AbeBooks' Reading Copy

A bookseller by the name of Larry McMurtry from Archer City in Texas explains how to run a used bookstore – lots of books and cheap real estate – in Business Week. I’m sure I’ve heard of that guy somewhere else.

The shortlist for the 2011 Man Booker Prize is doing the trick for booksellers with the six books all enjoying a sales boost in the UK, reports the BBC. Snowdrops by AD Miller is leading the pack with Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch in second place.

An author will spend a week sitting in the shop window of a London bookshop while she writes her next novel later this month. Isabel Losada – the author of The Battersea Park Road to Paradise – will write, Tweet, answer questions on Facebook, read and meditate. That woman is bonkers but we love her.

If you ever visit our neck of the woods – Victoria, British Columbia that is – we urge you to visit Russell Books on Fort Street in the heart of downtown Victoria. AbeBooks and Russell Books have a long relationship as they were one of the first four booksellers to sell on AbeBooks back in [...]

One of AbeBooks’ top Italian booksellers, Deastore, is offering free worldwide shipping on thousands of brand new books until October 4. That’s great news for folks around the globe who are looking for books in Italian (although they also have books in English, French, Spanish and German). I know Deastore well because they offer copies [...]

James McAuley from the New Yorker’s super Book Bench blog goes to Archer City and what’s in Archer City, Texas – population 1,850? The answer is Larry McCurtry’s used bookstore – Booked Up. James was treated to a tour of McMurtry’s personal library. Over the years, he’s bought twenty-six bookstores—the stock, not the business—lamenting what [...]

With the effects of Hurricane Irene still being felt, the United States Postal Service has announced delayed mail service in some parts of the following states: • Pennsylvania • New Jersey • North Carolina • Virginia • Maryland • Massachusetts • New York Clearly, there are still many problems with flooding and power outages along [...]

Further to my post yesterday that looters don’t loot bookshops, here is the proof. In Clapham Junction, the only shop left untouched was Waterstone’s, and the looters of Boots had, unaccountably, stolen a load of Imodium.

Over at the excellent Jacket Copy blog, Carolyn Kellogg writes about how London’s bookshops are shutting early because of fears over the rioting. Carolyn – look at the pictures of the people doing the looting and burning. Do they look like the sort of people who would smash the windows of a Waterstone’s and run [...]

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of visiting the Brick Row Book Shop in San Francisco, which is run by John Crichton – one of the most respected names in the North American rare bookselling business. The Brick Row Book Shop is found at 49 Geary Street – a building that also includes two [...]