SHELF AWARENESS Column

Opening the Door: A Not-So-Sentimental Education

2010-08-31T14:32:02Z

During the early 1990s, a friend of mine spent a year working for an indie bookstore while seriously exploring the possibility of opening her own bookshop in New England. She had money, experience as a librarian and business acumen, but she ultimately walked away from the prospect. And that was during the pre-chain, pre-Amazon golden-ish age of independent bookselling.

Who stays and who walks away now? This was one of several questions I posed to Donna Paz Kaufman and Mark Kaufman--of Paz & Associates: The Bookstore Training & Consulting Group--who facilitate a workshop retreat, Opening a Bookstore: The Business Essentials, and partner with the American Booksellers Association to provide training for people interested in entering retail bookselling.

"For the past five or six years, the ABA has placed a great priority on education for booksellers, with content related to all aspects of the business," said the Kaufmans in an e-mail interview. "Our goal, on the other hand, is to reach prospective store owners early in the decision-making process, so that they're on the right track from the moment they open their doors rather than having to dig themselves out of a hole."

As I mentioned earlier in this series, I've noticed that many new bookstore owners seem better prepared for their entry into the business than their peers were a decade or more ago.

The Kaufmans agreed: "Before the advent of the 'information age,' we suspect that many booksellers opened stores with a Field of Dreams attitude--if you build it, they will come. With a great deal at stake, our trainees realize how much they don't know; they see the number of indie bookstores that have gone out of business and want to know why. They hope to avoid the same mistakes and preserve their hard-earned investment. Most have never owned or managed a retail store of any kind, let alone a retail bookstore, and see the importance of training for a new chapter in their career. They understand that you can easily buy anything you want online, and are aware that a retail bookstore needs to give customers a compelling reason to get out from behind the computer and come shop at the local bookstore."

The majority of their workshop attendees "are career-changers, having come to a point in their lives when questions like 'Is that all there is?' arise, and they're motivated to live out a dream before they run out of time. Every so often, we'll see 'emerging leaders' (the under-40 set), yet funding seems to be the greatest challenge here. One constant is the number of dreamers who get disillusioned when they find out the amount of time, effort, and money required. Retail is retail: the hours are long, your feet get tired, and there's very little margin for error."

The path from wild idea to actually opening that front door is more perilous than ever, and the "need to be better prepared is most evident when looking for funding sources, as lenders require more and more--collateral, credit history, experience, etc. There are even some landlords who expect sketches of a store design before they will approve a tenant. The chains provide a consistent look, but landlords of quality properties want to be assured an independently owned business will be just as serious about creating an attractive sense of place that will contribute to their development."

A hard road can sometimes be a hard sell. The Kaufmans noted that "over the past seven years, some 1,850 people have contacted us for information about opening a bookstore. Of that number, 1,025 took another step by minimally investing in their education. A bit more than 20% attended a workshop, and we estimate that 50%-60% of workshop graduates have gone on to open stores."

To foster more interest, they are using their blog "to promote the business opportunities that the media just doesn't see. We've also been in touch with the major newspapers and magazines to encourage them to tell the other side of the story. Opportunities do exist and several successful indie bookstores are now for sale, in search of new owners. These are businesses with an existing loyal customer base, revenue stream, and profits that are enriching the lives of people in their communities, employing residents and contributing to their local economies. Indie bookselling is part of the 'long tail.' "

One aspect of the process that hasn't changed is the questions prospective booksellers ask: How much will it cost? How long will it take? How much can I earn? Can my community support a bookstore?

"But more people now want some specifics about how they can make it work without losing sleep at night," according to the Kaufmans. "There is one question that comes up, especially after we focus on the financial dynamics of the business and the potential return on investment. We've had people ask, 'Why bother?' Our goal is to ensure that prospective booksellers make informed decisions based on understanding the risks, the potential rewards, and all that it takes to succeed.

"We do use 'formal education' to refer to retail training in bookselling," they added. "Our focus is not to repeat training someone can easily find elsewhere, like understanding how to write a business plan or the critical elements of marketing. Our training is specific to retail bookselling. We emphasize the realities of retail and the nuances of the book industry, combining the two and placing it in context of today's economy and consumer."--Published in Shelf Awareness, issue #1267.

Opening the Door at Battenkill Books: The Plan

2010-08-22T16:05:22Z

Everyone knows that opening a bookstore is more complicated than just filling the shelves, hanging a sign out front and unlocking the door. Whether everyone knew that 15 or 20 years ago is debatable, but the new and prospective indie booksellers I've met during the past couple of years strike me as a much more business savvy crowd than many I encountered during the 1990s. They know the stakes; they do their homework; they harbor fewer delusions.

