Books Inc., the independent bookstore chain with 10 California stores, will open its 11th store in the space being vacated by A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books in San Francisco's Opera Plaza. The new Books Inc. will be ready by mid-September.

After CWLP failed to find a buyer and the owners announced it would close the store (PW Daily, June 19), the building's landlord approached Michael and Margie Tucker, the owners of Books Inc., about opening there. "They really wanted a bookstore," Michael Tucker said. "We weren't planning on doing this, but then[the opportunity] showed up."

Books Inc. has been in expansion mode in recent years, opening in Alameda and renovating its existing locations. The indie chain runs three small neighborhood stores in San Francisco and two Compass Books stores in the airport. The move into Opera Plaza will give the retailer its first downtown presence in the city, and the 5,500-sq.-ft. store will be Books Inc.'s largest. "We're all jazzed about this," said Tucker. Veteran bookseller Calvin Crosby will be the manger of Books Inc. in Opera Plaza.

How does Books Inc intend to make it where CWLP decided it could not? Tucker said an indie with 11 stores has a different business model and can benefit more from economies of scale than a company with just one location. However, he was sympathetic to CWLP's plight. "Ten years ago I found myself facing the exact same dilemma and we had to close ten of 12 stores," Tucker explained. "Now we're back up to 11." Books Inc.'s history dates back to the Gold Rush (although under different owners); it has survived fire and death and emerged from Chapter 11 in 1997.

"Life's about change--no one knows that better than booksellers," said Ruth Liebmann, director of retail field sales marketing at Random House. "I can't wait to hear Michael and Margie's plans."

After seven years, Vibe, the urban music and culture magazine, has ended its publishing relationship with Random House and has entered into a joint partnership with Kensington Publishing to co-publish a line of books called Vibe Street Lit under the Vibe Books imprint.

Beginning In January 2007, Vibe Street Lit will publish four trade paperback originals with a focus on fiction and will target the audience for Vibe and Vibe Vixen (its female counterpart). Rob Kenner, editorial director of Vibe Books, will acquire and edit for the imprint, working closely with Karen Thomas, Kensington editorial director. Kenner said initial titles will be announced soon.

"They know this marketplace and they hustle as hard as we do," Kenner said about the switch from Random House to Kensington, which has been increasingly focusing on the African American market. Although Kenner said he expects Vibe Street Lit to take the popular urban fiction genre to "another level," he emphasized that Vibe Books will publish other categories beyond "street-based" fiction and nonfiction.

The companies will work together, mutually agreeing on all aspects of the publishing program and hope to capitalize on marketing opportunities available through Vibe Venture, the magazine's parent company, through print advertising, contests, publicity, street marketing, events and internet marketing. Production, distribution, and subsidiary rights will be handled by Kensington. Manie Barron of the Menza-Barron Agency brokered the agreement.

Joining the prestigious line-up that includes the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, the American Library Association has created a new award. The Odyssey Award will be given to an outstanding audiobook produced for children up to 18 years old, beginning in 2008. The announcement of the new award was made during the ALA's annual meeting in New Orleans.

The Odyssey, so named for the storytelling aspect of audio, is a joint award sponsored by ALA's publication Booklist and selected by two divisions of ALA: Association for Library Service to Children (which bestows the Newbery and Caldecott, among others) and the Young Adult Library Services Association (which gives the Printz Award and others to YA books).

The Odyssey will be given annually, with one winner selected and the possibility of honor titles being chosen as well. The first Odyssey will be decided next year, for 2007 titles, and will be presented at the 2008 ALA Midwinter Conference in Philadelphia.

Reclusive octogenarian Harper Lee, author of the 1961 Pulitzer Prize-wining novel To Kill a Mockingbird, has re-appeared in print for the first time after a long hiatus, writing a letter in the July issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.

In the letter which begins, "Dear Oprah," Lee describes a hardscrabble Alabama childhood where youngsters had little to do but read, this despite the fact that books were scarce and there was no local public library to attend. Nonetheless she goes on to describe what an important role books played in her upbringing. "My mother read me a story every day," she wrote. "Usually a children's classic, and my father read from the four newspapers he got through every evening."

Lee reveals that she's no fan of modern technology, or e-books for that matter, writing: "Now, 75 years later, in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books." She asks: "Oprah, can you imagine curling up in bed to read a computer? Weeping for Anna Karenina and being terrified by Hannibal Lecter, entering the heart of darkness with Mistah Kurtz, having Holden Caulfield ring you up--some things should happen on soft pages, not cold metal."

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