Around Indies

Tattered Cover’s Meskis Featured on NPR

Last week, Tattered Cover owner Joyce Meskis was featured on NPR’s Talk of the Nation in a segment titled “How to Make It as an Independent Bookseller.”

“While there are changes in our industry, transition, absolutely, there’s lots of opportunity as well,” Meskis said. Although virtually any book is available online, she stressed that “what the independent provides is personal contact and the community connection, and that is a cultural legacy that is important to maintain and inspire ... our future.”

The segment also featured input from booksellers at several other stores, including Kepler’s Books and Magazines, in Menlo Park, California.

Listen to the story, or read the full transcript here.

Former Diesel Bookseller Celebrates Book Release

This weekend, bookseller-turned-author Charles McLeod will be celebrating the release of his first book, American Weather (Harvill Secker). McLeod began his career at Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland, California, where he’ll return to celebrate the book’s release. He recently spoke to SFGate about how bookselling influenced his writing life.

“It forced me, in a good way, to probably read outside of my comfort level at a relatively early age,” McLeod said. “Being a bookseller, you have to diversify your reading interests in order to be able to really get as broad a spectrum of the best books to as many people as possible.”

Noting the effects of digitization on the book industry, he said,  “Community bookstores are trying to do all they can do to maintain a reason to be there. And I think Diesel does a really good job.”

Brookline Bookseller Publishes Literary Calendar

Daniel Butler, a frontline bookseller at Brookline Booksmith, has founded his own publishing company, Balladier Press. The company’s first release is the literary calendar Storytellers 2012: The Author Interview Calendar, featuring Butler’s interviews with some of his favorite authors, who have an interesting perspective on storytelling.

“I’ve always enjoyed writing,” Butler told Wicked Local. “I’ve been working in bookstores, and I always had it in my mind to start a publishing company or an independent bookstore, or be an author. Definitely something to do with books.”

Copperfield’s to Move

In October, the Montgomery Village Copperfield’s Books is moving to a new location within the village.

Copperfield’s plans to reopen its café; however, with a smaller footprint, the new location will have a more select inventory.

“With the changes in the book business for the last few years, we really felt we didn’t need the space we currently have,” co-owner Paul Jaffe told the Press Democrat. “We still intend to have as many events at Montgomery Village as we’ve ever had, we’ll make sure of that.”