I mentioned last week that I'd been asked how Connie and Chris Brooks prepared for their entry into the business as owners of Battenkill Books, Cambridge, N.Y.; how they had learned about the intricacies unique to retail bookselling, and what led them to believe they could be successful.

They didn't take any formal bookseller training, relying "primarily on our own research and backgrounds," said Connie. "Chris already owns a small business and has an MBA, so his experience in particular was very important. It is important to note that we took over a smaller existing store with a 24-year history in our village. We began drafting a business plan (nights, weekends, and coffee breaks) in January 2009, then presented it to a counselor at the Small Business Development Center in Albany, N.Y., in May for feedback. We had a relatively complete plan to present to two loan officers in June 2009, and opened our doors November 1, 2009."

She added that from the beginning they "knew we had a community of readers and one that would be inclined to support a small, independent bookstore. Analyzing census data and incorporating it with a book buying behavior study and an NEA report on trends in reading confirmed this in quantitative terms. We used some planning tools like a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis and Porter's Five Forces Model of Competitive Analysis. These are instructive. Guess what our top 'Weakness' was? 'Lack of experience running a retail operation.' It also shows up as a 'Barrier to Entry' to the industry in our Competitive Analysis."

Geography also played a significant role, since "the nearest big box bookstores are 45 minutes away and the nearest brethren indies are about 30-40 minutes away," Connie said. As part of their preparation, they took "recon" trips to bookstores in the region and discussed "what was good about each and what we would use or change if it were our shop. We took a map, outlined how far we would drive for a good bookstore and started adding up the population in that area, their income, and (based on the studies noted above) what they could be expected to spend on new books. Along with a conservative estimate of the market share of that total new book spending Battenkill Books could expect (i.e., versus online sales and regional competition), we arrived at a first year top line revenue figure."

They assumed "cost of goods sold to be 60%, based on buying from distributors to start, which brought us to our gross profit," said Connie, noting that by checking anticipated expenses "against ABA's Abacus as a rough guide, we had a handle on our pro-forma income and expenses."

On paper, the numbers didn't work initially, she admitted, and only with "a lot of thought and revision" did they begin to make sense. Ultimately it "came down to controlling expenses. If you take a look at the industry, that is what it is about. Gross profit is essentially fixed. So this is an expense controlled, cash flow business. We found a way to make it work on paper, by prioritizing spending on basic needs and areas that would support increased sales."

In an earlier column, I outlined how they handled the real estate aspect of this venture, but Connie said the "big splurge was on a computerized POS system that has paid dividends and will pay more as we use more of its functionality. I spent most of the months preparing to open the store learning the basics of running a retail operation--setting up tax exempt resale status, learning New York's labor laws, researching business, workers comp, and disability insurance, learning about sales tax, etc. I set up a relatively few accounts with book distributors, and am still very much learning on the ground how to run a bookstore."

Conceding that a course for future booksellers might have helped, Connie noted they "had no budget for it and little time. There are still terms that I don't understand and whole areas of the business that are as yet foreign (remainder buying, handling used books, how to make the most of a sales rep call, etc.), but I also am a believer that at some point you just have to take the plunge and get on with it--there are some aspects of the business that you can only learn by doing and over time."--Published in Shelf Awareness, issue#1261.

Note: Photo by Leslie Parke, whose painting, "Moths," is on the wall behind the information desk.

Opening the Door at Battenkill Books: Part 2

2010-08-16T12:44:06Z

"Some people are natural door openers. But most are not," wrote William H. Whyte in City: Rediscovering the Center. For Connie Brooks, owner of Battenkill Books, Cambridge, N.Y., both kinds of people--and lots of them--must open the shop's front door to sustain her business. She knows she can't just wait for that to happen.

The entrance to a 21st-century indie bookstore has become a swinging door, with booksellers searching for ways to build community outside as well as inside their shops. For Connie, one of the most successful ventures thus far has been her collaboration with the Curiosity Forum, a joint venture with Hubbard Hall and Open Studios of Washington County that hosts a wide-ranging series of events, including lectures, slide presentations, documentary film screenings, author events, demonstrations/workshops and interactive artist events.

"The Curiosity Forum was started by local artist Leslie Parke, who is also the driving force behind the Open Studios of Washington County organization/event," said Connie. "She'd had a residency at Giverny, and when she returned to Cambridge she was asked to speak about her experiences, and so the first Curiosity Forum was born. Right when I took over Battenkill Books, she was looking to reinvigorate the series, and I was gung-ho to start planning author events. We also partner with Hubbard Hall, a local nonprofit arts organization, that allows us to promote the events to their membership, as well as to the bookstore’s growing e-mail database."

