About Bookstores

Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Montana, recently "issued a challenge" to other booksellers and Montana businesses to donate a percentage of their profits on Thursday, May 1, to Iraqi humanitarian relief efforts.

The impact of the war in Iraq is felt by communities everywhere in the country. In many towns, reservists have been called up, family life has been disrupted, and businesses are experiencing fluctuations in sales and traffic. Nowhere is the deployment of soldiers felt more profoundly than in the towns that include military bases and stations.

By Michael Katzenberg

The topic of customer privacy in the age of the USA Patriot Act -- a law that gives the FBI expanded powers to search bookstore and library records -- is a serious issue that concerns all independent booksellers, who fear the day when the FBI comes to demand information about customers' book purchases.

At the Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans, author events are a pretty common occurrence -- the independent bookstore averages around 30 events in a year. However, author Susan Vreeland's appearance at the bookstore this past February was different. The author of The Passion of Artemisia (Viking hardcover, Penguin paperback) and Girl in Hyacinth Blue (MacMurray & Beck hardcover, Penguin paperback) came to the Garden District because the owner and staff of the store had nominated her titles for the Book Sense 76.

There's a charming small-town look and feel to the Tujunga Village section of Studio City, in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California. The block-long commercial stretch is home to half a dozen shops and cafes, clustered invitingly close and exuding a Mediterranean air. And the patrons who frequent Tujunga Court's merchants display the sort of devoted support that small-town merchants crave and need.

As florists await February 14 and poultry farmers the fourth Thursday in November, this year, booksellers have June 21. The laydown date for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix may well be the day a record number of copies of a single book are sold.

In preparation for war in the Middle East, orders from the Pentagon are placing thousands of military reservists on active duty. These reservists -- who previously were required to serve one weekend per month plus a 15-day tour per year -- include many pillars of their communities. Large numbers of police officers, firefighters, and corrections officers serve as reservists; quite a few high school wrestling coaches have been called up (according to AP reports), and, at least one bookseller.

Someday soon, Steve Stephenson will hand over the keys to his 55-year-old store, Steve's Books & Magazines, to his daughter-in-law, Joanie Stephenson. When he does, it will mark an end of sorts, and a new beginning, for a store that has become a Tulsa, Oklahoma, landmark -- a store that opened soon after World War II and is still thriving today.

In Irvine, California, the purchase of an incorrectly marked $10 gift certificate might end up costing a bookseller a lot of money -- that is, if attorney Michael Geller has his way. He recently informed Irvine Sci-Tech Books in Irvine, California, of his intent to file suit because a $10 gift certificate that he purchased for his wife had an expiration date, which is illegal in California.

On February 14, Wesleyan University announced that an agreement had been reached for the purchase of the Atticus Bookstore in Middletown, Connecticut. The store, which will close on April 30, will undergo renovation and expansion to reopen by fall 2003 as the Wesleyan University Bookstore. Charles Negaro, Atticus' owner for over 25 years, is selling the Middletown business and building to the university but will maintain ownership of two other well-established Atticus Bookstores, in New Haven, Connecticut, and Amherst, Massachusetts.

While a massive blizzard buried the Northeast this past holiday weekend, in southern California, Margie Ghiz, owner of Midnight Special Bookstore in Santa Monica, was weathering her own storm. In a February 17 e-mail, Ghiz told more than 4,000 customers that the store was moving out of its current 5,000-square-foot location on the Third Street Promenade on February 24.

Once again, Book Sense is working with The New Yorker to put together a special spring insert featuring titles selected by independent booksellers. The latest New Yorker Book Sense appearance is set for the May 5 issue, and the emphasis will be on books that make great gifts for Mother's Day, Father's Day, and graduation. To complement the story, the magazine is seeking photographs of bookstores with Book Sense. All Book Sense stores are encouraged to send photographs of their stores, especially good exterior shots.

On February 16, a crowd of approximately 650 people gathered at the First Congregational Church in Manchester, Vermont, to attend a poetry reading held to "honor the right to protest and dissent." The event, which was organized by Northshire Bookstore of Manchester Center, not only attracted a massive turnout and an impressive array of poetry talent, but also media from around the country.

Book buyers on the Coos Bay/North Bend coast of Oregon look forward to Books By the Bay owner Trish Midyette's birthday. Last November 28, she turned 36, and her patrons eagerly await her advancing years. Customers of the store know that every November 28 is declared Trish's Annual Birthday Blast, and, to show appreciation to all her customers, Trish discounts books one percentage point for each year of her life.

Other groups present the Oscars, the Grammys, and the Pulitzers … now readers in Red Lodge, Montana, population 2,000, can boast their own awards, the Lodgies. The awards are the brainchild of author and bookstore owner Gary Robson. The "First Annual Top Authors of Red Lodge Awards Ceremony" was held in January at the Elks Club in downtown Red Lodge.