Around Indie Bookstores

Changing Hands Offers Series of Hiking Events

Tempe, Arizona's Changing Hands Bookstore, which is co-owned by ABA President Gayle Shanks, is offering customers "Changing Hands Outdoors," a series of hiking events with themes to expand the mind, body, and spirit. The price of each hike includes a sack lunch from the Wildflower Bread Company, and most include a copy of a related title.

This Saturday, February 28, locals Charles Liu and Thomas Priess will lead "Hike and Write." Liu is an avid hiker who has led "annual treks to the depths of the Grand Canyon and to the 12,633-foot summit of Humphreys Peak, Arizona's highest point," noted Changing Hands. And Preiss is the managing editor of the Gold Canyon Ledger, an arts and news magazine published monthly by the Association for the Development of a Better Environment. The cost of $30 includes the hike, lunch, and a copy of Sixty Hikes Within Sixty Miles (Menasha Ridge), and there's a couple's price of $45, which includes one book and two lunches.

Other events in the series include "Hike and Birding With Jim Burns," "Land & Gesture: Drawing and Hiking With Steven Yazzie," and "Family Hike With Author Robert Mesta."

Capitola Book Cafe Launches Membership Program

In an effort to keep the Capitola Book Cafe viable in the face of today's economic challenges, owners Richard Lange, Wendy Mayer-Lochtefeld, Melinda Powers, and Janet Leimeister have created a membership program, according to San Jose, California's Mercury News.

The program offers customers five levels of membership whose fees range from $25 to $250. Among the benefits are free food and drink, shopping sprees, tickets to events, and other discounts.

The Book Cafe was established in 1980 and bought by Lange, Mayer-Lochtefeld, Powers, and Leimeister in January 2007. In recent years, the store, which was know as "a kind of literary clearinghouse, not only selling books, but hosting readings from authors," has expanded its food-and-drink offerings, "welcomed consignment items, brought in artworks, hosted community events, set aside a kids' area, and given attention to local writers and artists," noted the Mercury News.

Tree House Books Draws Media Attention for IBA

Michele Lonergan of Tree House Books in Holland, Michigan, who was instrumental in the creation of the new Lakeshore Business Alliance, was recently featured in print, on the web, and on TV. Both local TV station WZZM13 and the Grand Rapids News spoke to Lonergan about the IBA's efforts to educate the public about the "huge" positive impact that shopping locally can have on a community.

Lonergan, whose sales were down about five percent in December and about one percent in January, told the Grand Rapids News that many of Tree House's customers have "made a point of saying they were shopping in locally owned stores."

The newspaper was among a number of media outlets that referred to a recent survey of 1,142 independent retailers by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which reported that although locally owned businesses posted year-to-year losses, they weren't as deep as many larger retail competitors. The survey also found independent businesses in communities with a buy-local campaign fared better than those without one.

Lonergan told the newspaper that the Lakeshore Alliance currently has about 40 members.