.
Most writers find a genre of fiction they like, and then more or less stick to it. But Michael Malone, now in his 60s, has hopped around the literary landscape. He is the author of Four Corners of the Sky (May 12, 2009, Sourcebooks Landmark), which has earned starred reviews from both Kirkus and Booklist. He's also the author of 10 novels (including Handling Sin, Uncivil Seasons and Dingley Falls), a collection of short stories and two works of nonfiction. Educated at Carolina and at Harvard, he is now a professor in Theater Studies at Duke University. Among prizes he has won: the Edgar, the O. Henry, the Writers Guild Award and the Emmy. He lives in Hillsborough, N.C., with his wife.