Michael Powell and his daughter Emily Photo by Leah Nash for The New York TimesThe plans for a $5 million expansion of Powell's flagship store have been put on hold.Citing the overall current economic downturn and a 5% decline in sales the "project no longer looked prudent" according to owner Michael Powell.How close were they to enlarging their city of books? The plans were already drawn up and the financing was secured. And when do they feel they'll be ready to move forward?“It’s going to take a period of time to recover...Whether it’s 2 years or 10 years I don’t...
Mixing the New with Old : 21 New(er) Books We Like
Display table at Wessel & Lieberman that holds many of the 21 New(er) Books We LikeFor those who follow Book Patrol you've heard this song before. For a bookshop to survive in today's rapidly changing landscape one must take a more integrated, holistic approach to bookselling. The days of being able to survive selling just new books, or to a lesser extent used books, are just about up. The current seismic tremors in the publishing world coupled with the new and emerging modes of content delivery just might be the straw that breaks the traditional bookstore's back.Here in Seattle, in...
Required Viewing
Recently, CBS Sunday Morning gave us 6 minutes of Bibliomania at it's finest with this report from Paris.It begins with a trip to the apartment of a self-professed bibliomaniac. This guy is first ballot.Then we get some time with the dynamic duo of John Baxter and Martin Stone.Baxter gives us a little evolutionary history of one type of collector; the modern firsts collector - how one goes from simply a reader - to hardcover first edition- to a signed copy - to advanced proofs. As Baxter says in his 2003 book chronicling his biblio-escapades, A Pound of Paper: Confessions of...
Booksellers Talking
Are you wondering what's happening on the frontlines and how technology, chains and the slumping economy are taking their toll on the bookselling community?Three podcasts of note hit the airwaves in the last few weeks giving us a inside look on the current state of the trade.Nigel Beale, host of the radio show The Biblio File, recently passed through the Twin Cities and interviewed booksellers Rob Rulon-Miller and Kathy Stransky co-owner of Midway Used and Rare BooksBeale's interviews are worth a listen. At around 20 minutes each they are long enough to give one a real sense of the challenges...
More Lovejoys
A reader of my previous post, Books and Sex, on the intriguing neon sign in the window of Lovejoys alerted me to a review of the book/sex shop that appeared on Spotted by Locals. The review entitled Lovejoys - Don’t let the “adult shop” sign fool you was written Vasco Rodriques.Here's part of his take on the place:If there is a London shop that misses more visitors because of a neon sign, that has to be Lovejoy’s. Whether you like it or not, some people still shy from getting into a shop that advertises Licensed Sex Shop, even though their...