About Bookstores

Last week, the New York Times ran a story about the behavior of children and their parents in the cafes and restaurants of Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood. The piece incorrectly stated that mothers were not attending events at the bookstore Women & Children First because children had been "kicked out for standing, talking, or sipping drinks" and "a retail clerk at the bookstore [had] asked a woman to stop breast-feeding last spring."

Four independent bookstores are part of a broad-based coalition of Western Massachusetts educators, libraries, arts and peace organizations, and others that seeks to foster "community-building" between the peoples of the U.S. and Iraq by shedding light on the connections between literacy and access to education and the formation of healthy societies.

It has been nine weeks since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, and some area booksellers have reopened, some soon will, and others are still assessing their circumstances.

Changing Hands in Tempe, Arizona, launched Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) national book tour for Character Is Destiny (Random House) this past Saturday to a standing-room-only audience. McCain spoke to the crowd for a half-hour and then autographed 400 books. "This was his third time here," said Yvette Roeder, Changing Hands' public relations coordinator. "He loves our store.

Tatnuck Bookseller, one of the largest independent bookstores in New England, with stores and adjoining eateries in Worcester and Westborough, Massachusetts, is celebrating its 30th year.

When Roger and Margy Layton, the owners of The Read Leaf Bookshop in Springville, Utah, were looking for a new marketing campaign, they thought of the uniqueness of their customers and staff, as well as the diversity of their inventory. And that was almost all they needed.

For Karen Spengler, owner of I Love a Mystery bookstore, there's no real mystery as to why her town of Mission, Kansas, should rethink the idea of allowing a Borders to open in the suburb of Kansas City: It's all simple economics.

After seeming to weaken following its weekend rampage through Mexico, Hurricane Wilma surprised some southern Florida residents and meteorologists when it found renewed energy from the warm waters of the Gulf. The storm walloped the Florida coast on Monday with a quick but powerful punch -- knocking down trees, flooding low-lying areas, and leaving millions of residents without electricity as it steamrolled its way into the Atlantic.