People

Nicki Leone, manager of Bristol Books in Wilmington, North Carolina, was recently invited by author M.J. Rose (The Halo Effect, Mira) to be a "guest blogger" on Rose's Weblog. Leone's assignment: To "write about anything related to getting books read." Thanks to Nicki Leone and M.J. Rose for allowing BTW to share with our readers this lighthearted look at the extent to which a bookseller will go to sell a book.

Usually, when an author's book is nominated for an award it is cause for celebration, but for author and eighth-grade English teacher Jordan Sonnenblick -- whose book, Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie, was nominated in July 2004 for the Young Adult Library Services Association's (YALSA, a divis

Russ Lawrence

During my time on ABA's Booksellers Advisory Council (BAC), one of the priorities that arose was providing opportunities for booksellers to get together and share ideas.

Jessica Stockton of Three Lives & Company in New York City was recently named the winner of the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association's contest that asked booksellers to write an essay that began with "I am a bookseller because …"

Corporate conglomerates and billion-dollar IPOs aren't the only newsmakers on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. On Tuesday, August 24, readers of the Journal were treated to an in-depth portrait of independent bookseller Neil Van Uum. Van Uum is the owner of Joseph-Beth Booksellers, with one store in Lexington, Kentucky; one each in Cleveland and Cincinnati; and the Tennessee-based Davis-Kidd Booksellers, with three stores in the state -- one each in Nashville, Jackson, and Memphis.

For some it was the storm that wasn't, but for others, whose businesses and homes along Florida's Gulf Coast were barraged with winds up to 145 miles per hour, Hurricane Charley was the source of devastation and injury. Most booksellers contacted by Bookselling This Week fared well through the storm, one of the worst in recent memory. Representatives of LIBRIS, the ABA-sponsored bookstore insurer, told BTW that all of the 20 bookstores in Florida covered by LIBRIS had been contacted and none were claiming property damage to their stores.

Outstanding New England Sales Rep to Be Recognized

On Tuesday, August 17, the New England Booksellers Association (NEBA) announced that John Muse was named the recipient of the 2004 Saul Gilman Award for outstanding New England Sales representative. Presented annually, the Gilman Awards were established in 1990 to recognize outstanding service to independent bookstores in New England by publishers' sales representatives. The award is accompanied by a $1,000 grant from NEBA to a literacy organization chosen by the winner.

According to the calculations of Cheryl and Thomas Upchurch, a life of bookselling has aged them ... about five years more than their contemporaries. Putting in yeoman's hours at their Montgomery, Alabama, bookstore, Capitol Book & News Company, has meant that "for the past 25 years we've both worked a six day week (and actually, for the first couple of years we owned the store, a seven day week!). That means 52 Saturdays a year, and after 25 years that comes to 1,300 days we worked that most folks did not.

In just under two weeks, the gavel comes down on the opening of the Republican National Convention in New York City, beginning the final leg of the race to the White House. Clearly, all things political are on the minds of many independent bookstores' customers as nine of 15 titles on this week's Book Sense Bestseller List are about today's politics.

Following up on a list that appeared in BTW about Democratic hopeful Senator John Kerry, here is a bibliography of 36 books by, and about, Republican presidential incumbent George W. Bush.

Facing Athens: Encounters With the Modern City (North Point Press) is a book George Sarrinikolaou, a New York environmental-policy worker and former journalist, had been wanting to write for years.