'Tis the Season to Shop at Independent Bookstores

The holiday shopping season is well underway. Independent bookstores hope that consumers will skip the chains and spend money at their establishments instead.

Greenlight and other indie bookstores hope to see a boom in business this holiday season. Photo via http://ny.racked.com

Fortunately, that's already happening at BookPeople in Austin, Texas. Steve Bercu, owner of BookPeople, told NPR, "People choose to come to this store to do their Christmas shopping. It doesn't have the overwhelming intensity of a shopping mall. It's a single store." And what do people tend to buy at independent bookstores this time of year? Hardcovers.

"The holidays, Bercu adds, are definitely the season for hardcovers," reported NPR. "Any other time of year, you might settle for a paperback or prefer the convenience of an e-book. But at this time of year, customers are looking for something special for someone special."

That "something special" tends to be elegant coffee-table books filled with photographs or artwork. Or they're cookbooks, according to Daniel Goldin of Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "And I don't mean cheap cookbooks," he told NPR. "A $60 cookbook will fly off the shelves." But he's doubtful people actually use these cookbooks. "People buy the book to have the book, to show off the book, to enjoy the book," he said.

Enjoyment of an exquisite hardcover book is what Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, a founder of Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, New York, hopes to foster with the First Editions Club. "It works a little like a wine of the month club," she explained to NPR. "You sign up for a six-month or twelve-month subscription, and then the booksellers at Greenlight will select new titles - fiction or nonfiction - that they think are great and might be valuable in the long term. And subscribers get a first edition of that book signed by the author."

Whatever will draw more shoppers to small bookstores, I'm all for it. This holiday season, support independents like BookPeople, Boswell, and Greenlight!

To read the full NPR article "Independent Bookstores Find Their Footing," go HERE.

The One Book That Hit You Hard in High School

Tuesday afternoon, I turned on the radio and tuned in to NPR. I happened to catch the final minutes of the show "The Takeaway," and listeners were calling in to tell the host, John Hockenberry, the books that had the most impact on them in high school. Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, Catcher in the Rye, and The Sun Also Rises were among the titles that were enthusiastically rattled off by callers who sounded more than a little nostalgic recalling the pivotal books of their youth. I had stopped what I was doing to listen, and I began to really wish that I had caught the broadcast from the beginning.

Tonight, I had a chance to listen to this edition of "The Takeaway," the podcast of which had been posted online. This edition of the show is titled "Is Literature Necessary?," and Hockenberry started things off with:

"At a certain point in school, if you got serious about reading and books, you took the leap. You went from picture-dominated kid books to real titles. The real books kids read in school are an important door to intellectual independence. The mind-meets-book relationship can be one of the first times a kid really explores his or her identity. So the world opened up when you read what?"

Immediately, listeners started calling in to reveal their favorite school reads, or they began posting them on the show's website, TheTakeaway.org. Hearing their selections, I wondered what book had a major effect on me when I was in high school. And I couldn't come up with an answer - at least not right away. Being in AP English, my classmates and I were assigned an incredible amount of reading. Much of it left me feeling lukewarm (or stirred a strong dislike for particular authors). Oftentimes, the books were something to slog through just to complete the assignment. I can't remember the books I chose to read; it seems whatever I was reading at that time in my life was something that needed to be read for class. Animal Farm and Catcher in the Rye were books that I picked up long after my high school years. (I still wonder if the faculty considered these books too rudimentary or too rough, respectively, for their AP English students. I enjoyed both tremendously while devouring them in early adulthood.) I guess if one book stood out for me at that time, it would be Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave: Written by Himself.

Image via http://www.betterworldbooks.com

From the very beginning, the book grabbed me. I was impressed with the title - by its length and by the fact that, in it, Douglass asserted that he was the one who wrote this story about himself. To me, that said so much, especially when I thought about who the author was and when the book was published - in the pre-Civil War United States. It was such a strong testament. Then as I got into Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, I was amazed at what he went through to arrive at the incredible person he became. I was especially moved by his determination to learn how to read; his unabashed love for the written word was in sharp contrast to the deep derision that many in my age group directed toward those who were into books or were serious about doing well in school. So I was enlightened - and bolstered - by the example that Frederick Douglass set. So, to answer John Hockenberry's question, the world opened up when I read Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in high school.

To listen to Tuesday's broadcast of "The Takeaway," go to THIS LINK.

NPR Librarian Talks Radio, New Book

I think working as a librarian at a radio station is one of the coolest jobs a person could have. Kee Malesky has that job. For more than 20 years, she's worked as a librarian at National Public Radio (NPR), headquartered in Washington, DC. 

Research librarian Kee Malesky finds the answers for NPR hosts, editors, and reporters.
Image via http://www.npr.org

Malesky recently came to New York to promote her new book at an event hosted by METRO, a nonprofit organization that works to develop and maintain essential library services in New York City and Westchester County, New York. When not discussing Learn Something New Every Day: 365 Facts to Fulfill Your Life, which hit bookstores earlier this month, Malesky delivered tidbits about being a research librarian at NPR to an eager and inquisitive audience.

Image via https://twitter.com/nprlibrary

Since 1984, Malesky has been on staff at NPR, which actually doesn't have a centralized library. She and her colleagues - 14 full-time librarians in all - are embedded in various bureaus throughout the media organization, such as the News and Science desks. There, they field questions from NPR hosts, editors, and reporters. Some of the questions that she and the other librarians are asked have to do with proper pronunciation, while others concern statistics and research. Together, they answer more than 11,000 reference questions a year. Although NPR staffers can be demanding, Malesky said that "for the most part, they're very appreciative of our efforts."

On being a librarian, Malesky said, "We read all the time. We're constantly looking at new sources, at websites, at all kinds of things that are happening in the world. We're all very proactive. It's really a part of the proper job of a librarian."

In July, Kee Malesky was named the 2012 recipient of the Dow Jones Leadership Award, which "recognizes exemplary leadership as an information professional through personal and professional achievements," according the SLA Blog. Congratulations, Kee!