i couldn't agree more and as a bookseller and struck by how easy it would be for james patterson to sit back and rest on his laurels. instead he garners the gratitude and respect from all of us who love the literary life and care deeply about how we can develop the next generation of readers with his prodigious work over the past decade in championing books and reading. from the james patterson paige turner ward to his website read kiddo read.com to his scholarships and regular donations of hundreds of thousands of books to troops overseas has passed on his passion for books and reading that supports those who do the same. and away the hilt essay for cnn.com he presented a call to action imploring parents to become active participants in changing the reading habits of their two. and on a personal note, when we received the news that james utterson will be with us at the miami book fair this year, i was more than thrilled when i was also not surprised that his primary reason for coming was not to close books, but instead wanted to make celebrating the notion of family reading and that's

now because with the merger of random house and penguin, that is a concern to many of us for as booksellers. that is like a marriage between snow white and satan. penguin publicly stated philosophy is, if these people fail, we will fail, because real books are here to stay. random house is a lot more draconian in their policies. penguin is very liberal in their policies. random house is a majority shareholder in this merger and has not been so kind to us. so, we worry that snow white and satan might not be such a good marriage for us. we don't know which one is going to win out. do they want to just take our business away from us, and abandon us, or do they realize that they will fail if we fail? and so, the publishing industry does have a big question to answer as they go through this merger process. do you want your independent booksellers, your brick-and-mortar booksellers, and i put barnes & noble in there too, do you want them to survive, or do you just want to get bigger? we have always been at the forefront of anything that could help us from the technology world. we got the database

really, the first and thing that keeps this place special as my staff people. a 22 booksellersith me for anywhere from 10 to back 20 years. we operate like a family, occasionally dysfunctional family. but we have a really good relationship with each other and we don't do understand our mission here is to keep the store of ben. the fact that we sell books is asked out in the community. each one of us just time to the community on a personal basis. many of our people are volunteers with various reading readiness volunteers, aids council, various, you know, like the women's club, which traced to contact with the literary community as well. i could go on and on. our list is very, very long of good works that we do outside the store. we had formed real solid connections with the literary community, with not only the writing community, but the reading community we became very involved with bill kennedy's new york state writers institute. so bringing famous authors and not so famous authors into town on a regular basis sets the store apart and sets all been a part as kind of a mecca f

york publishing industry does have a big question to answer as they go through this merger process. do you want your independent booksellers, your brick and mortar booksellers? because i would even include barnes & noble in there, too, do you want them to survive, or do you just want to get bigger? we've always been at the forefront of anything that could help us from the technology world. we got the database together back in the early '80s and were one of the first to go on to a computer system. so once you got -- that was, we wrapped our mind around that project, then we were able to make the store more profitable. but over the years, um, most recently is that in order to diversify we started our own digital book-on-demand business called the troy bookmakers where we make books. we literally physically make books. we, um, we take the manuscript, we format it into a book, we print the pages, we dip it in glue, we trim it up, slap a cover on it, and we make beautiful books. for our local authors that want to self-publish and also for some of the, you know, for some of the professors that want to do textbooks, for people th

bookseller. talking books, if you were to listen to any of the ones we have, they're extremely professional. the periodicals people can get as part of the talking book and braille library, also the narrators are skilled, even though many may be volunteers. they are very skilled narrators. if you have any audio book, you would be very attractive to those materials. but the audience is limited and obviously most people would understand that these are widely available and they were available for free the people who have created them would not get the appropriate return on their creative energy. so we are very respectful and very thoughtful to be sure people qualify for the service. we go to great lengths -- >> upm parses quirky humor, illuminating the subtle truths that work in our lives. >> it is one of those remarkable services that the government has designed and funded in order to do it our democracy needs to do and that is be sure that it can everyone has had access to be well-informed citizens and fully participate in all the things that our democracy has to offer. >> "washington post" correspondent, rajiv chandrasekaran.

and i read that cnn.calm piece that she wrote and i was really inspired by it as a bookseller because their missions are very similar to create the next generation of readers. you gave some tips to some parents, but is there a way to oil them down to three import things they can remember? we read in our house could be one. what other tips my parents get? >> is just kind of anything goes. if you go and read, you'll see a lot of parents. like i don't mind if my kid stays up later if they are reading. that's okay, yeah, they read till 11:00, so be it. there's worse things to do in life than not. .. >> i think you can hold them through 11 and 12. that's when it gets tricky with boys. at least if they read well, there's hope. they may pick it up later. they may get distracted. some don't, but a lot do. the key thing is they develop the ability to read pretty well. >> i also know through your work on this whole reading initiative that you have -- i know there's teachers out there as well, and that you have -- >> it's not the schools. >> exactly. [laughter] i know there's programs within the