People

Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, has been elected to serve as the 2009 chair of Media Coalition, the trade association dedicated to defending the First Amendment rights of publishers, booksellers, librarians, and recording, motion picture, and video game producers, and recording, video, and video game retailers in the U.S.

On Thursday, October 9, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, a French novelist, children's author, and essayist, was named the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for literature. The Swedish Academy described Le Clezio as an "author of new departures, poetic adventure, and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization."

When Jim Copp died in 1999, the New York Times called him the "creator of children's records with loony tunes, literate lyrics, occasional dark themes, and wacky characters like the Dog That Went to Yale." His first record, released in 1958, was, the Times noted, praised as "deliciously fresh and funny'' by the New Yorker; ''fresh, clever, and inventive'' by Time magazine; and ''funny, sophisticated, uncondescending'' by The Atlantic.

When new booksellers Emma Stitt and Kenda Honeycutt were in their junior year at college and their friends were talking about vague post-college plans, they had decided on something more concrete -- to eventually open a bookstore together. "We probably should have gone the whole business school route, but couldn't bring ourselves to do it," said Honeycutt. So, after graduating this past May, they launched their big bookstore adventure -- a two-year road trip to apprentice with independent booksellers across the country.

At its July meeting, the American Booksellers Association's Board of Directors unanimously approved appointments to the Nominating Committee and to the Booksellers Advisory Council, as put forth by ABA President Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona.

Joining ABA Board member Steve Bercu of BookPeople in Austin, Texas, who was previously named chair of the Nominating Committee, are: