Book links round-up: digital imprint to revive old titles, the world’s coolest libraries, and more

• Bloomsbury launches new digital imprint to revive of out-of-print classics
• The Calgary Herald looks at 12 of the world’s coolest libraries to mark Raise-a-Reader Day, an initiative supporting literacy programs in Canada
• Movie rights acquired for forthcoming book about Russell Williams, former Canadian military commander convicted of murder
• DreamWorks to adapt Roald Dahl’s The BFG
• TechCrunch predicts bookstores will disappear by 2018

Goderich bookstores and library pick up pieces in wake of tornado

Photo: Vanessa Brown

Vanessa Brown, reporter for the Huron Expositor, toured the damage caused by Sunday’s tornado in Goderich, Ontario:

Three of four bookstores in Goderich, Ontario, along with the town’s public library, remain cordoned off by police after a tornado ripped through the lakeside community of 8,000 around 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon.

The twister, packing winds up to 300 kilometres an hour, ripped part of the roof off Fincher’s bookstore. The shop remains otherwise intact.

Owner Tom Fincher is mindful of how lucky he is, considering the storm killed one person and injured 37 others.

Read the rest of the story

Ottawa bibliophile helps tourists book their travel

Nigel Beale is an Ottawa resident, broadcaster, and inveterate book lover. He is also the owner and publisher of a new website, Literary Tourist, intended to assist bibliophilic travellers wishing to locate and explore interesting literary sites around the world. Literary Tourist’s searchable database lists used and new bookstores, independent bookstores, as well as literary landmarks, writers’ festivals, and rare libraries.

According to the site, the database “represents one of the world’s most comprehensive continuously updated directories of used bookstores and literary destinations” and “contains valuable, detailed information and reviews designed to help traveling bibliophiles determine how best to spend their time.”

From the Ottawa Citizen:

The idea, says Beale, was to create a travel resource for people who love books.

He says he’s concerned about used bookstores closing down, and hopes that by stimulating tourism, he can keep some stores in business.

Beale started his venture by buying Book Hunter Press, a small publishing firm that put out a guide to used bookstores in North America.

According to the Citizen, the website Biblio.com has signed on as a partner “to help promote independent bookstores.”

Flying Dragon prepares to close, citing rapidly changing industry

Just days after being named specialty bookstore of the year at the Canadian Booksellers Association’s Libris Awards, Toronto’s Flying Dragon Bookshop has announced it is closing after eight years. On its blog, the store cites the growing importance of e-books as a reason for shutting its doors:

We have in recent months explored opportunities to embrace the technological advances that have presented themselves with such rapidity in our industry. But at the end of the day we realized that for us, it was all about the books and the tactile, sensory experience they provide.

Flying Dragon’s last day will be June 30; until then, all stock has been marked down by 20 per cent. The store is the second indie to wind down operations in the past week or so. Vancouver’s Ardea Books & Art closed on Monday.

Book links round-up: Harper Lee’s unauthorized biography, vulgar Dorian Gray, and more

• Harper Lee denies cooperating with writer on upcoming biography
• Uncensored, “vulgar” Dorian Gray text published 120 years later
• Natalie Portman’s doctor dad self-publishes “fertility thriller”
• UNESCO names Buenos Aires 2011 World Book Capital, thanks to its 200 bookstores and 70 libraries
• Would you like a Pepsi with that? N.Y.C. author releases e-book with built-in ads and narrative product placement

Borders on the brink, but Kobo continues to grow

A year ago, in the week following Christmas, Canadian publishers and distributors were greeted with the dismaying news that one of the country’s leading bookstore chains, McNally Robinson Booksellers, was significantly scaling back its operations, closing down locations in Toronto and Saskatoon Winnipeg. This year, a retail shakeup on an even bigger scale is taking place in the U.S., where the future of the bookselling chain Borders, which operates 676 bookstores across the U.S., is in question.

Late last week, the Ann Arbor, Michigan–based chain announced it is delaying payments to some of its vendors in an attempt to restructure its debt. The news set off investor panic, resulting in the company’s share price falling by 22 per cent on Friday.