For Leslie, the partnership has been a logical and necessary evolution in a region that has numerous individuals and organizations--both for-profit and nonprofit--looking to draw interest from a limited audience pool. "As we go forward with a new paradigm, we cannot be competitors. We can only cooperate with each other," said Leslie, who meets regularly with Connie and Hubbard Hall's Gina Deibel and Deb Foster to consider programming suggestions. "We're really just the gatekeepers for the quality of the projects," Leslie added. "We're really trying to brand the area" so people see Cambridge as a destination for high quality events appealing to a variety of interests.

"I really can't say enough good about the partnership," Connie observed. "It is a tremendous amount of work to plan events, and with this approach it is a team effort. Hubbard Hall, for example, handles the press, since they are already set up for it and have the contacts. I am constantly meeting new authors, so I bring that to the table. The impact on the community is hard to measure, but we are averaging 30-45 attendees at each event, which for a small community is really great. And we’ve heard anecdotally that especially in this down economy people really appreciate that most of our events are free, which is drawing some folks out to events who would otherwise be quite isolated. We’re scheduling events into 2011, so I take that as a measure of success."

The community's influence upon the inside of the store is evident as well. Battenkill Books features a comprehensive local and regional book inventory, prominently displayed up front, and "We’re developing a real niche of books on what I call 'homesteading,' i.e., books on everything from building a root cellar to raising chickens to maple sugaring," said Connie. "We are absolutely passionate about the books we choose for the shop. We are a small indie (one full time, three part-time staff), but I like to tell customers, 'We don’t have less of everything, we have the best of everything.' You can come in to our store, and I think this is increasingly a relief for people, not be overwhelmed by choice. We may have a small crafts section, for example, but it is an outstanding one."

While Connie has already established a strong community base, the learning curve for any new indie bookseller is sharp and unforgiving. "We know we have a tough path ahead of us to make this work," she said.

After last week's column, I was asked what sort of formal--or informal--retail bookstore training Connie and Chris Brooks had before embarking on their venture, and what made them think they could be successful.

It's a great question. I posed it to Connie. Her response was detailed and intriguing. I'll share it with you next week, and perhaps it will open up a general discussion about how booksellers currently entering the business prepare to take that indie leap.--Published in Shelf Awareness, issue #1255

Opening the Door at Battenkill Books: Part 1

2010-08-07T21:13:10Z

For a new bookstore, the word "open" has two connotations. First, you open your business, and then you hope all of your careful preparations will entice readers to open your front door and come inside. The first opening is celebratory; the second will be an ongoing challenge as long as you own the shop.

Yes, I concede there are other crucial openings--customers open books that intrigue them and then, ideally, open their wallets--but we'll stick to the first two examples this week.

Last November, in the small upstate New York town of Cambridge, Connie Brooks and her husband, Chris, opened Battenkill Books. Since then, many locals and tourists have opened the shop's front door and entered, as I did this week, to meet Connie and explore her beautiful bookstore.

The first question any bookseller is likely to have when meeting someone who has chosen to enter the trade is basic: Why?

Connie said the path "that led us to the bookstore is as much about the path that led us to Cambridge." They had attended college in the region--Connie at Skidmore and Chris at RPI. They lived in Japan for a time, "and then London--a bibliophile's dream, of course. I've worked in marketing and fundraising. We moved to Cambridge four years ago--we were very consciously leaving suburban Connecticut behind and embracing a life outside of that rat race. Chris runs his own small engineering firm, and he primarily works with farmers in Vermont on sustainable energy (growing oil seeds to turn into fuel, for example)."

Then "this beautiful but neglected building went up for sale in the center of the village. It had been empty for the better part of the past 30 years. This was the depths of the recession, and we are crazy. So we bought it, and then started dreaming about what the first floor retail space could contain. Battenkill Books, as it was then, was being run by two ladies already in retirement. It was small, cramped, and had limited hours. We felt there was potential to expand the business. We felt in our hearts that the community could sustain a larger store. We started talking to the owners and one thing led to another. For me it is a dream come true. I love books, always have, and I also dearly love the social aspect of the job. And Chris and I are absolutely intrigued by the business side of it all as well--we love the challenge of making this work."

Growing up in the Berkshires, her hometown bookstore was the Bookloft, Great Barrington, Mass., which became part of her inspiration for this new career. "I am also a great lover of libraries--their intimacy and style and grace--and in some small way I want our store to give that feeling to people; there can be such a feeling of comfort in a bookstore, and many of our customers remark on it."

