Bookstore

Anne Dorsey began to think seriously about opening a bookstore after her daughters received the book "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" as a gift."It was the beauty of the illustrations," Mrs. Dorsey said. "I just really started getting interested in children's books, and the idea just evolved from there."Now Mrs. Dorsey is selling "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" in her general bookstore, "Whistlestop Books," which opens today on Mount Airy's Main Street.Mrs. Dorsey and her husband, Steve, bought the old Frederick Underwriters insurance building in September.

When Christa Daring was a student, she rode a bus from her Waverly home and crossed North Avenue on her way to classes at the Baltimore School for the Arts. "This was always oh-so no-man's land," she said of the commercial crosstown street that is taking some convincing steps this spring as an arts district. She stood in the old North Avenue Market building, where she and fellow members of the Red Emma's Bookstore and Coffeehouse collective will be moving from Mount Vernon to a much enlarged space.

The Johns Hopkins University is moving forward with a new bookstore and commercial project across from its Homewood campus that will reshape the streetscape of Charles Village and, officials hope, foster a "college-town atmosphere" in the North Baltimore neighborhood. The mixed-use project along 33rd Street between North Charles and St. Paul, to be completed by July 2005, will include student housing, parking, retail, office and restaurant space near the bookstore, taking up much of the block.

The bride looked radiant in her pink and white dress. The groom was dapper in his business suit. The ceremony backdrop consisted of books on shelves, books on tables and a backroom cafe with patrons who seemed oblivious to the whole thing. Welcome to the Annapolis Bookstore wedding of Mark Hutson and Melanie Frances, a couple who on Wednesday proved neither rain, snow nor a government shutdown could prevent them from uniting in holy matrimony. While Wednesday's winter storm proved to be a nuisance for many, it provided a matrimonial wrinkle for Hutson, from Severna Park and Frances, from Montreal.

SOWETO, South Africa -- Though until the last few years commercial activity was discouraged in this, the largest of South Africa's black townships, you can find nearly everything for sale.A transient welder on the streets will put a muffler on your car while you wait; a barber with a portable generator powering the ** clippers will provide a haircut; there are clothes and complete meals, from sweet potatoes to live chickens. You could buy almost anything in Soweto -- except books.Now, this township of 3 million people has its first bookstore.

EACH MONTH, students at Mount Airy Elementary go shopping for books at a unique bookstore in the school.What makes the store so unusual is that the students don't have to pay for their books -- all they have to do to "purchase" their books is to read.In return for doing extra reading at home, the children earn points, which they can use to buy books and magazines from the PTA-sponsored bookstore.Part of the school's yearly reading incentive program, the bookstore rewards the children for reading outside school.

Marsha Berman, founder and owner of the Cover-to-Cover bookstore-cafe in Columbia, learned the hard way what happens when a manager fails to delegate.After sales climbed and she added a restaurant to the bookstore three years ago, she was swamped with work. Her health suffered and her social life took a nose dive.Learning to delegate brought personal liberation to Ms. Berman.She knew she'd mastered the art last month, when she took her first real vacation in eight years."I was nervous about leaving the store, but my assistant manager, Susan Lane, handled it beautifully.

His Way Christian Book Store in Ellicott City operates in honor of "Him," owners Patricia and Richard Kohr say. And they say the blessings from being God-abiding have been many.Having gained local attention for its huge assortment of Christian merchandise, the 18-year-old bookstore was named in July as the top Christian bookstore in the mid-Atlantic region by the Colorado-based Christian Booksellers Association (CBA).His Way -- the county's largest independent Christian bookstore -- is the first Howard County Christian bookstore to receive the award.

Walk into The Turning Wheel bookstore in Pasadena, and you may enter other realities.A jewel box with a pentagram on top? Sexual energy oil to attract lovers? A how-to booklet on starting a witch's coven?It's all here, along with walls of books on topics ranging from women's issues to ecology to Eastern philosophy.The store crystalizes owner Peggy Booraem's vision of reality."I think it all boilsdown to one truth. It's all a question of how you get there," says Booraem, 39. "I try to keep a variety of books so people who are on a spiritual search can find what they're looking for."

The early rioting reports were encouraging. Maybe even a cause for civic pride. Yes, the barbarians were at it again, smashing, looting, burning. But it appeared that Chicago had a higher class of barbarian than other cities.They had hit a bookstore. And not just any bookstore. Not some mass purveyor of lurid best sellers or self-help glop.No, it was the venerable Stuart Brent Books, on glittering Michigan Avenue, where for years true book-lovers have sought the thoughtful, the rare, the profound.