Now, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that at least one major vendor, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group (which owns the distributor National Book Network) has temporarily suspended shipments to the retail chain. Other publishing companies, including Hachette Book Group and Sourcebooks, are also reported to be considering similar options. From the WSJ:

“When a customer of that size calls you up and says you aren’t getting a check, that’s a piece of information you have to act on,” said Jed Lyons, CEO of Rowman & Littlefield.

Mr. Lyons said he wanted more information from Borders and expected to learn more from the bookseller this week. “Up until now they’d been paying us like clockwork,” he said.

[...]

Mr. Lyons said that about a year ago, National Book Network approached its clients and said that if they wanted their books distributed to Borders, they would have to assume the risk associated with that business. Most clients, he added, responded by saying they wanted to continue shipping to Borders.

Borders is the U.S. retail partner for Kobo, the Indigo-owned e-book company, which nevertheless put a rosy spin on its holiday numbers. In a press release, Kobo reported that it had its best weekend ever on Christmas and Boxing Day, and that the number of registered Kobo users had nearly doubled since mid-November.

“Earlier this month we predicted that Christmas would be a record breaker for Kobo, and we have exceeded our expectations driving several ebook downloads per second since Christmas Eve, or an equivalent number hardcover books stacked as high as 50 Empire State Buildings [sic],”  Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis said in the release. Kobo also noted that it had experienced some of its biggest gains outside North America, in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Singapore.

Daily book biz round-up: Costa Book Award nominees; world’s best bookstores; and more

Today’s book news:

• Costa Book Award nominees announced
• Joyland Books, the e-book only imprint of ECW Press, releases its first Canadian-authored title: Chris Eaton’s Letters to Thomas Pynchon
• Lonely Planet names world’s 10 best bookstores
• Grand Central to publish Dan Rather memoir
• George Murray pesters Margaret Atwood (and demonstrates why interviews require questions)
• NPR on writing in exile

Way to Display! The Hunger Games trilogy at Vancouver Kidsbooks

The upcoming visit from author Suzanne Collins (on Nov. 2) to Vancouver Kidsbooks inspired the store to once again go all-out on its exterior, opting for an eye-catching – yet more than a little menacing – “fear the future” theme very much appropriate to Collins’ mega-selling Hunger Games trilogy. (Photo courtesy of Scholastic Canada)

[Know of a great bookstore display? Made one yourself? Take a photo and drop it in our Flickr pool or send it to nwhitlock at quillandquire.com.]

Way to Display! Up We Grow! at Kidsbooks

It’s the excess exclamation (excessclamation?) point edition of Way to Display! with this dandy garden-themed window for Up We Grow! (Kids Can Press) at Kidsbooks on Broadway in Vancouver! It’s like the book is growing right there in the window! Which is sort of cool since it’s all about growing! So, kudos to everyone at Kidsbooks! Kudos! (Photo courtesy of Kids Can Press)

[As part of Quillblog’s ongoing commitment to filling our site with ephemera, sundries, and both flotsam and jetsam from around the book world, we have instituted a semi-regular feature entitled Way to Display!, in which we feature striking and eye-catching window displays (or, indeed, interior displays) from bookstores across the country. If you have seen a great display (or have just made one yourself), feel free to send it our way. Dropping them in our Flickr pool is one way to get the pictures to us, or you can e-mail them directly to nwhitlock at quillandquire.com.]

Vancouver indie bookshop Sitka Books & Art to open in August

As Q&Q reported in March, Ria Bleumer, the former manager of Vancouver’s Duthie Books, which closed in February after a 53-year run, is opening up a new bookshop. The new store, called Sitka Books & Art, will open just two blocks from Duthies’ old location on West 4th Avenue in Kitsilano this August.

Bleumer decided to open the shop with her business partner Karel Carnohan as soon as she realized Duthies was succumbing to the pressures of high rent. Bleumer told Vancouver’s 24 Hours:

Independent bookstores are representative of culture. If we didn’t have them and only had big box stores that have some books and art, we would water down our culture.

[…]

I have knowledge of our customer base because I worked in [the industry] … for 16 years. Customers will find books they won’t see anywhere else and ones you see everywhere else, but not as many, making us unique.

According to The Georgia Staight, Bleumer said she and Carnohan expect stay in business in a neighbourhood where Duthies could not because they’ve signed a lease that has them paying about $10,000 a  month less in rent.