As with any new indie, connecting with the community has been a key factor from the start. Thus far, she said the response has been excellent. "Within a few weeks, Joe Donahue of WAMC had invited me to be on the Roundtable's Book Picks show. A parent approached me about starting a book club for third and fourth graders in the store after school. I have a customer who brings me homemade cake on nights she knows will be slow, to keep my spirits up. I quickly teamed up with two nonprofit organizations and we've been partnering on an event series called the Curiosity Forum, and that has really taken off. In one weekend, I had two events--one at the Bog, a local watering hole, and the other at the Farmer's Market--and sold the same number of books in both locations."

Connie noted that the best aspect of bookselling for her has been "our regular customers. I've gotten to know some really extraordinary people who I consider friends." The worst, naturally, is "the long hours. Small is beautiful, but it also is grueling. I'm often over at the building on Sunday nights putting in a book order for Tuesday morning delivery. I work on the website and e-mail newsletters at night after we've put our son to bed. I'm the bill-payer, the IT department, the HR department, etc. I laugh out loud when someone calls and asks for accounts payable. 'Yup, you've got her!' "

Next week, more on Battenkill Books, including its successful Curiosity Forum program. And yes, for those of you keeping score at home, not only did I open the front door of Battenkill Books, but I opened my wallet and purchased a book while I was there.--Published in Shelf Awareness, issue #1250

On Not Handselling May Sarton's Books

2010-08-01T14:07:17Z

"It came to me one night that it had to be something useful, needed, and close to home, something I could invest in and make grow, something I could control for a change. That night I began to dream of a women's bookstore, a bookstore which would be not only a place for buying books, but a meeting place, a welcoming refuge where people could browse and talk. Maybe there could be a fireplace and a table with comfortable chairs around it. As soon as I began to imagine this I realized it was exactly what I must do and I did not sleep a wink, my head was so absorbed in thinking and planning."--May Sarton, The Education of Harriet Hatfield

In all the years I worked as a frontline bookseller, I never handsold a single book by May Sarton. Not one. Of course, there were hundreds--thousands--of other authors whose work I didn't handsell, but Sarton is a special case. I should have been handselling her books because at one time in my life I had absolutely loved her work.

Then, somehow, I forgot about her.

My negligence--unforgiveable it seems to me now--has come up because I am re-reading Sarton for the first time in three decades, and Harriet Hatfield's bookstore is just one of many things I realize I've been missing.

When I was in my late 20s, I discovered Journal of A Solitude, which set me off on a Sarton reading pilgrimage. Although her journals--The House by the Sea, Recovering, At Seventy--were favorites, I also loved many of her novels--Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, The Small Room, A Reckoning.

I thought less of Sarton's poems then, but probably didn't try hard enough. She called poetry her "most important" work, and given that Virginia Woolf was among her early fans, I think I was just dead wrong about them. Lately I've revisited the poems, with more positive results. Maybe I'm ready now.

There are many people who don't read May Sarton; I hesitate to add "anymore" because her readership was always small, if devoted. She understood what it meant to be an uncategorizable author. She often bristled at labels that might have garnered her more attention--woman writer, lesbian writer. Her readership has been young and old, male and female. In an interview, she once said, "it is a mistake to believe that I'm not read by men. More and more I hear from men.... People think of me as a woman's writer but that is not really true."

She could be mischievous in acknowledging her place in the literary world, as in this passage from The House by the Sea: "It is very hard to see oneself in the hard light of reality through someone else's eyes. Auberon Waugh in the Evening Standard in London opens a long sneer of a review of Crucial Conversations, 'May Sarton is an American lady of 63 who has been writing novels for 36 years without anyone paying very much attention.' That is the truth; yet it made me laugh, it is such a caricature of how I see myself."

I've decided to pay attention to Sarton's work again. During my initial encounters with her books when I was young, I felt she was speaking directly to me. That is a special experience for any reader. Now that I'm nearly the age Sarton was when she wrote The House by the Sea, I've been stunned by how much it still speaks to me, if in a different tone.

Sarton would understand, having said, "people don't read the journals to discover me; they read the journals to discover themselves." What she might have hoped is that the journals and novels would lead me to rediscover her poetry. I'm trying. There is so much to read--an astounding 50 books in her bibliography. And I'm just getting started... again.

If I could handsell her work now, I would. Maybe that's what I'm doing here as I contemplate Harriet Hatfield's bookshop moment: "I had to laugh at myself for thinking I could embark on such a venture with no business experience whatever, but it felt like an instinct as powerful as a cow's instinct to eat grass. That is what made me laugh, the certainty that I was at the same time a little crazy, no doubt, and absolutely right that this was the adventure for me, godsent, in fact. Hatfield House: A Bookstore for Women was the name that came to me after dawn."--Published in Shelf Awareness, issue #1245

Bookseller Forecast: Cloudy, but That Can Be Good

2010-07-25T14:32:58Z

Forecasts for the book trade have always been cloudy, with at least a 50% chance of contradiction. For booksellers, however, weather is more than just a convenient metaphor; it is a tangible factor in their day-to-day business, well, climate.

