Mary McCarthy has resigned as v-p and COO of the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops. She had been with the company for four years and steered it through the difficult time when former owner A. David Schwartz became sick and died.

Carol Grossmeyer, Schwartz's wife and president of the company, is now heading day-to-day operations at Schwartz, which includes the five stores in and around Milwaukee, Wis., and the business books division, 1-800-CEO-READ.

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Jessica J. Harley has joined Borders Group as v-p, acquisition and retention marketing, and is responsible for all efforts to "acquire new customers and expand business with existing customers," including members of Borders Rewards loyalty program, via e-mail, direct, search engine and affiliate marketing, as well as electronic and broadcast advertising.

She was formerly director of promotions at Barnes & Noble and earlier held a variety of marketing positions, including director of marketing for Bookspan.

"With Jessica's leadership, we intend to maximize the customer data available within the Borders Rewards program through segmented and highly targeted marketing aligned with our customers' interests," chief marketing officer Michael Tam said in a statement. "Ultimately, we will become even more valuable to our customers and be more effective as a retailer."

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Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel and Blankets by Craig Thompson have been returned to the shelves at the Marshall Public Library in Marshall, Mo., the Marshall Democrat-News reported. The books were removed in October after local residents deemed them offensive at a public hearing. The two tomes "need to stay," said one committee member, under the guidelines set forth in a new materials selection policy approved by the library board of trustees this week. When drafting the guidelines, the committee looked at a number of policies from other libraries in Missouri and across the country. 

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An item in its entirety from a Time Out magazine article about good service in New York City:

"A bookstore where you don't mind paying the jacket price

" 'Books are not a commodity,' says Carol Wald, a bookseller for the past decade at Three Lives & Company. 'Everyone who works here is a bookworm. And we really get to know the people who come here to shop--their successes, their tribulations, even their dogs.' Literary giants (Alan Bennett) and avant-garde authors (David Markson) are among the many who revere the cozy yet surprisingly well-stocked West Village institution, where the knowledgeable employees, personalized recommendations and speedy special-order policy more than make up for the lack of an in-store Starbucks. Literary tip: The Three Lives staff currently digs short-story tome Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, which means you'll love it too. 154 W 10th St at Waverly Pl (212-741-2069)."

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Harp Magazine catches up with Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, which opened in December in Seattle. The store, 90% of whose stock is Fantagraphics titles, had a "remarkably successful" first month, according to the store's Larry Reid. The store has also hosted a range of events, including the display of artwork by some of the publisher's artists and a live concert.

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This coming fall Barnes & Noble will open a store in the Shops at Pembroke Pines at Pines Boulevard and I-75 in Pembroke Pines, Fla.

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Bookselling This Week profiles Horton's Books & Gifts, Carrollton, Ga., which is celebrating its 115th birthday and over the years has sold an amazing range of sidelines: "invitations, bibles, men's wear, tables, office supplies, organs, pianos, sewing machines, rugs, coffins."

Dorothy Pittman, a former librarian, is the fifth owner of the store, which has had several locations but is now back in its original spot. Pittman also operates a café and newsstand in the space.

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BTW also highlights the designation of Woodstock, Ill., as one of the Dozen Distinctive Destinations of 2007 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Among the notable features cited were retailers, including Read Between the Lynes, the 20-month-old bookstore owned by Arlene Lynes.

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Following the phenomenal sales of The Secret edited by Rhonda Byrne, which itself was based on the film The Secret, now Esther and Jerry Hicks have come out with a DVD whose subtitle is The Secret Behind The Secret. Called Abraham, the name of the non-physical entity whom Esther channels, the DVD runs for three hours and focuses on the law of attraction, which is the deepest secret of The Secret. The DVD is available from Hay House ($39.95, 9781401919023/1401919022).

The Hickses are also authors of Ask and It Is Given and The Law of Attraction, which together have sold nearly a million copies.

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Since the beginning of the year, the following publishers have made Bookworld Companies their sales and distribution company:

• IJN Publishing
• INTI Publishing
• Spiritual Quest
• Bouncing Ball Books
• Indigo Reef Publishing
• Teora USA
• Eye of Gaza Press
• Books in Motion

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One of the two auxiliary police officers who were killed in Greenwich Village in New York City Wednesday night by a heavily armed gunman was a bookseller at Crawford Doyle Booksellers in New York, where he had worked for five years, today's New York Times reported. Nicholas Pekearo, 28, "was steeped in hard-boiled, noir kinds of things," business manager Ryan Olsen told the paper. "He was our go-to guy for mysteries. He grew up with comics--that was a love of his."

Pekearo was revising a novel that Tor Books editor Eric Raab was interested in. "I see thousands of manuscripts a year," he said. "When I saw his, I thought, man, this guy's got something I've got to nurture."

Pekearo's girlfriend, Christina Honeycutt, whom he met when she joined the staff at Crawford Doyle, said, "He'd gone through the dark years of New York City as a kid, tripping over hypodermic needles in the street, and he'd come into this time of relative ease in the city and he just wanted to give back. He wanted to help anyone, like talking down a guy who wanted to kill himself one night."

Although Pekearo and his partner were auxiliary police (who work unarmed), they will receive full police honors at the their funerals. One friend commented: "He'd definitely get a kick out of [that]."

