Edited by author 08-19-2005 09:52 AM
King of Hay making hay

Richard Booth, the eccentric bookseller monarch of Hay-on-Wye, is putting his shop on the real estate market. Books not included.

Mr Booth says he is willing to sell the shop's thousands of books in a mass public sale. He said surplus books would be translated into "Bootho's", a "complimen-tary time-based currency guaranteed to outperform the euro and the dollar"

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Browsing for yoga mats
An elegy for the bookstore.

The new-style ''mega'' complexes in which the shopping mall meets the community arts center have bred a new bookstore culture where it's virtually impossible to do the thing that used to lure most of us to bookstores: browse.
It's not just books on sale anymore -- it's CD's, DVD's, greeting cards, stationery, sundry gifts, coffee and baked goods, and very likely health and beauty aids or tires in the not-too-distant future. More products means more to advertise.

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The essential Sartrean lesson that modern bookstore shopping teaches us is this: Hell is other people.

Shopping in just about any kind of store will teach you that. At least the shoppers in a book store are smart enough to read.

"There's a lot of opportunity in hospitals."
Indigo's new market.

the company is now in talks to boost its presence inside hospitals, Ms. Reisman said.
Indigo began experimenting with the concept in June with the opening of an Indigospirit store in Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital. Two months into the trial, the company is now seeking additional sites.

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If you like these books...
The politics of racial profiling in bookstores.

The dismantling of the Colored Section may help a writer like me. Front and center at Borders, The Untelling could catch the eye of "mainstream" readers who have heard my name before or seen the book reviewed in the major dailies. But where would this leave the other authors who rely so heavily on the browsers of The Colored Section?

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Now that's a community that loves its bookstore

$500G raised to keep store open. I feel warm fuzzy inside. But I think that's mostly the day-old roti I just ate.


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Boycott the big stores

Alan Bennett lost his local bookstore to bix bog competition and now he's urging those who can afford to buy books at the regular price to do it at independent retailers instead of Waterstone's and Amazon. I second the motion.


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Edited by author 10-28-2005 11:18 AM
Indigo and its band of merry elves

Possibly, I'm in a bad mood; well, probably I am but this annoyed me. Heather Reisman has a board of youth directors. The part about empowering children is cool, I guess, but the part about them being a board upset something in me. Isn't this sort of like slave labour? No, no. They each get a thousand whole dollars to spend -- guess where?

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She's also got volunteers - volunteers - staffing the Indigo gift shops now opening in hospitals.

volunteers.

House of books

Forget shelving those books too carefully. They could all be sold by tomorrow.


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Speaking of the big box

The Waterstone's amoeba is growing. Soon it will touch pseudopods with the Indigo and the world will develop a massive case of dysentery.


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Top 10 bookshops

Hey! Toronto's This Ain't the Rosedale Library makes the list. Suh-weet! Great bookstore staffed by great people. One of the best, for sure. I've only been to three of these stores. But I would have been to four if New York's Three Lives had made the list, as it could have on any other day.


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Authors have power
Well, maybe British ones.

Some of Britain's best-known authors are celebrating a partial victory after the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) refused to wave through Waterstone's attempt to acquire its independent rival Ottakar's.
A deluge of complaints from readers, authors and publishers prompted the competition watchdog to order an in-depth inquiry into the £96.4m bid yesterday, on the ground that it threatened a thriving book market. The Competition Commission will have until next May to decide whether to allow the creation of a bookselling powerhouse.

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Discounting Christmas sales

British chain Ottakar's admits it can't compete with the deep discounting of supermarkets and other rivals. It's strategy? Don't engage them in the price war. Here that sound? It's the Ottakar's stock price taking a dive. Ouch.


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