What is good weather for bookselling? That depends upon what sort of shop you keep. For a New York City street vendor or a bookstore near the beach, sunny days beat the hell out of rainy ones.

Ideal bookselling weather undoubtedly varies from place to place. What, for example, is a prime weather day for a bookstore in Miami? In Austin? In Los Angeles? In Seattle? In Baltimore?

For Vermont, the best bookstore weather is often bad, depending upon the season. You watch forecasts carefully. If your bookstore is located in a tourist area, your calculations as a biblio-meteorologist must take into account a number of variables.

In winter, you hope for early week snowstorms to whet the appetite of out-of-state skiers. Ideally, those storms will abate by Friday, leaving good powder on the mountains and clear highways for easy driving.

During the summer, rainy weekends rule for visitors and locals alike. There are endless reasons to visit a bookstore on a drizzly Saturday, while a perfect summer day will send even the most dedicated readers outdoors.

Autumn is easy because foliage season and colder temperatures attract visitors who move fluidly from outside to inside. And when the leaves fall, you still have wind chill and the approaching holiday season to lure readers into your shop.

As for spring, all bets are off. Mark Twain said it best: "There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration--and regret.... But it gets through more business in spring than in any other season. In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours."

Civilians--aka non-booksellers--may not realize how important the weather is to bookstores. They might assume that since it's an indoor job, what's happening outside--short of a flood or tornado--can't possibly matter that much. It does matter, big time, in subtle ways that affect the bottom line, which doesn't care if the sun was shining last Saturday when sales were down 22% from last year.

Perhaps I should explain that I was inspired to consider this subject by the unusual number of entertaining weather references I noticed in bookstore e-mail newsletters recently. Here's just a sampling:

"It seems like it has been an unusually hot summer already, and at the GCB Blogs, we've been working on ways to stay cool in the rising July temperatures. One of our bloggers explores the merits of the patio bar on a hot summer day--in Austin, Texas--where she beats the heat with an impressive beer selection. If it's too sticky to sit outside (even with a nice cold one), curl up in front of the air conditioner with a good book."--Globe Corner Bookstore, Cambridge, Mass.

"As we approach the dog days of summer, here's something you can get enthused about: another Auntie's to love! You asked for it, and we're about to deliver a smaller version of our marvelous main store at River Park Square."--Auntie's Bookstore, Spokane, Wash.

"Before I begin, a quick update about how my life in receiving has been since you last heard from me. My friends from around the country often ask me how cold it is in Wisconsin. In particular when there is a heat wave wherever they live. It's as if they are trying to cool off vicariously through me. I have to try and patiently explain that Wisconsin does not snow throughout the year, and we are, in fact, rather hot here too. And then we inevitably get into an argument about how our 86 degrees with 70% humidity isn't as bad as their 90 degrees and 0% humidity. Sheesh. Long story short, it's really flipping hot in receiving, and it's only amplified when I have to keep moving boxes of The Passage around."--Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, Wis.

And from the blog at the Galaxy Bookshop, Hardwick, Vt.: "After a couple of long, hot weeks, my brain feels something like butterscotch pudding, so even though I've read a number of wonderful books I'd like to review, I don't see that happening today."

What's the forecast for booksellers? Cloudy, to be sure, but sometimes a little bad weather can be good for business.--Published in Shelf Awareness, issue #1239

Remembrance of Lawn Chair Readings Past

2010-07-19T02:12:18Z

"Beach read" seems to be the operative term for all discussions regarding summer reading lists, but many of us were landlocked during our formative years and associate hot weather reading with the cheap, sun-drenched folding lawn furniture upon which we draped our lazy bodies as we buried sunburned noses in great books.

"Get outdoors!" my mother would yell, and outdoors I went to claim reading space on the weathered, transient furniture of summer.

After writing about my first summer book last week, several readers checked in with their own recollections, including Karen Jaffe, who read Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind when she "was 14 or 15." Melanie Manary, from Petoskey, Mich, called Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety "a terrific summer book. I've reread it every summer for about 15 years."

Linda Malcolm of Indigo Books, Johns Island, S.C., "can remember vividly the first time I read Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel." In 1964, as she was "reclining on a daybed between two corner windows in a wonderful old house in Raleigh, N.C., I was captured by the poetry of that great melancholy novel. I have reread it several times in the succeeding years, using a different color pen each time to underline or highlight a phrase or figure that caught my soul--a rainbow history of an oft-repeated journey."

