"Books saved my life," said author Luis J. Rodriguez in a recent interview. The 47-year-old author is a former Los Angeles gang member whose love and talent for poetry and prose convinced a judge to give Rodriguez a crucial break 26 years ago when he placed him, not back in prison, but on the road to a writer's life.

Eventually a newspaper job took Rodriguez to Chicago. There, he started his own poetry publishing house and wrote the award-winning 1994 memoir, Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. (Touchstone Books).

On January 7, Hawley-Cooke announced that it was closing its Glenview Pointe store in Louisville, Kentucky. A statement signed by the store's four owners, Graham and Martha Neal Cooke, Audrey Schuetze, and William Schuetze, read in part, "It is with great sadness, but with a voice of confidence in the future of Hawley-Cooke Booksellers … [that we make this announcement]. We are proud of the Glenview Pointe store and the wonderful staff who made it a remarkable experience for all of us for over five years….

ABA Booksellers Forums provide members with an opportunity to meet with representatives of the ABA staff and Board to discuss issues relating to ABA programs, bookselling, and the state of the industry. Forums get under way in January, and are scheduled through February, March, and April. Stay tuned to BTW for further details of upcoming forums.

The first ABA member forum will be held on Wednesday, January 16, at the DoubleTree Hotel Atlanta/Buckhead in Atlanta, Georgia. The forum will take place from 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Booksellers around the country had many tales to tell about their holiday sales, generally their peak selling period.

There will be more opportunities than ever for networking, professional development, and discovering the best of the fall publishers' lists at the 2002 BookExpo America, held in conjunction with the ABA Convention, set for May 2-5 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.

Bookstore sales for October reflected healthy growth in a period of economic uncertainty, exceeding sales for the previous October by a solid 6.8 percent. Preliminary sales of $1,187 million for October 2001 compared favorably with the $1,111 million performance of October 2000.

Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver this week issued an open letter to independent booksellers. She wrote in the wake of a November 5 op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal by Gregg Easterbrook, which had criticized the writer for an essay published in the San Francisco Chronicle on September 25.

A nationwide sales tax holiday held in February would save consumers $5.9 billion, according to a new estimate prepared for the National Retail Federation (NRF). The estimate by the Arthur Anderson accounting firm is somewhat lower than the $6.5 billion calculated for a proposed November-December sales tax holiday and takes into account February's lower sales.

This editorial was originally published December 12, 2001 in the Rocky Mountain News.

THE ISSUE: State Supreme Court hears arguments on releasing bookstore records.

OUR VIEW: They should remain private

If you value your constitutional right to read what you please without worrying about government snooping, you owe a vote of thanks to the Tattered Cover bookstore for its spirited defense of its customers' privacy.

By Reggie Rivers
Denver Post Columnist

Thursday, December 13, 2001--It would have been far easier for Joyce Meskis, owner of the Tattered Cover Book Store, to give up the fight. It would have been cheaper and simpler to give the police access to the purchasing records of her customers. Everyone would have understood, and no one would have criticized her for giving the cops confirmation that their suspect did purchase two books on how to run a meth lab.