It was while she was serving dinner to her kids in 2008 and their dad was out campaigning for president, that Michelle Obama hatched a modest daydream: a vegetable garden on the White House grounds. She'd recently had a conversation with her children's pediatrician about their eating habits, and the poor health of children he was seeing in his practice. It shook her up — he was treating obesity and diabetes in kids — and she resolved to make better food choices for her family. She never said anything to Barack Obama about a vegetable garden (she told interviewers this week that she didn't want to jinx things with a "what if" question)

It's become something of a euphemism in American English that the words "adult books" mean something other than what they mean. Even now, most public libraries have a children's book section and an adult book section, yet the notion that adult books refer to a particularly tawdry genre of publications can give the library a section that will cause middle school boys to laugh among themselves. The so-called adult bookstores in Harford County are once again in the spotlight, this time because police spot checks turned up some lewd behavior and a Catholic priest from Towson was among those charged in the incident.

A Towson priest has been removed from duty at the Church of the Immaculate Conception after being arrested last week on indecent exposure charges. According to a police report of the incident, Mark Stewart Bullock, 47, was at Bush River Books & Movies, an Abingdon adult store on the 3900 block of Pulaski Highway, the night of Jan. 16, when two deputies, investigating complaints of indecent exposure, discovered him nude from the waist down in...

The feeling has become familiar, walking down aisles marked with signs: "Up to 40 percent off. " "Store Closing. Everything Must Go. " Consider some of the recent closures in the Baltimore area: Circuit City. CompUSA. Linens 'n Things. A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts. Filene's Basement. Super Fresh. Daedalus Books & Music inBelvedere Square. And now, one of my favorite hangouts: Borders. The Lutherville store, which a few years ago replaced a wondrous, sprawling downtown Towson Borders Books & Music, is the latest victim of the imperfect storm that has slammed the high-pressure system of the Great Recession into the cold front of the cybereconomy.

Is the death of Borders a bell that tolls for the book trade? Or a business opportunity? "In the long run, it's good for us," says Steve Spund, co-owner of Greetings & Readings, an independent bookseller in Hunt Valley. "It's always sad to see a store close. The book industry is certainly changing with the evolution of the e-book. But there is still a large number of people out there that like to hold a book in their hand. So I think the independents that are still around — it'll help them.

Thirteen-year-old Alexander Williams was always so reluctant to read that his school arranged to get him special help. But he felt differently about the stories when they were told on a big screen. Most people who love the films begin with the books. But for Alex, the process worked the other way around. When he was finally forced to page through J.K. Rowling's novels to fulfill a class assignment, the characters in the novels took on added life in his imagination. "Alex was completely enthralled, to where he would not put the book down," said his mother, Erin Riley of Belcamp.

Imagine finishing "War and Peace" in a couple of hours. Or squeezing in "The Grapes of Wrath" during your commute to work.Better yet, try to picture washing and waxing your car or taking a 10-mile jog while becoming well-versed in "Great Black Speeches from 1833-1893" at the same time.Can't be done, you say?Think again, because the Cover To Cover Bookstore/Cafe in the Owen Brown Village Center has made it possible by starting a program this month to rent audio recordings of a variety of books.

When the market speaks, Chris Myers listens. And most recently, the unidentifiable entity has told the president of Traders' Library: "If you build it, they will come." The first bookstore run by the financial book distribution company isn't open, but already it seems Myers may have struck a chord with local customers. About 30 have shown up at the store on Red Branch Road after getting a flier in the mail two weeks ago announcing its opening at the end of the month. Five have scheduled use of the store's conference room - part of the renovation that created the bookstore - to hold meetings for their trading groups.

There's much more than just Bibles at the Cokesbury Christian Bookstore in Maple Lawn. While customers can certainly pick up Christian study aids, cards, jewelry with inspirational sayings and plenty of commentaries and devotionals, the bookstore also carries an eclectic assortment of volumes on global and social issues. On its shelves one can find a copy of “The Indispensable Guide to End-of-Life Care” by Sharyl Peterson, get some help from “Revolutionary Parenting” by George Barna or energize playtime with “101 Great Games for Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers” by Jolene L. Roehlkepartain.

Betsy F. Gorman, who had worked at Kennedy Krieger Institute and later owned a bookstore and was an auctioneer's sales representative, died Feb. 2 of ovarian cancer at her Lutherville home. She was 75. Betsy Fisher, who was a direct descendent of Alexander Brown, founder of Alex. Brown & Sons, and Louis McLane, who was secretary of state and secretary of the treasury during the administration of President Andrew Jackson, was born in Baltimore and raised in Ruxton and Butler. She was a 1953 graduate of Garrison Forest School and attended what is now Stevenson University.