Richard Brautigan's In Watermelon Sugar was the first summer book for Cindy Pickle of Powell's Books, Portland, Ore.: "I was still a stone's throw behind puberty. I may have read some of Brautigan's poetry first, but I can't be sure. I do know that the words on the cover--'In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar.'--were to me both a poem and a promise. Right away I loved the phrasing and the immediate image of another world.

"Throughout the story the concepts of indoors and outdoors are blurred and the weather becomes another character in the story. There is mystery and an uneasiness that contrasts fantastically with the incredible beauty of a place where the sunshine is a different color every day. The dialogue is sparse, the descriptions of characters based more on how they move about than what they look like. It gives you a view through a uniquely distorted lens, like a strange dream you had on a night that was a little too hot for sleeping. I've read this book probably three or four times but not recently. I may have to read it again this summer."

Exodus by Leon Uris was the first summer book for Patricia Zeider, senior library supervisor at the Brand Library & Art Center, Glendale, Calif.: "I read my parents' Book of the Month Club copy as a teenager around the time it was first published. The story had everything--history, drama, passion, romance." She also recalled an early summer read from her childhood: "Missee Lee, part of the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome. I took the public library's dilapidated old copy out of desperation when I needed books to take on a beach vacation. Kids having an adventure on the ocean with pirates really hooked me."

Children's author Natasha Wing recalled that the "first summer book I remember reading was The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore. I think it was my mom's book as a kid, and because we lived a few blocks from the beach I thought it was cool that characters were also at a beach setting. After reading the story, I wished I was a twin."

Honestly, Katie John by Mary Calhoun is the book Kathy Patrick, owner of Beauty and the Book, Jefferson, Tex., read as a kid "that always reminds me of summer. Also the first book that turned me on to reading by my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Boulden." Patrick shared one of her favorite summer books for 2010 as well--The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin. "Talk about a page-turner and one that is set in temperatures freezing cold."

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White was the magical one for Brenda Logan of Loganberry Books, Shaker Heights, Ohio: "In late summer of 1952 I was finally 10 years old; my baby brother was getting all the family attention; small town South Carolina was miserably hot and boring; I had read all the Bobbsey Twins, the Little Maid series, Nancy Drew and Boxcar Children books in the public library, and I wanted more. I walked by myself to the library, often, and Miss White knew me as a regular. One day she handed me that rarest thing in this small, poor place: a NEW book. I ran right home, curled up under the ceiling fan (no A/C in South Carolina in those days) and read the best book ever written, and written just for me."

On her Facebook page, author and Shelf Awareness contributor Laurie Lico Albanese said she "re-read Huck Finn while pregnant with my daughter 20 years ago. It was a sweltering summer in Chicago." Commenters mentioned Freddy the Pig ("a whole summer (or seemed like it) sick with bronchitis, that pig saved me"), Laura Ingalls Wilder ("the entire series in a summer when I was 10"), the Tintin books and multiple votes for Harriet the Spy.

"Harriet was my role mode, too," Albanese noted. "She taught me young what all honest writers learn; you really can't write about friends and family and then go home again."

So many books... all written just for us. It's summer! Go find a cheap lawn chair and read!--Published in Shelf Awareness, issue #1233.

Spending Your Summer Reading

2010-07-10T19:23:27Z

'Hot!' said the conductor to familiar faces... 'Some weather!... Hot!... Hot!... Hot!... Is it hot enough for you? Is it hot? Is it...?'

When I noticed these lines from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in the New York Times Paper Cuts blog this week, I experienced a flashback that almost matched in intensity the seemingly incessant flashes of heat and lightning that have marked these Dog Days of July, 2010.

Gatsby was my first summer book. I read it in 1968, during the swelter of another July, because it was on a required pre-semester reading list sent by the college I'd be attending in the fall. Thus, Fitzgerald's novel, a summer book in some ways already, has always been one of my primary summer books (J.L. Carr's A Month in the Country is another).

But what if I had first read Gatsby in January? Would it have been my winter novel? Probably not.

Thoughts of books and summer inevitably lead my bookseller's brain to bookstores and summer: indie bookshops with A/C; used bookshops with endless aisles and shelves in cool, damp cellars; beach bookstores with offshore breezes sifting through screen doors.

That's all been on my mind during this tropical week in which I planned each day as a series of caravan journeys from one air-conditioned oasis to another. And it's what inspired me to begin considering a question I eventually decided I wanted to ask everyone in the book world.

That question is...

Ah, but first let me address rumors that this week's heat wave has inspired e-reader R&D teams to experiment with the next generation of devices, which will be equipped with micro-digital air conditioners designed to blow a refreshing breeze over your eyes as you read on blistering summer days (and be the perfect accessory for e-beach reading as well). Unnamed sources have confirmed that this feature will be available in our lifetime, though as yet it is not clear which particular devices will feature the "e-Air" (trademark pending) option.

