Industry News

The Women's National Book Association (WNBA) has announced the winners of this year's Lucile Micheels Pannell Award. This year's Award for a general bookstore goes to Anderson's Bookshops from Naperville, Illinois. The winner in the children's specialty category is Eight Cousins Children's Books from Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Snow Goose Bookstore, "The Goose," of Stanwood, Washington, moved to a larger space on Saturday, March 30 -- and, with help from the community, they were open and ready for business by Monday morning, April 1.

On Monday, April 8, winners of the Pulitzer Prize in literature were announced, recognizing work in fiction, drama, history, biography, poetry, and general nonfiction. The news sent booksellers and publishers to the computers and the phones -- as stores scrambled to fill orders and publishers pulled out the stops to shorten the production cycle of reprints and get additional copies of the winning titles into the inventory pipeline.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on April 8 that Denver's Tattered Cover Book Store does not have to turn over customer records that had been sought by local law enforcement officials, who had argued that the information would assist in a case involving the manufacture of methamphetamines.

Phoebe Storrs Stebbins, owner of the Dartmouth Bookstore in Hanover, New Hampshire, died on Wednesday, March 27, at the age of 83. Stebbins had been ill with brain cancer since last July. "She was an inspiration to everybody," said David Cioffi, Dartmouth Bookstore's store manager, and Stebbins's son-in-law.

On October 4, 2002, the New England Booksellers Association (NEBA) will launch the first-annual Read Around New England/New York (for New York stores) [RANE/NY], a unique, 10-day celebration designed to showcase New England’s rich literary talent and diverse array of independent bookstores. "[RANE/NY] is very ambitious," said Rusty Drugan, executive director of NEBA. "It’s a whole region, not any one town.

Rugged Land Publisher Shawn Coyne wants people to pay attention to books the way they pay attention to music videos. That’s why Rugged Land, a book publishing and film company, created a 40-second commercial trailer for one of its debut novels, Henry’s List of Wrongs, by John Scott Shepherd. The promo is due for release on the Rugged Land Web site on April 16 to coincide with the book’s publication date.

Bookselling This Week is pleased to report that, after our Citywide Book Club list went online March 13, we received many e-mails from both libraries and booksellers detailing their own particular community book-reading efforts. Additionally, the Library of Congress (LOC), www.loc.gov/cfbook/, now has a listing of Citywide Book Clubs, and some community efforts were added or updated using information from LOC’s Web site. The result has seen the list expand from 45 different community-reading initiatives to 65.

Caren Lobo, owner with her husband, Richard, of Sarasota News & Books in Sarasota, Florida, supplied BTW with some possible headlines for the story of the store's massive flood on Wednesday, March 27, "How about 'Sarasota News & Books Gives New Meaning to Waterfront Property,' or 'Sarasota Book Store: Newest Snorkeling Destination'?"

Business was brisk at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) Spring 2002 Trade Show Northwest, held at the Coeur d’Alene Resort, March 23 to March 25, in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The emphasis was on placing orders, according to a number of attending booksellers. Benefiting most from show orders were smaller publishers, said Thom Chambliss, PNBA’s executive director.

Books and coffee have a long history of association. Long before Barnes & Noble linked up with Starbucks, the coffeehouses of 18th-century London served as England’s "penny universities" where Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, and John Dryden socialized, sipped coffee, and sold their works. Two hundred years later, many booksellers feel they need to add a jolt of java to enliven their store’s atmosphere and boost sales.

New to the show this year, BookExpo America exhibiting publishers will be offering HOT DEALS -- including percentage discounts, free shipping, giveaways, and other cost-savings options -- to booksellers attending the convention.

Dan Jaffe, co-owner of Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma, California, and general manager of the entire group of eight Copperfield’s stores, died this month at the age of 50. The cause was apparently a heart attack, said colleague Tom Montan, who noted that Jaffe died at home sometime after March 16.

The first lady, Laura Bush, will appear on a Get Caught Reading (GCR) poster to be released around the time of her second annual National Book Festival, scheduled to be held in Washington, D.C., on September 21, 2002.

For two centuries, Charlottesville, Virginia, has drawn men and women of letters to live in its cultured environs: from Thomas Jefferson (whose Monticello is three miles east of the city) to current residents John Grisham, Rita Mae Brown, and National Book Award-winner John Casey.

And for the past several years, Charlottesville's annual Virginia Festival of the Book has attracted thousands of visitors to a five-day menu of some 150 literary panels, talks, and readings staged in venues all around town.