Seventy-Three-Year-Old Goes for Gold in Salt Lake

Sam Weller's Books, a downtown Salt Lake City landmark since 1929, is introducing the world to some of the best of Utah's writers while the Olympic Games are played down the street. The store is offering a packed schedule of appearances by about 30 local writers, musicians, and visual artists (many from the area) during the two-week period between February 8 and February 23, Roxann Campbell, Weller's events coordinator, told BTW.

Leading off the series was Utah author, professor, and casino-industry consultant David Kranes, whose new novel The National Tree (Huntington Press) is a store favorite. On February 9, humorists Pat Bagley and Robert Kirby entertained a crowd of people eager to hear the men's irreverent take on their own church, the Latter Day Saints, and on life in Utah. Another popular author, Scott Carrier, a Utah-based producer for National Public Radio, spoke about his acclaimed book of essays, Running After Antelope (Counterpoint), which was a Book Sense 76 Pick in May/June 2001.

Thursday's scheduled featured guest, Picabo Street, should create a major stir in the store when she appears in the afternoon to sign her book, Nothing to Hide (McGraw-Hill). The champion skier, who finished a disappointing 16th place in Tuesday's downhill race -- and who inspired the headline in the Salt Lake Tribune, "Hill, Street, Blues" -- draws an enthusiastic crowd wherever she goes, on or off skis. Another highly anticipated appearance will be by Richard N. Ostling, co-author of the authoritative Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (HarperSanFrancisco).

Crowds are what Tony and Catherine Weller are hoping to see during the remainder of the Olympic games. "It seems that the city overestimated the impact of the Olympics on the downtown businesses. All the retailers and restaurants have had fewer people than expected," Catherine Weller told BTW. "Public transportation has been very good, going to and from the site. We think people may have been scared off by all the advanced publicity about how bad traffic and security would be."

Weller's has experimented with extended hours. They found that lengthening weekday hours until 11:00 p.m. was not cost effective, but opening Sundays, for the first time ever, has been attracting many new customers. "We're only four days into the games now," Weller noted, "everything could change." [For more on Sam Weller's Books, click here.]

-- Nomi Schwartz