See what a heat wave can do to your mind? This week put its own spin on the concept of hot summer books for a substantial portion of the U.S., as steamy post-Fourth of July weekend temperatures soared and sent most of us scurrying for shade, A/C and ice cube-filled glasses of... anything.

Was it too hot to read? No. Is it ever too hot to read? I suppose that depends upon where--and what--you’re reading. Another good question, and perhaps a bookish variation on the hot-beverages-make-you-cooler theory: Does reading a book set in a cold climate make you cooler, or is it better to read about even hotter places to gain the advantage of perspective?

All worthy questions, yet still not the ones I want to ask you.

The first is for indie booksellers: What cool--literally and figuratively--events and promotions have you conjured to lure patrons into the cool--also literally and figuratively--book-lined confines of your shops during the next couple of months?

For example:

"It's cool here--so drop in and join us this summer," advised Kerry Slattery, general manager and co-owner of Skylight Books, Los Angeles, Calif., in her shop's e-newsletter. Slattery wrote, "Some of our customers have been requesting a return of last summer's 'Hot Summer Nights,' so we've decided to do it again this summer--reborn as 'Hot Summer Saturdays!'--we'll stay open till midnight for seven Saturdays (July 17 to August 28) and present a little music and other themed evenings. Join us for libations, or just come and browse till midnight."

And at the King's English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, Utah: "We still have a few spots open in our Friday Fun for Kids at the King’s this week--Camp King’s English. Do you like to go camping? Do you like to hear stories, spooky or otherwise? Do you like to eat s’mores? Then we have a spot for you."

Or the simple but effective lure of this Facebook post from Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, Wash.: "We've got great books, an awesome staff, and delicious cakes at the bakery. But most important, we have air conditioning."

My second question is for everyone:

What was your first summer book?

I'd love to hear from you.--Published in Shelf Awareness, issue #1228.

Summertime & the Reading Will Be Easy

2010-07-04T14:13:00Z

July Fourth is the official opening day of Beach Reading Season, and I've been invited to throw out the ceremonial first pitch (um, book) before a major league barbecue at Hampton Beach, N.H., on Sunday.

Well, no, that isn't true. But as we roll into the holiday weekend and all those languorous summer hours to follow, reading--particularly "beach reading," whether or not you're literally at a beach--does matter to more people. The pressure is building among both dedicated and seasonal readers who are searching for the perfect summer books. What should they read? What shouldn't they read? What if they don't have time to read everything they take on vacation? What if they waste time reading the "wrong" books?

To smooth this annual transition to biblio-beach mode, booksellers, publishers, newspaper columnists and bloggers compile lists of summer recommendations. As an industry, our helpful advice to the public is simple: buy lots of great books, read them voraciously, and then buy more.

For those of us in the book trade, however, it gets a little more complicated. We read for a living, so what do we do on our vacations? I'd like to share a little strategy I'm using to enhance my hot weather reading this year. I plan to read well, but slowly--Dog Days of summer slow.

Once upon a time I was a slow reader, in the best sense of the concept. I lingered over pages, paragraphs and sentences. I underlined. I copied sections into commonplace books. I read aloud to any unsuspecting soul who happened to enter the room: "Listen to this."

From Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient: "Read him slowly, dear girl, you must read Kipling slowly. Watch carefully where the commas fall so you can discover the natural pauses. He is a writer who used pen and ink. He looked up from the page a lot, I believe, stared through his window and listened to birds, as most writers who are alone do. Some do not know the names of birds, though he did. Your eye is too quick and North American. Think about the speed of his pen. What an appalling, barnacled old first paragraph it is otherwise."

Before I started as a bookseller in 1992, I was practically monogamous when I read. I could spend a month with a book, six months with an author. Pages were covered with marginalia. I lived in them for long periods, then moved on, as if strolling a narrow garden path rather than weaving through rush hour traffic.

Suddenly, however, I had to change my game and learn how to read faster without sacrificing concentration, comprehension and pleasure. At the bookstore, customers thought I was a reading machine. They would sometimes ask, with unmasked awe, "How many books do you read a week?"

The answer is, as you know, complicated. I cheated. Ours is a world with stacks upon stacks of guilt-inducing ARCs waiting for their turn; of 50-pages-and-out reading. The relevant question from my customers should have been: "How many books do you finish a week?"

I did, however, learn how to be a more promiscuous reader during the 15 years I spent as a frontline bookseller and I haven't shaken that habit. Often I have three, four or five books going at once, and continue to cast my eyes with longing at the endless stream of new, tempting titles that come across my desk.

I don't necessarily like this feeding frenzy mentality, but it's what we work with in our profession. We're expected to know a little something about a lot of books; a little more about several key books; and a lot about a chosen few. We do our best to oblige.

