Around Indies

Vermont Book Shop Receives Business Award

Earlier this week, The Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury, Vermont, was presented with the Addison County Chamber of Commerce’s Business of the Year Award. This award is given annually to an Addison County business that “demonstrates excellent business practices and provides a positive impact on the community,” Vermont Business Magazine reported. The nomination submitted on behalf of the store read: “The Vermont Book Shop has always worked to create a personality, an image of a unique book shop — to stand out from all competition — as well as being a contributing community leader. This is a perfect time for ACCOC and its membership to thank owner Becky Dayton and her staff for their contribution to our countywide community and keeping the store alive, active and vibrant.”

New Bookstore for Magnolia, Arkansas

This past Tuesday, The Full Nelson, an independent bookstore selling used, rare, and scholarly works held its grand opening in Magnolia, Arkansas. The store bought the majority of its stock at auction from author Larry McMurtry’s Texas bookstore.

“Having the opportunity to buy these books and be a part of such a monumental piece of literary history was truly an honor, and we are even happier to offer these fine books for sale here in Magnolia,” store co-owner Caitlin Flaherty Stuart told the Magnolia Reporter. She will operate the store with her husband, Eric Stuart, and her father, Van Flaherty, is a co-owner.

The Full Nelson carries signed, limited, and first edition books, as well as fiction, non-fiction, history, social studies, and art books. The store specializes in graphic design and offers a variety of design services.

Books on Broad Featured

Books on Broad, the one-month-old bookstore in Camden, South Carolina, was recently featured in The State. Bill Funderburk, a retired attorney and current English professor, who has had a lifelong love of literature, opened the store with his wife, Rep. Laurie Slade Funderburk.

Books on Broad is a general independent bookstore, and Funderburk plans to hold many interactive events, as well as sell books through Indiebound.

“It’s an intimate experience, sitting down with a book,” Funderburk told the paper. “Especially for a child, it’s a life-changing experience.”

DIESEL Transforms Into Brokeland

In Oakland, California, a white placard for Brokeland Records completely covers DIESEL, A Bookstore’s neon sign. Other exterior signage is covered too. Starting last Thursday, DIESEL “transformed itself — at least on the outside — into Brokeland Records, the fictional used record store featured in Pulitzer-prize winning Berkeley author Michael Chabon’s new book Telegraph Avenue, set in Oakland near the Berkeley border,” according to Oakland North.

Inside, the bookstore features about 1,000 used records for sale that were provided by the owner of the now-closed Berigan’s Records, the inspiration for Chabon’s fictional store.

DIESEL co-owner John Evans told Oakland North that Chabon regularly frequents the Rockridge bookstore and earlier this spring agreed to do an event coinciding with the book’s release. HarperCollins reps and store staff developed the idea of DIESEL’s transformation, a representation of the Oakland-Berkeley culture Chabon portrays in the book.