BTW News Briefs

Newspapers Feature Nine Indies "Worth Putting on a Tourist's Itinerary"

This week, an Associated Press story, "Nine Destination Bookstores Worth Putting on a Tourist's Itinerary," written by Beth J. Harpaz, appeared in newspapers across the country and beyond, including USA Today, the San Jose Mercury, and the Canadian Press. The indies featured in the article are: Books & Books, Inc. in Coral Gables, Florida; City Lights Books in San Francisco; Elliott Bay Book Co. in Seattle; Politics And Prose in Washington, D.C.; Powell's City of Books in Portland, Oregon; Prairie Lights in Iowa City, Iowa; Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver; That Bookstore In Blytheville in Blytheville, Arkansas; and The Strand in Manhattan.

In the article, which included a quote from Meg Smith, ABA Chief Marketing Officer, Harpaz noted: "A destination bookstore can make you feel like you're part of the community, whether you're grooving on the laid-back vibe at Powell's in Portland, or tuning into the Beltway buzz at Washington's Politics and Prose.

"Some bookstores offer literary touchstones, like the wooden chairs signed by writers who've visited That Bookstore in Blytheville, an Arkansas institution frequented by native son John Grisham. City Lights in San Francisco, once a hangout for Beat writers like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, draws tourists from around the world."

PNBA Announces 2008 Pacific Northwest Book Awards

On January 4, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association announced the winners of its 2008 Book Awards, which were selected by a committee of independent booksellers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. The committee chose the following six books from nearly 200 nominees, all of which were written by Northwest authors and published in 2007:

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie of Seattle, Washington (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• Returning to Earth by Jim Harrison, who spends part of his year in Paradise Valley, Montana (Grove)
• Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson of Northern Idaho (FSG)
• Dancing With Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's by Lauren Kessler of Eugene, Oregon (Viking)
• The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle of Missoula, Montana (Scribner)
• Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff of Seattle, Washington (HarperCollins)

PNBA also announced that it will celebrate these authors at an exclusive reception for PNBA members at the Heathman Hotel in Portland on the evening of Saturday, March 29, 2008. PNBA will provide more information about this event in the coming weeks. For more information, visit www.pnba.org.

The Story Prize Finalists Announced

The Story Prize, an annual award for books of short fiction, has announced the three finalists from an exceptional group of short story collections published in 2007. The winner will be announced at an event the evening of February 27 at The New School in New York City. The finalists are Sunstroke and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley (Picador); Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam (Weinstein Books); and Like You'd Understand, Anyway by Jim Shepard (Alfred A. Knopf).

Story Prize founder Julie Lindsey and director Larry Dark selected the three finalists from among 74 books entered by 48 publishers and imprints. The winner will be determined by three judges: David Gates, a novelist, short story writer, and senior editor at Newsweek; Patricia Groh, coordinator of community services at the Skokie (Illinois) Public Library; and Megahn O'Rourke, literary editor of Slate, a poetry editor at The Paris Review, and a poet, reviewer, and essayist.

The Story Prize winner will receive $20,000 and an engraved silver bowl. The two runners-up will each receive $5,000.

BISG Publishes New Discussion Document: The Identification of Digital Book Content

The Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (BISG) recently published a new discussion document on how digital publications should be identified. The document, The Identification of Digital Book Content, was commissioned jointly by BISG and Book Industry Communication in the U.K. and written by Michael Holdsworth, an industry consultant who was formerly managing director (UK, Europe, Middle East, and Africa) of Cambridge University Press.

The Identification of Digital Book Content is intended to stimulate debate in the book industry about how digital book content should be identified and to encourage further work on the development and implementation of identification standards and best practices for such content. The complete document is freely available to everyone online at the BISG website.

Trafalgar Square Publishing Adds McRae Books

The Independent Publishers Group is distributing titles for McRae Books effective immediately. Based in Florence, Italy, McRae Books publishes illustrated books in history, art, religion, nature, science, technology, cookery, food, and wine.

Trafalgar Square Publishing will distribute forthcoming titles for the spring 2008 season. Before its agreement with Trafalgar Square Publishing, McRae Books typically sold into the U.S. market through co-editions.