Bookstores

Amazon confirmed to the East Bay Express that the company will open a Books store in Walnut Creek, CA’s Broadway Plaza and is currently hiring employees for the location. Barnes & Noble closed their store across from Broadway Plaza a little over a year ago, after 21 years in that location, when they were unable to agree on a lease renewal. At the time, the bookseller said, “We expect to have a new store in the area in the future.” The newspaper says rents in the plaza “are between $80 and $140 per square foot.” The new location is the […]

Six members of the management team at Washington, DC’s Kramerbooks & Afterwords Café have quit after disagreements with the new owner. The departures took place over the past three weeks and include the events director, the general manager, and the head buyer. Three anonymous sources “familiar with the situation” tell the Washington Post that the employees quit “in a coordinated effort after clashing with the new owner” Steve Salis over “concerns about the work environment. But Salis, who bought the forty-year old Dupont Circle store last November, told the Washington Post, “We don’t know why they left — no notice and no explanation. […]

Amazon chose 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster as their as their spotlight pick, though the book released January 31. (Another pick, The Upstarts by Brad Stone, also published on January 31.) The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak is the featured debut. The rest of the Best Books of February list includes: Universal Harvester, John Darnielle Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari Insomniac City, Bill Hayes Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman Swimming Lessons, Claire Fuller Pachinko, Min Jin Lee Separately, the February Pennie’s Pick at Costco is Elizabeth Poliner‘s As Close to Us As Breathing. For our […]

Dallas will see a new independent bookstore, Interabang Books, open in May. The new 5000-square foot store will be located in the vicinity of a nearby Barnes & Noble store (though approximately a third of the size). Manager Jeremy Ellis, previously store manager for Brazos Bookstore in Houston, told the Dallas Morning News his story promises to be “different” from the chain stores because, “successful independent bookstores are successful because you have staff that is passionate about sharing their love of books all the time. To do that you have to carry books they are passionate about …. We’re not […]

Pittsburgh nonprofit City of Asylum, which is devoted to writers in exile, will open its new bookstore on Saturday, January 14. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported the store will offer a “carefully curated selection of 8,000 volumes by authors from all over the world” in a renovated Masonic hall now called Alphabet City. “It was a lot of fun to put this collection together,” noted store manager Lesley Rains, who previously owned East End Book Exchange in Bloomfield, PA. (Rains sold the Bloomfield, PA store last June after four years in operation.) Wider Than The Sky in Newport, VT will close […]