Book Sense

Edward P. Jones' The Known World (Amistad/HarperCollins) has been awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Before it won the Pulitzer and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in early March, The Known World was recognized by independent booksellers as a Top Ten September/October 2003 Book Sense 76 Pick.

Steve Almond hates coconut and despises Twizzlers, but he loves every other type of candy. And in his new book, Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America (Algonquin), which is the number one May Book Sense Pick, Almond recounts his fascinating and sweet-laden tour of eight American candy factories, from Idaho to San Francisco, Vermont to Tennessee.

The American Booksellers Association has announced the finalists for the 2004 Book Sense Book of the Year Awards. The finalists in five categories -- Adult Fiction, Adult Nonfiction, Children's Literature, Children's Illustrated, and Paperback -- were nominated by ABA bookstore members from titles appearing on the Book Sense 76 lists during the past year.

The winners will be announced at the Celebration of Bookselling, on Friday, June 4, at this year's BookExpo America, to be held at Chicago's McCormick Place Convention Center.

ABA bookstore members should be on the lookout for an envelope containing ballots to vote for the 2004 Book Sense Book of the Year Awards and to approve officers and elect directors to the ABA Board.

By early next week, stores will receive the mailing, which also includes a cover letter from ABA Nominating Committee Chair Neal Coonerty of Bookshop Santa Cruz, biographical data on the Board candidates, information on ABA programming at this year's BookExpo America, and a special postage-paid envelope for return of the ballots to ABA's accountant, KPMG.

The Book Sense Book & Author Luncheon, previously called the Book Sense 76 Luncheon, one of the highlights of the annual ABA Convention, will be held on Friday, June 4, at this year's BookExpo America at Chicago's McCormick Place Convention Center. The free noontime event, which is open to all bookstores with Book Sense, provides a special opportunity for booksellers to meet dozens of authors whose books they have helped make past or present Book Sense Picks. Reservations are required and are limited to two per bookstore.

The student-staff at the Colby (College) Bookstore in Waterville, Maine, has been eagerly awaiting the announcement of the 2004 Book Sense Book of the Year finalists. According to Barb Shutt, the store's assistant director, this is the second year the store is having the students on staff read the finalists and then rate them to come up with the store's vote for the Book of the Year Awards.

Friday, April 2, is the deadline for the:

On Monday mornings, Meg Smith, associate director of Book Sense Marketing, sends independent booksellers in the Book Sense program an e-mail reminding them to report to the Book Sense Bestseller list before the Tuesday, 3:00 a.m. deadline. Booksellers who receive the e-mails know that they are witty; punctuated with interesting book- and bookstore-related anecdotes; and, sometimes, even poetic.

On March 22, Smith wrote booksellers:

Dear booksellers,

Novelist Karen Joy Fowler "cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation" of her love for Jane Austen's novels. Like many other writers she has a hundred reasons for loving Austen, but she particularly responds to the power and invention of Austen's narrative voice.

Dear Booksellers,

Independent booksellers with Book Sense still have time to send in nominations for several upcoming lists.

The key deadlines are:

When a bibliophile changes career to become a bookseller, the switch usually represents the culmination of a long-harbored love of the profession. Or not. Maureen Palacios had never considered owning a bookstore, but she just didn't want to see Once Upon a Time Bookshoppe, a 36-year-old institution in Montrose, California, go under.

For the four-week sales period ending March 21, 2004, and based on reporting from hundreds of independent bookstores across the U.S.

Past Category Bestseller lists are available at www.bookweb.org/read/5677.

Attention Media: Please contact Kristen Gilligan at [email protected] for reprint guidelines for your newspaper or magazine.

June 6, 2004, will mark the 60th anniversary of D-Day, the allied assault on Normandy that marked a pivotal moment in World War II. This June, The History Channel will air a week of specially themed programming focusing on D-Day and the war in Europe.