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Bits-O-News (a mixed bag)
updated 01/01/2010

I am presently putting together our lists of our favorite books of 2009 and will post them very soon.

We will also have more information on where it is that we are working together and managing a new independent bookstore. It's a pretty special bookstore...and nothing like our own stores of the last twenty years.

watcher Please take a look at the Campaign for Reader Privacy, which was launched in 2004 to restore the safeguards for reader privacy that were eliminated by the USA Patriot Act.

The winners and finalists for the 2009 National Book Awards
- winners were announced November 18

Fiction

Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin - winner for 2009
Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage
Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite
Marcel Theroux, Far North

Nonfiction

T.J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt - winner for 2009
David M. Carroll, Following the Water: A Hydromancer's Notebook
Sean B. Carroll, Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species
Greg Grandin, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City
Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy

Poetry

Keith Waldrop, Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy - winner for 2009
Rae Armantrout, Versed
Ann Lauterbach, Or to Begin Again
Carl Phillips, Speak Low
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Open Interval

Big Cuts for Borders and B&N ... let's hope independents spread & grow
Borders Group Inc. announced November 6, 2009 it will close about 200 of its mall-based bookstores in January and cut about 1,500 workers as the struggling chain reduces its footprint. “Through this right-sizing, we will reduce the number of stores with operating losses, reduce our overall rent expense and lease-adjusted leverage and generate cash flow through sales and working capital reductions,” Borders CEO Ron Marshall said in a statement. Borders said it already closed 112 mall-based bookstores this year and shuttered an average of 66 per year from 2001 through 2007. The reduction in size will leave about 130 Waldenbooks and Borders Express stores nationwide, along with 513 of Borders’ flagship superstores. Borders Group has been losing money since 2007. The chain tried to sell itself last year but failed to strike a deal. Borders’ chief competitor, Barnes & Noble Inc., recently announced that it plans to close nearly all of its B. Dalton mall-based stores.

take a look @ John Irving
What can I say, I'm currently reading his latest novel, Last Night on Twisted River, it's goooood.

NEW FEATURE

Book Awards - there are quite a few award listings on ravenstalebooks.com now and more are coming

There an interesting website out there with many book reviews and interviews from some fine authors. It's put together by longtime editor/critic Bethanne Patrick and associated with the Washington D.C. public television station, WETA.

just go to www.theBookStudio.com

A fine man is greatly missed
This isn't news to many, but I must express our extreme sadness at having just learned about the passing of John Oldani in February. John was a fine artist and friend. He always brought a smile to us at the Woodland store, whenever he made it in from Brooks.

We had know John and Claire for some time, when we started talking about our upcoming move to the Main Street location in Woodland. John expressed interest in finding or supplying artwork for the new store. He came through was some great paintings of his own that went perfectly with the colors and the feel of the space. We were able to sell several of them for him over the next few years. John's wonderful art was wide ranging in style and material. His metal garden fish still live strongly in my mind's eye.

I even got him to help me fit a great copper top to our new main sales counter. The unfinished counter was in our backyard on Fourth Street, and John and I spent a fun afternoon banging our heads on the low overhanging branches of a tree there, as we shaped and fit a fine looking piece of metal to it. That copper really made our counter something special, it had a look that just kept getting better and better as it aged.

John was a good teacher and always a pleasure to spend time with. It seemed fitting that we learned of his death while leaning over another counter, one John had made for another bookstore, this one in the East Bay. John lives on in so many ways with all of the people who were lucky enough to meet him.