Which brings me back to my reading plans for the summer. Beginning this holiday weekend, I'll experiment by slow-reading some of May Sarton's journals. Slowing down will take some practice after all these years, just to avoid getting the bookish bends. My transitional period currently involves a frontlist fix of Alan Furst's Spies of the Balkans and Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens.

There's another paragraph in The English Patient I like. Hana is reading again, this time to herself: "She entered the story knowing she would emerge from it feeling she had been immersed in the lives of others, in plots that stretched back twenty years, her body full of sentences and moments, as if awaking from sleep with a heaviness caused by unremembered dreams."

Sounds good to me. It's summertime, and the reading will be easy.--Published in Shelf Awareness, issue #1224.

Ask Me Why I'm Writing About the NBA

2010-06-27T20:13:52Z

We don't have a sports section at Shelf Awareness, but I'm creating a temporary one this week to acknowledge a notable moment in the history of books and sport. Last Thursday, the Los Angeles Lakers won the championship of the National Basketball Association.

You may or may not know this already. You may or may not care. And if you're a stickler for details, as we book people tend to be, you might even wonder how a team from the desert landscape of Southern California ended up with a name like the Lakers. Just to clarify that one, the team moved from Minneapolis in 1960.

So why, you ask, am I writing about basketball in a column devoted to the book trade?

Because the Lakers coach, Phil Jackson, has now won 11 NBA championships? No.

Because he has studied Zen Buddhism and Lakota spirituality and incorporates teachings from both in his life and work? No.

Because, as the widely acknowledged Zen master of the NBA, he is capable of statements like this one--"I've made up my mind I'm leaning towards retiring, but I haven't made up my mind."--which he fed this week to a national media speculating breathlessly about his possible retirement? No.

What makes Jackson's latest accomplishment resonate with me is his personal relationship with the world of books. He writes, he reads and, best of all, he recommends books. For example, it has long been a Jacksonian tradition to distribute reading material to each of his players. This season, his choices for a long January road trip were:

Ron Artest: Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson
Shannon Brown: Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
Kobe Bryant: Montana 1948 by Larry Watson
Andrew Bynum: Six Easy Pieces by Walter Mosley
Jordan Farmar: Makes Me Wanna Holler by Nathan McCall
Derek Fisher: Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver
Pau Gasol: 2666 by Roberto Bolano
DJ Mbenga: Monster: The Autobiography of an LA Gang Member by Sanyika Shakur
Adam Morrison: Che: a Graphic Biography by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon
Lamar Odom: The Right Mistake by Walter Mosley
Josh Powell: The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois
Sasha Vujacic: Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie
Luke Walton: The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey

"You know, I handpick the books for the players, so they’re individually selected," Jackson told the Orange County Register earlier this month. "Some players that are new on the team I may give them a book about the offense or a book, something to do with our basketball team. But for players that I know, and I get to know players before I do that, I give them something that’s information for them. Pau Gasol, I gave him a book about Barcelona, adventure story about Barcelona. Kobe Bryant, I gave him a book about my home state, where I grew up in eastern Montana. Derek Fisher, I gave him Soul On Ice. It’s a book that made a big difference to me when I was a young man growing up in the '70s and the late '60s. So a variety of books depending on who people are and what I think they might be interested in reading."

Gasol talked about the 912-page Bolano novel on Jimmie Kimmel Live.

When Shaquille O'Neal was with the Lakers several years ago, Jackson gave him Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf and Siddhartha. In the OC Register, Jackson recalled how O'Neal "used to take the thing as seriously as anybody, writing reports on the books--usually philosophical in nature--that Jackson gave him. Jackson said that when O’Neal got in a fight in Chicago in January 2002 with Brad Miller, O’Neal went to the team bus upon ejection and lost himself in his homework. 'He got thrown out of the game,' Jackson said. 'He went on the bus and finished up his book report after that.' "

In 2007, Bryant, who has not always been on board with the book idea, credited a positive change in his attitude to Jerry Lynch's The Way of the Champion: Lessons from Sun Tzu's The Art of War and other Tao Wisdom for Sports & Life: "I read a book this summer from Mr. Phil Jackson that talked about warriors respecting other warriors. If you have respect for your opponent, the thing that you have to do is play hard every time down. That gave me a new perspective on things." Bryant and Jackson also bonded over Malcolm Gladwell's work.

Did books win the NBA championship this year? No. But if you ask me why I'm writing about Phil Jackson today, I can only reply that in a world where books often seem to matter less, there is this guy coaching in the NBA to whom they matter a great deal. And his team just won another damn title.--Published in Shelf Awareness, issue #1218.