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Leslie Bennetts' The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much? arrives in stores next month, the initial publication from the new Hyperion Books imprint Voice. It's also the first title to benefit from the expertise of two advisory councils set up for the imprint, one comprised of booksellers and the other made up of women in a variety of professional fields.

When senior v-p and publisher Ellen Archer conceived of the imprint, which publishes fiction and nonfiction aimed at women in their mid-thirties and older, she decided to bring together "a great brain trust of women" who would act as consultants in all stages of the publishing process. "I felt that the way to really make it more dynamic was to create what I consider the equivalent of an old boy's network," said Archer, who heads Voice with v-p and editorial director Pamela Dorman. "Certainly other organizations have advisory councils," she added. "Why not an imprint?"
 
The bookseller advisory council includes members from chains as well as independent stores, among them Sarah Bagby of Watermark Books & Cafe in Wichita, Kan., and Roxanne Coady of R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, Conn. "Book reading and book buying has changes every day," said one member, Cindy Dach, director of marketing and events at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Ariz. "Publishers need extended eyes and ears. With an advisory board of booksellers, Voice can collect information and ideally use it wisely."

For Kathryn Popoff, director of adult trade books at Borders, the appeal of being part of the bookseller advisory council was two-fold. "From a personal and professional standpoint I think what's being done with this imprint is really filling a customer need and will be well received," she said. "It's sophisticated and will hit the target market." Popoff added that booksellers are in a position to share information about "the trends we're seeing in both cover treatment and content."

One member of the professional women's advisory council will be able to draw on her bookselling background: Thelma Kidd, co-founder of Davis-Kidd Booksellers and now a Life Coach who lives in Nashville, Tenn. When Kidd was asked to be part of the advisory council, she said, "I was immediately interested in the focus of Voice" and intrigued by the imprint's mission to produce "books for smart, curious women who are interested in looking closely at their own life."

Along with Kidd, professional advisory council members range from Hyperion author Candace Bushnell and iVillage co-founder Nancy Evans to Merrill Lynch executive Subha Barry and economist Heather Boushey of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The council members' role goes beyond offering advice, Archer noted. They plan to help market Voice titles. For example, Bushnell hosts the weekly show "Sex, Success and Sensibility" on Sirius satellite radio and often conducts author interviews. Barry is organizing an event at Merrill Lynch with The Feminine Mistake author Leslie Bennetts.

Moreover, each professional council member provided a list of 50 influential women in their respective fields. The nearly 1,000 people on the list will receive a copy of every book published by Voice in the first year to "create a ripple effect and get buzz going on these books in exactly the arena that we're hoping to reach," said Archer. "I think women listen to their friends whose opinions they value more than anything when it comes to deciding what they want to read."

A Web site dedicated to the imprint will launch later this month. Archer envisions "a fun, interactive, and provocative" community where women can exchange ideas and find useful information, a site that goes beyond merely promoting books. The Web site, in a sense, will be a consumer version of the advisory councils--a resource for generating discussion about Voice titles and garnering feedback. "I really want to communicate with the readers who come to the site and ask them what's missing," Archer said. "The Internet is such a gift to publishers because we've never been able to afford market research. Now we have it right on our desk tops. We can let our readers participate in the process of determining an imprint's list."

Claire Cook, whose novel Life's a Beach hits stores in June, views the advisory councils as assets in the publishing process. "It's really exciting to have two groups of strong professional women backing the imprint with their contacts and support," she said. "I'm particularly thrilled with the bookseller advisory council, since as an author, I think one of the most important things you can do is connect with the wonderful people who are hand selling your books, and this is one more great way to do it."--Shannon McKenna

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This morning on the Early Show: Brenda Watson, author of The Fiber35 Diet: Nature's Weight Loss Secret (Free Press, $26, 9781416547181/1416547185).

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Today on the Ellen DeGeneres Show: naturalist and TV personality Jack Hanna, whose books include Wild About Babies: What the Animals Teach Us About Parenting (Harvest House, $16.99, 9780736912082/0736912088).

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Today the Oprah Winfrey Show re-airs a segment with financial expert Lynnette Khalfani, author of The Money Coach's Guide to Your First Million (McGraw-Hill, $24.95, 9780071470810/0071470816).

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Today on Rush Limbaugh: former House majority leader Tom DeLay, author of No Retreat, No Surrender: One American's Fight (Sentinel, $25.95, 9781595230348/1595230343). "The Hammer" also appears on Meet the Press on Sunday. Because of the early break in publicity, the publisher has lifted the on-sale date of this book from March 20--retailers may start selling it immediately. 

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Tonight CBS Evening News with Katie Couric consults with Jerome Groopman, M.D., a New Yorker writer and author of How Doctors Think (Houghton Mifflin, $26, 9780618610037/0618610030). He also has an appointment with NPR's Morning Edition.

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Sunday on Weekend Today: Andrew Carroll shares Grace Under Fire: Letters of Faith in Times of War (Doubleday, $16.95, 9780385519748/0385519745).

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Sunday on NPR's Weekend Edition: Laura Lippman, author of What the Dead Know (Morrow, $24.95, 9780061128851/0061128856).

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