The NYT carries a piece on niche bookstores in the San Francisco Bay area, with a special focus on Omnivore Books, opened in late 2008 and focused on food books. Notably, owner Celia Sacks is now selecting new titles that Williams Sonoma will feature nationwide under an Omnivore Recommends banners, and 30 of the cookware stores will also sell vintage cookbooks selected by Sacks. (Used books are said to “most help her bottom line,” selling for three times what they cost.) She is also creating a cookbook scrapbook that Ten Speed Press will publish next year. And the store “always […]
Archives for September 2010
Briefs: Frankfurt Exhibitor Count Slides; Best Buy to Add Kindles; Canada to Look at iBookstore
* The Frankfurt Book Fair will have 6,930 exhibitors–about five percent fewer than last year–and thus, in the current press mood, like Barnes & Noble and printed books, considered “declining” and barely shy of extinction due to ebooks. The Fair says the drop is mostly due to a smaller group of publishers from this year’s guest Argentina, compared to last year’s big delegation from China. Which is a bit disingenuous, since they also blame the economic slowdown and cite declines from Eastern Europe as well. But if you look at stats from the last decade or so, the exhibitor totals […]
People, Etc.
Jill Schwartzman is joining Hyperion as a senior editor, acquiring pop culture, humor, memoir, biography, narrative nonfiction, popular history, and up-market commercial fiction. She was senior editor at Random House Trade Paperbacks. Former Barnes & Noble director of digital content Mike Ferrari has joined Borders, as merchandising director, trade books. Reporting to svp, merchandising Larry Norton, he will oversee categories including mystery/thriller, fiction, romance, science fiction, graphic novels, sports, local titles, business, computers, literary fiction, poetry, performing arts as well as Spanish books. (Before he joined B&N many years ago, Ferrari had worked for Walden.) Paris Review co-founder and former […]
The October 2010 Indie Next List
#1 Pick: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter: A Novel by Tom FranklinThe Mullah’s Storm by Thomas W. YoungThe Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean by Susan CaseySafe From the Sea by Peter GeyeThe Wake of Forgiveness by Bruce MachartThe Bells: A Novel by Richard HarvellAt Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill BrysonHow to Read the Air by Dinaw MengestuThe False Friend by Myla GoldbergBury Your Dead: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise PennyAdam & Eve: A Novel by Sena Jeter NaslundSalvation City by Sigrid NunezGreat House: A Novel by Nicole KraussA […]
The Daily Barnes & Burkle
In the latest proxy filings, Ron Burkle and Len Riggio continue to fight to show who is least suited to run the company going forward. From the Yucaipa presentation, Ron Burkle laments that he has invested over $200 million in company stock and “as of July 30, our investment is down over 27 percent.” (But since August 1, the stock is up almost 20 percent.) Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble now admits that the final cost of acquiring BN College was “only $439 million.” (Previously, for unknown reasons, they would not openly acknowledge the cost after deducting BN College’s cash on […]
WSJ to Launch Weekend Pull-Out Book Review, Under Robert Messenger
The NY Observer says that the Wall Street Journal has hired Robert Messenger–who has been at The Weekly Standard, The Atlantic, and the New York Sun–to run a new pull-out book review section set to appear in the newspaper’s weekend edition later this month. One source tells them it will carry a “significant” number of pages, but that’s all they for details. Current WSJ books editor Erich Eichman will report to Messenger. The book reviews will be inserted into a secret new section being edited by Gary Rosen, though Messenger reports to editorial page editor Paul Gigot.Observer