About Bookstores

In 1998, when Stuart Brown finally tired of Jack Daniel's, he and his wife Joanna decided to devote themselves to books. They purchased a slightly dog-eared, 34-year-old bookstore after moving up to Telluride, Colorado (altitude 8,745), from Louisville, Kentucky (altitude 462), where Stuart was a marketing brand manager for the Jack Daniel's brands.

By Rita Brutsch

I am in London on vacation, and, after a few days of sightseeing, I can't think of anything better to do than run up and down Charing Cross Road and check out all the bookstores. At first, I'm not really looking for anything in particular, but, then, it occurs to me that this would be the perfect place to look for an out-of-print copy of a book I've always wanted to read, Cape Horn: The Logical Route by the legendary French sailor Bernard Moitessier.

A recently launched bookstore-based book club has fashioned a notable coalition of bookstore, local writers, and an area arts newspaper. The result has built in-store traffic, spurred sales, and helped increase customer awareness.

Each month, the altReader book club, which was created by the Durham, North Carolina-based The Regulator Bookshop and is co-sponsored by a local alternative newspaper, The Independent Weekly, taps a different local author to pick his or her favorite book and to lead an evening discussion devoted to that book.

It would be an understatement to say that Books at Stonehenge has competition. The 2,500-square-foot independent bookstore, which is located in the Stonehenge Market shopping plaza in Raleigh, North Carolina, is two miles north of a Barnes & Noble, two miles west of a Borders, and about five miles away from a brand new mall, where a two-story Barnes & Noble's recently opened its doors.

As of October 6, New Words Bookstore, a 28-year-old feminist institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is closed, but its legacy is assured for the future. All of the store's papers and records have been acquired by the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, for its permanent collection.

The national in-store fundraising campaign to benefit local firefighters is gaining momentum in bookstores, as the October 28 air date of the History Channel documentary based on the book, Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire by John N. Maclean (Washington Square Press), grows near.

Authors Pat Conroy, Dave Barry, Connie May Fowler, and Cassandra King will speak at a Banned Books Week fundraiser at Books & Books, Coral Gables, on Saturday, September 21 at 8:00 p.m. The event is being held on the first day of Banned Books Week (September 21-28), the only national celebration of the freedom to read.

Throughout the U.S. this month and next, the importance of reading is taking center stage as 22 State Centers for the Book help to promote the upcoming National Book Festival, to be held in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, October 12, 2002. In Arkansas and Minnesota, state Centers for the Book are doing this with help from independent booksellers.

Following in a noble tradition, in the past few years, some independent booksellers have begun publishing or writing their own books. These booksellers noted that -- despite experiencing many challenges along the way -- publishing or authoring books has given them a sense of accomplishment and has allowed them to bring to light important books or ideas that otherwise might never have been published.

The September 30 issue of The New Yorker -- on newsstands September 23 -- will feature the latest Book Sense section, "Just Kidding -- Books for Children and Young Adults." The 10-page special feature will present the handselling favorites of 13 independent booksellers, and the titles are drawn from the fall 2002 Children's Book Sense 76. (The full 76 can be reviewed here.)