Wallace Kuralt, owner of the defunct Intimate Bookshop chain, died December 13 of skin cancer. He was 64 years old. Kuralt, who was the brother of the late CBS newsman Charles Kuralt, bought the original Intimate Bookshop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, N.C., in 1964. At its pinnacle, the Intimate chain encompassed nine stores throughout North Carolina and one in Atlanta. But faced with competition from the bigger chains and a run of legal and financial troubles, as well as a fire at his flagship store, Kuralt was forced to close many of the locations. The last Intimate store went out of business in March 1999. In 1998, in a move that mirrored the ABA's lawsuit, Kuralt filed a price discrimination action against Barnes & Noble and Borders in which he accused the chains of persuading publishers to grant discounts that were unavailable to Intimate or other small stores. Though a judge in New York ruled in favor of the chains this past September, Kuralt had filed an appeal.