About Bookstores

16 Sep

Despite Chapter 11 Filing, WordsWorth Doesn't Plan to Close the Book

On Friday, September 12, the company that owns WordsWorth Books and Curious George Goes To WordsWorth, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The store's owner, Hillel Stavis, told BTW, "We're not closing. We're looking for a buyer [or investor]. We would like to keep it open…. We think an infusion of capital will do wonders for the store and restore it to its legendary status."

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09 Sep

Unrelenting Hurricane Season Takes Its Toll

Hurricane Frances slammed into the east coast of Florida early on the Sunday before Labor Day with 105 mph winds, causing massive flooding and property damage in the billions of dollars, and leaving millions of residents without power. According to wire service reports, Frances was notable for its broad reach and the leisurely pace it took, lingering offshore for hours, then battering the coast for much of Sunday morning before heading northwest. The eye of the hurricane, where the worst weather occurred, extended across 80 miles, from Vero Beach to Boynton, Florida.

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02 Sep

Booksellers Clean Up After Gaston & Charley; Gear Up for Frances

It's been a tough three weeks weather-wise for businesses and residents in the southeast -- with a devastating hurricane hitting Florida, a tropical storm battering Virginia -- and now there's no rest for the storm weary as another massive hurricane is on the way.

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02 Sep

A Magic Tree Grows in Oak Park

For 20 years, owners Rose Joseph and Iris Yipp have found new ways to ensure that Magic Tree Bookstore meets the needs of their neighborhood in Oak Park, Illinois. With a section devoted to biracial and alternative families, adoption, and special needs children, the bookstore has maintained its standing as a vital community resource. On August 27, the store's longevity and sense of community were celebrated at a grand-scale anniversary event.

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26 Aug

Independent Doesn't Mean Small: Wall Street Journal Profiles Joseph-Beth

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.

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26 Aug

Chesterfield's Best Books Display 'Exceeds Expectations'

In the July White Box, bookstores with Book Sense were sent promotional materials for "The Best Books of the First Five Years of Book Sense" and were encouraged to create a "Best Books" summer display.

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26 Aug

Sam Weller's Celebrates a Milestone

After surviving the stock market crash of 1929, World War II, a couple of recessions, and a four-alarm fire, Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore in Salt Lake City, Utah, is celebrating its 75th anniversary this August. What started out as a furniture and used-book store has evolved into a four-floor, 40,000-square-foot institution with six miles of bookshelves and approximately one million titles.

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19 Aug

Booksellers Weather Another Storm: Hurricane Charley

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.

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19 Aug

Alabama Booksellers Share a Lifetime Edifying and Entertaining

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.

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12 Aug

Bookstore Makes Profitable Link Between Authors and Readers

Author James Collier signs his book at the Book Cove's all-day local author series on August 7.
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12 Aug

The Hobbit Gets An Improved Hall

Hobbit Hall's owner Kim Dickie certainly doesn't sound new to bookselling -- the children's bookstore in Roswell, Georgia, has over 30,000 titles; five storytimes a week; over a dozen weeklong sessions of summer day camp; book fairs; sidewalk sales; and events for every holiday -- but she's only been a bookseller since March 2003.

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05 Aug

Just Opened: BTW Speaks With New Independent Booksellers

Recently, David Unowsky wrote an open letter to booksellers about the closing of his nationally renowned bookstore, Ruminator Books; in it he said: "For those who think it's inevitable that independents will disappear and that the retail world will all be big chains, I say humbug and hogwash." Indeed.

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05 Aug

Buffaloed Into Buying a Bookstore

Susanne Kufahl was working as a computer systems manager at the Wisconsin Department of Justice when her daughter, Rachael Krueger, suggested she buy their local bookstore, Buffalo Books & Café, in Montello. Kufahl let the idea percolate until, at another local used bookstore, she was suddenly inspired to buy not, say, a used copy of The Da Vinci Code or Reading Lolita in Tehran, but an entire bookstore. She contacted the realtor for Buffalo Books and was running the bookstore within six weeks.

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About ABA

The American Booksellers Association, a national not-for-profit trade organization, works with booksellers and industry partners to ensure the success and profitability of independently owned book retailers, and to assist in expanding the community of the book.

Independent bookstores act as community anchors; they serve a unique role in promoting the open exchange of ideas, enriching the cultural life of communities, and creating economically vibrant neighborhoods.

Contact

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