About Bookstores

His Honor, mayor of Three Rivers, Michigan (population 7,500), and owner of the town's eponymous Lowry's Books and More, is also the new owner of a bookstore in Sturges, Michigan, 22 miles away. The new Lowry's, formerly a 40-year-old Read-Mor store, is half as big as the 4,000-square-foot Three Rivers store in the larger, more affluent town.

By Bob Sommer "The Book Sense Gift Certificate potential is still woefully untapped, and ... we are still sending $$$$$$$ to the chains ... every day." -- Carl Lennertz, ABA

The December 9 issue of The New Yorker, which goes on sale December 2, will include the latest Book Sense insert, "Booked for the Holidays." The special feature presents the holiday picks of 13 independent booksellers, and the titles are drawn from the November/December Book Sense 76 list. (The full 76 can be reviewed here.)

Would it be suspect if Lawrence, Kansas -- the hometown of legendary crime writer Sara Paretsky -- did not have a bookstore specializing in mysteries? Fortunately, for the past 15 years, it has.

Spurred by reports from regional trade shows regarding an increase in new independent bookstore openings, Bookselling This Week decided to survey each regional booksellers association to see if it was true. Was there an increase in newly opened bookstores joining regional associations in 2002?

By Joann Jacobsen-Wells As a boy, Tony Weller assumed the staff of his father's downtown Salt Lake City bookstore -- an eclectic bunch of bibliophiles who were the denizens of the book-shelved forests he explored -- were just normal folk. You know -- well read. Articulate. Each an expert in some literary endeavor, each an evangelist for the glory of the written word. "It was not until I was in college that I recognized what a peculiar bunch of lovable weirdos and oddballs had been around me my entire life," Weller said.

The spirit of Dayton, Ohio's illustrious past is being channeled into the state's oldest bookstore, Wilkie News. This latest foray into history is yet another passion of Wilkie's owners, Jim and Pat Latham. Thanks to them, the 3,000-square-foot bookstore now offers a new café, a tribute in its décor and menu to the late, legendary neighboring Rike-Kumler Department Store.

High school students in Vermont and Wisconsin are taking the idea of working after school in the local bookstore to a new level. These students are doing more than just stocking bookshelves part-time -- they are helping to open and to manage new bookstores. It's all a part of two separate high school initiatives to teach literacy-loving students the ins and outs of small business administration and the rewards of bookselling.

Willard Williams When 19-year-old Willard Williams opened the Toadstool Bookshop in 1972 in his hometown, Peterborough, New Hampshire (population 5,000), he knew "absolutely nothing" about bookselling…. He does now.