Book Sense

Here is the full listing of June Book Sense Picks, with booksellers' comments, as well as a preview of the month's Notables. Independent booksellers in the Book Sense program will be receiving their June Picks fliers in the May Red Box.

The May 2008 Book Sense Notables flier is now available in a downloadable PDF on BookWeb.org. The flier includes jacket images, bibliographic information, and bookseller quotes. In addition, all 20 Notables titles are featured in an electronic file of shelf-talkers for in-store use.

From 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 29, until midnight on Tuesday, May 13, BookSense.com participating stores are offering customers free downloads of Betrayal, Book One of the Del Rey series Star Wars: Legacy of the Force.

"It's an oasis in a rather frenzied beach environment," said Small World Books' Mary Goodfader of her Venice Beach, California, bookstore. In 1976, she and her husband, Bob Goodfader, bought a historic building where they relocated Small World Books and opened a restaurant, The Sidewalk Cafe. "So, we are lucky," she said.

There is only one Picks deadline this month: Friday, May 2, is the deadline for nominations for the July Picks list.

Arches Book Company is part of a Moab, Utah, bookstore triumvirate co-owned by Andy Nettell, a former National Park Service Ranger. The two other bookstores are nearby -- Back of Beyond Books is across the street, and ABC & Beyond Used Books is a couple of blocks south -- creating a mini southwestern Hay-on-Wye in downtown Moab.

Stores with Book Sense will be receiving the Spring - Summer 2008 Book Sense Reading Group Picks list in the May Red Box mailing; however, the full list, with bookseller quotes, can be previewed online now.

Booksellers at stores with Book Sense who would like to attend this year's ABA Author Luncheon at BookExpo America must make reservations via an electronic form on BookWeb.org. The event, on Friday, May 30, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, is free and open exclusively to the owners and staff at stores with Book Sense.

1. LOVING FRANK: A Novel, by Nancy Horan (Ballantine, $14, 9780345495006 / 0345495004) "Loving Frank is a book that will stay with you long after the book group moves on. Though a novel, it is a work of historical significance painting a glimpse of life at the turn of the last century. It tells of the familiar conflict in the duty and honor of being a wife and mother while seeking true fulfillment as a woman apart from those titles.

Based on sales at independent bookstores nationwide for the eight-week period ending April 15, 2008. 1. Women & Money Suze Orman, Spiegel & Grau, $24.95, 9780385519311 2.