MORE BORDERS OPENINGS
Borders Books, Music and Cafe, which plans to open 45 to 50 superstores in the U.S. and five stores abroad this year, has announced four superstore openings. Each of the four stores will carry about 200,000 book, music, video and periodicals and have between 25,000 and 28,000 square feet of selling space.

Borders will open a store this winter in Erie, Pa., at the intersection of Interstate 79 and Interchange Rd. It will be Borders's first store in that market.

The company is opening a new store in Columbia, Md., in the Columbia Crossing Shopping Center that will replace a Borders store at 9051 Snowden Square.This winter, Borders will open a store at 119th St. and Strang Line Rd. in Olathe, Kans., a suburb south of Kansas City. It will be Borders's fifth store in Kansas. And finally, the company is opening a store at 6594 Douglas Blvd. in Douglasville, Ga., a suburb west of Atlanta. It will be the ninth Borders in the Atlanta market.

LONDON'S MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP CLOSES
The Mysterious Bookshop in London has closed, the Bookseller reports. The store, which is owned by Otto Penzler, who founded the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City and the branch in Los Angeles, suffered from cash-flow problems brought on by publishers who were more strict about payment schedules than U.S. publishers, Penzler told the Bookseller. Otherwise, Penzler said, he liked the location of the store, on Marylebone High Street, and was pleased with the customer base. The store opened just two years ago.

'MIDNIGHT' SELLS 20,000 COPIES AT E. SHAVER
Last week E. Shaver Bookstore in Savannah, Ga. announced that it had sold 20,000 copies of John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Random House) since the book's publication in 1994. (The long-delayed paperback edition will be released by Vintage in July; see Book News, March 22) "John has single-handedly turned tourism around in this city," owner Esther Shaver told PW. "The way the book evokes the beauty of Savannah and the slow Southern charm is what brings people here." Shaver stocks a minimum of 350 copies in the store and places orders for 250 to 1000 copies at a time, depending on when she expects New Yorker Berendt's next visit to Savannah. "Virtually every copy we've sold has been autographed," said Shaver. "And he happily comes in and autographs all our stock with each visit." Shaver's ideal location, in the center of the historic district, has also boosted sales in a town where virtually every gift shop carries the book. "After a while I'd have thought everybody had a copy," said Shaver. "But this is truly amazing."