About Bookstores

After interning at several bookstores, attending BEA, graduating from booksellers school, and fundraising and planning for a few years, Janet Geddis hosted the grand opening of Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia, this past weekend. Community response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Author Ann Patchett and former Random House rep Karen Hayes are planning a grand opening celebration for Nashville’s Parnassus Books for the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Community cookbook store opens in Seattle; East Village community rallies to save St. Mark’s Bookshop; Bank Square receives Independent Spirit Award

Matt Norcross, the co-owner of Petoskey, Michigan’s McLean & Eakin Booksellers, recently talked to Bookselling This Week about his store’s strategies for e-book and online sales promotions — some successful, and others that needed a little tweaking.

After three years of running La Casa Azul as an online-only bookstore, Aurora Anaya-Cerda has launched a campaign to raise funds to open a bricks-and-mortar location in East Harlem.

Giovanni’s Room, the oldest gay and lesbian bookstore in the country, has had its place in history officially recognized by the state of Pennsylvania.

This past spring, Broadway Books issued a “State of the Union” address, which listed 10 ways the bookstore was committed to meeting customer needs and 10 suggestions for customers to help the store thrive. Five months later, Broadway Books co-owner Roberta Dyer said, thanks to customer loyalty and support, the store had experienced its best year yet.

 The 29th annual celebration of Banned Books Week set a record for the number of readings from banned books and brought a successful conclusion to a three-week auction of children’s art by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.

With much hard work and the help of family and community members, Lisa Sullivan hopes to reopen Bartleby’s Books before Thanksgiving. The Wilmington, Vermont, bookstore was almost totally destroyed by flooding from Hurricane Irene.

Holly Weinkauf and Amy Sullivan, the new owners of St. Paul’s Red Balloon Bookshop, are committed to honoring the store’s 27-year legacy, even as they make small changes to bring the business up to date and make it theirs.