Book News

For the eight-week period ending July 24 and based on reporting from hundreds of independent bookstores with Book Sense nationwide.

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

Book Sense Best Children's Books: Favorites for All Ages Recommended by Independent Booksellers -- a collaboration of Newmarket Press and ABA's Book Sense marketing program -- will be published this September.

One of the highlights of ABA's Day of Education on Thursday, June 2, at this year's BookExpo America was the Third Annual "What Are You Reading/Publishing?" Lunch. The lively gathering provided an opportunity for booksellers to break bread with colleagues from around the country and engage in unmoderated discussions about favorite handsells. This year, booksellers were joined by editors from ABA's Book Sense Publishing Partners, who came prepared to discuss hot books and sleepers from the coming fall list.

Now that hundreds of thousands of cartons of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince have been opened, all previous publication-day sales records have been topped, and booksellers have picked the last Bertie Botts jellybean out of their carpets and hung up their sorting hats, many yearn for a few months off.

Based on sales at hundreds of independent bookstores with Book Sense nationwide for the eight-week period ending July 10, 2005.

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

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

Partners/West and NCIBA Create a Backup Plan

Partners/West Book Distributing is offering members of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association a backup plan to ensure stores have enough copies of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Scholastic) to satisfy demand this weekend. Beginning on Friday, June 15, and on Saturday and Sunday, July 16 - 17, all Bay Area independents with Partners accounts can pick up copies of the book at the NCIBA offices.

Just after the July 4 holiday weekend, Susan Stamberg, a National Public Radio special correspondent, spoke on air to three independent booksellers for her traditional roundup of summer reading picks.

Stamberg has commented previously to BTW that she finds the suggestions of independent booksellers "marvelous," both for her own summer reading list, and those of her many listeners. Stamberg said, "I know I can always count on them for great suggestions and great summer reading."

Here is the full listing of the August Book Sense Picks, with booksellers' comments, as well as a preview of August Book Sense Notables. Independent booksellers in the Book Sense program will be receiving their Picks fliers in the July Red Box.

The final countdown has begun for Scholastic's July 16 release of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. BTW would like to vicariously attend as many Potter-related celebrations as possible: Please keep digital cameras handy during your store's midnight, dawn, or noon events. We would like to run an array of photographs in future issues of BTW.

The July Book Sense Notables list, with booksellers' quotes, is now available in a downloadable PDF flier on BookWeb.org. The flier includes jacket images, bibliographic information, and bookseller quotes. These additional 20 titles are also featured in an electronic file of shelf-talkers for in-store use.

Based on sales from hundreds of independent bookstores with Book Sense across the U.S., for the eight-week period ending June 19, 2005.

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

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

To help educate both children and their parents about the importance of free speech, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) is inviting booksellers to insert a flier about the efforts to censor books in the Harry Potter series in the new Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which has an on-sale date of Saturday, July 16.

Alex Scott was a little girl with big problems and big ideas. Her battle with neuroblastoma, a rare childhood cancer, cut her eight-year life short in 2004, but her legacy lives on. Her remarkable initiative, to raise awareness and dollars for pediatric cancer research, was the inspiration behind a complete fundraising guide, Alex's Lemonade Stand Book and Kit, published on May 30, by Running Press/Perseus, in time for this year's Alex's Lemonade Stand Weekend.

Based on sales from hundreds of independent bookstores with Book Sense across the U.S., for the eight-week period ending June 12, 2005.

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

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

Among BookExpo America's (BEA) many parties and gala festivities were several award ceremonies celebrating some of the best of the best, including the presentation of the 2005 Book Sense Book of the Year Awards, recognizing independent booksellers' handselling favorites, at ABA's Celebration of Bookselling.