About Bookstores

Pat Kehde and Mary Lou Wright, founders and co-owners of 19-year-old The Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kansas, were recently named the recipients of the 2006 Phoenix Award in the category of Literary Arts by the Lawrence Arts Commission. The Phoenix Awards have been presented annually since 1996 in eight categories, and the Literary Arts Award is customarily granted to a writer.

To duly mark its 10th anniversary, Los Angeles' Skylight Books held a weeklong celebration, beginning on Saturday, October 28, featuring parties, author readings, staff poetry readings, Yucatan burritos, and lots of cake. "We had to be kind of flashy," said Skylight's Kerry Slattery. "It's our 10th, and we didn't want to take it for granted."

The decade-old "conservation community" of Prairie Crossing, in Grayslake, Illinois, will soon welcome a children's bookstore to the neighborhood. Owner Jackie Harris is days away from the grand opening of Under the Sycamore Tree Bookstore, a 2,800-square-foot store on the ground level of a new building in the development's Station Square. Several other specialty shops and a cafe are also opening shortly.

Esowon Books, the 18-year-old African-American bookstore, has moved to Leimert Park Village, a Los Angeles neighborhood favored by African-American businesses and cultural institutions. The store, founded and owned by James Fugate and Tom Hamilton, celebrated its grand reopening, in a 3,200-square-foot space, on October 14.

With Election Day less than a week away, it's not surprising that Congressional mid-term elections have been dominating the news from coast to coast. However, in two communities in the West, a vote of a different kind has been making headlines: In Davis, California, and Ravalli County, Montana, voters will be heading to the polls on November 7 to determine whether their communities open their doors to big box retailers.

Ravalli County, Montana

Bobbie Bicket had no intention of buying a bookstore, although she had been a regular customer of the 52-year-old Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, North Carolina. But when the bookstore was up for sale last year, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. "It just happened," said Bicket. "Everything worked out. I think that things that are supposed to, do. It's a wonderful place. It really is the heart of Southern Pines."

Wendy Hudson of Nantucket Bookworks and other local business owners on Nantucket Island, off the Massachusetts coast, recently learned that an ordinance to keep chain stores out of the island's historic downtown had received the state's stamp of approval.

Ernest "Papa" Hemingway is "grandfather" to new Florida bookseller Mina Hemingway.

On Thursday, September 14, The Bookstore at the Pavilion in Naples, Florida, officially became Mina Hemingway's Florida Bookstore. The store, which features 1,200 square feet of retail space, remained open during the transfer of ownership, Mina Hemingway recently told BTW.

As Linda Brummett, manager of the book department of BYU Bookstore, put it, "centennials are rare." So the Provo, Utah, bookstore has devoted the entire year to celebrating its 100th anniversary by giving away thousands of dollars worth of gift cards, iPods, digital cameras, textbook rebates, and other prizes.

Brazos Bookstore has long been considered a hub of Houston's literary community. This past spring, when the store's future was in doubt, 25 members of that community joined together to keep it alive. "It makes one proud of city," said new store manager Jane Moser. "Houston is known for its oil and conservative politics.

By Laura L. Hansen