◊ Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, wrote a compelling post on the future of bookstores called Local Bookstores, Social Hubs, and Mutualization on the 17th that we missed. Here is an important paragraph to whet your appetite:

Online bookselling improves on many of the core functions of a bookstore, not just price and breadth of available books, but ways of searching for books, and of getting recommendations and context. On the other hand, the functions least readily replicated on the internet—providing real space in a physical location occupied by living, breathing people—have always been treated as side effects, value created by the stores and captured by the community, but not priced directly into the transactions.

His conclusion is that book sellers should be looking at the nonprofit model to stay in business. (I can assure you, many book sellers I know would say they’re already functioning as a “nonprofit” of sorts already—and have been for years. We’re not exactly the most affluent segment of society.)

◊ Cory Doctorow weighed in on the topic on Wednesday with some half-formed thoughts on one future for bookselling (his words, not mine), pointing to the “ends of the market [that] are ripe for heavy localization.” Mr. Doctorow is an especially interesting addition to the conversation, as he has been at the forefront of authors getting their books to readers online. If you’re a book seller, or just love bookstores, I would highly recommend both authors’ takes on the situation. (And thanks to Vroman’s Bookstore for the heads up on both.)

◊ If you’re looking for a success story from the book selling arena, pick up the December issue of Inc. Magazine and turn to page 86. (I know, I know… so analogue, but I’ll post the link when the story is online.) There you’ll find the inspiring saga of Portland’s Broadway Books by John Brant.

◊ If bookstores do go extinct, Jacket Copy’s Carolyn Kellogg may have found the answer—phone booth libraries.

◊ NPR’s Morning Edition reminds us that You Can’t Put A Bow On An E-Book.

◊ Speaking of NPR and bookstores, here are NPR’s bestsellers of the week, compiled “from weekly surveys of close to 500 independent bookstores nationwide in collaboration with the American Booksellers Association:” Hardcovers | Paperbacks

◊ The New York Times Book Review has chosen their 10 Best Books of 2009. Liaquat Ahamed’s Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World was the sole book that would fit in the business category on the list.

◊ The Onion‘s A.V. Club has posted its best books and its best films of the decade. The business books that made their list are:

• Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Steven J. Dubner, published originally by William Morrow & Company in 2005.
• Nickel And Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, published originally in 2001 by Metropolitan Books
• The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, originally published in 2000 by Little Brown & Company
• The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki, originally published by Doubleday Books in 2004

◊ I’m really interested in Anna Jane Grossman’s Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By, illustrated by James Gulliver Hancock, but since we’ve not received a copy here (ahem, Hachette, ahem), I guess I’ll have to go out and buy one. Until then, the Washington Post‘s Jacket Copy has provided us with a little fix of Ms. Grossman discussing executive chairs, laughtracks and payphones.

◊ Niall Ferguson, author of The Ascent of Money: An Economic History of the World wonders if “economic weakness is endangering our global power.” Read his recent article in Newsweek to learn more.

◊ And, finally, in celebration of the second anniversary of their online store, Nonesuch Records is having a sale. In a nod to vinyl, everything is now 33 1/3% off the list price. They have an eclectic mix of musicians, from the Americana of Wilco and Emmylou Harris to the wonderful Oumou Sangare and wonderfully bizarre Alarm Will Sound. They also have Bobby McFerrin’s first album in their catalog, giving me an excuse to post the video below, which we first came across on tiny gigantic some months ago.