Book Sense

Based on the last four weeks of sales of nearly 400 independent bookstores across America.

In honor of National Poetry Month, Book Sense is publishing a poetry bestseller list at the beginning and the end of April. Thanks to all the stores that report! Please check back in four weeks to see how customers respond to poetry events all around the country. (To view previous lists, click here.)

At the Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans, author events are a pretty common occurrence -- the independent bookstore averages around 30 events in a year. However, author Susan Vreeland's appearance at the bookstore this past February was different. The author of The Passion of Artemisia (Viking hardcover, Penguin paperback) and Girl in Hyacinth Blue (MacMurray & Beck hardcover, Penguin paperback) came to the Garden District because the owner and staff of the store had nominated her titles for the Book Sense 76.

This week, Book Sense This Week is publishing the top ten of the 2003 - 2004 Reading Group Suggestions 76, with bookseller quotes. Next week, BTW will feature the full listing, also with quotes.

Based on four weeks of sales from over 350 independent bookstores across America.

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

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

There's a charming small-town look and feel to the Tujunga Village section of Studio City, in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California. The block-long commercial stretch is home to half a dozen shops and cafes, clustered invitingly close and exuding a Mediterranean air. And the patrons who frequent Tujunga Court's merchants display the sort of devoted support that small-town merchants crave and need.

The Book Sense Book of the Year Awards will be announced at the Celebration of Bookselling, on Friday, May 30, during this year's BookExpo America at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California.

All current ABA member bookstores can vote for the Book Sense Book of the Year. The remaining four finalists in each category will be awarded the title of Book Sense Honor Book. All nominated authors and illustrators will be invited to attend the award ceremonies and the Book Sense 76 Lunch, also to be held on Friday, May 30, at BEA.

On Thursday, March 13, Book Sense, HarperCollins, and the History Channel launched their latest national marketing program for independent bookstores with Book Sense. Designed to tie in with the April 14 History Channel broadcast of the documentary based on the book April 1865: The Month That Saved America, by Jay Winik (Perennial), the cooperative promotion runs until the end of April.

Book Sense is proud to announce that the number of Publisher Partners participating in the program has reached 100.

We offer our sincere thanks for each Partner's support of Book Sense and look forward to working with them in the months to come!

Here's the list.

Mark
[email protected]

In February, BookSense.com began testing a new program that could help participating bookstores fund the entire cost of their BookSense.com Web sites through the use of newsletter co-op.

Based on four weeks of sales from over 350 independent bookstores across America.

The first part of this list, which ran in Bookselling This Week last week, and other past Category Bestseller lists are available at http://www.bookweb.org/read/5677.

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

The book industry and the press are increasingly depending on Nielsen BookScan for figures on book sales from across all retail channels, and Nielsen BookScan estimates that currently its data represents between 70 and 75 percent of the entire bookselling market.

Based on the last four weeks of sales from over 350 independent bookstores across America.

For Kaye Peloquin, a former events planner, opening a bookstore in Lititz, Pennsylvania, has involved a long journey composed of hundreds of small steps. The 2,500-square-foot store, Buckhill Bookshop, will open around June 1. "Either right before or right after BEA, probably in the middle of the Harry Potter madness," joked Peloquin.

The will of individuals to prevail over monstrous obstacles links all of these Book Sense Book of the Year nonfiction finalists. Not only Captain Cook faced uncharted waters. Some spent their childhood trapped in brutal civil war or with brutalizing parents. Fighting adversaries, real or imagined, was necessary for the survival of all the authors.

The Book Sense Book of the Year Awards will be announced at the Celebration of Bookselling, on Friday, May 30, during this year's BookExpo America, at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California.

ABA President Ann Christophersen this week writes a special open letter of appreciation and gratitude to Carl Lennertz, who is moving to HarperCollins as vice president, marketing for the HarperCollins imprint.

Dear Carl,