New volunteer booksellers have joined in key ABA activities, on both the Booksellers Advisory Council (BAC) and the ABA Nominating Committee. The booksellers were appointed by incoming ABA President Ann Christophersen of Chicagos Women & Children First, and the appointments were unanimously approved by the ABA Board at its recent May meeting.
The following profile of independent bookselling in Chicago, and of ABAs new president, Ann Christophersen of Women & Children First, originally appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times.
By Lee Copeland
Ann Christophersen has been battling a turf war with Borders for the last two years.
The bookselling giant wants to open a 20,000-square-foot store in Uptown, about a mile from her Andersonville shop -- Women & Children First Bookstore.
Established in 1966, Washington, D.C.-based Reading Is Fundamental is the nations oldest and largest childrens literacy organization. In May, it capped its 35th anniversary with a "National Reading Celebration," which featured special events at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington during RIFs annual Reading Is Fun Week, which ran from May 5-12.
With its enthusiastic jacket endorsement from Jonathan Franzen ("Alive with intelligence, comedy, and inside dope ... sure-handedly captures the uncertainties of our times") and its choice as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, Mark Costello's Big If (Norton) would seem to be the promising debut of a terrific new American writer.
But, as it happens, Big If is in fact the second novel by Mark Costello -- though only the first to bear his name.
By 1936, two New Yorkers were touted as the greatest political leaders of the century -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Alfred Emanuel Smith Jr. While every American can recall some accomplishments of FDR, only those who lived through the 1920s and 1930s will likely even remember who Smith was.
Esteemed scientist, elegant essayist, and award-winning author Stephen Jay Gould died on May 20 of metastasized lung cancer at his home in New York City. He was 60 years old.
Leonard Shatzkin, author of In Cold Type, former book publishing executive, and consultant, died from congestive heart failure on Saturday, May 11, at the age of 82. Shatzkin's life was one of many remarkable achievements, throughout which his original, innovative, and oftentimes controversial ideas spurred many to think about the business of book publishing in new and better ways.
In Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of Americas Premier Mental Hospital (PublicAffairs), a Book Sense 76 May/June title, Alex Beam tells the story of McLean Hospital, refuge of the rich, famous, and deeply troubled for almost two centuries. McLean is a mental hospital-cum-luxurious estate set in acres of rolling New England parkland just outside Boston. The picturesque asylum also looms large in the American imagination.
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I was at the Phoenix airport, just in from L.A., and facing the prospect of having to read in a town where I knew, basically, no one.
With its enthusiastic jacket endorsement from Jonathan Franzen ("Alive with intelligence, comedy, and inside dope ... sure-handedly captures the uncertainties of our times") and its choice as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, Mark Costello's Big If (Norton) would seem to be the promising debut of a terrific new American writer.
Esteemed scientist, elegant essayist, and award-winning author Stephen Jay Gould died on May 20 of metastasized lung cancer at his home in New York City. He was 60 years old.
Leonard Shatzkin, author of In Cold Type, former book publishing executive, and consultant, died from congestive heart failure on Saturday, May 11, at the age of 82. Shatzkin's life was one of many remarkable achievements, throughout which his original, innovative, and oftentimes controversial ideas spurred many to think about the business of book publishing in new and better ways. 
In Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of Americas Premier Mental Hospital (PublicAffairs), a Book Sense 76 May/June title, Alex Beam tells the story of McLean Hospital, refuge of the rich, famous, and deeply troubled for almost two centuries. McLean is a mental hospital-cum-luxurious estate set in acres of rolling New England parkland just outside Boston. The picturesque asylum also looms large in the American imagination.