Presidents' Day is a fine holiday, and it's a swell idea to consolidate presidential birthdays into one celebration. But we're wondering when the National Holiday Selection Committee will finally come around to Booksellers' Day. Not just so we can finally have a day off when the rest of the country gets one (though that would be fun, too), we just really want a parade held in our honor.

POWELLS.COM INTERVIEWS: JULIAN BARNES
It would be hard to find a novel so widely praised both in America and Britain as Julian Barnes's Arthur and George, and justifiably so. In this fictional retelling, Barnes delves deep into the court case of George Edalji, a Parsee gentleman accused of mutilating horses, and the intervention into the miscarriage of justice by Sherlock Holmes creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. In the U.S. Kirkus Reviews calls it "A triumph....deeply satisfying," while across the pond the Times Literary Supplement assures readers, "Barnes's suave, elegant prose — alive here with precision, irony and humaneness — has never been used better than in this extraordinary true-life tale, which is as terrifically told as any by its hero Conan Doyle himself." In this exclusive interview, Barnes reflects on re-creating a real-life character, the vulture problem in India, American fact-checkers, and the first "modern" novel.

SIGNED FIRST EDITIONS: ARTHUR AND GEORGE
Georgie of Powells.com asks, "Can I already announce the best book of 2006? If so, here it is!" Julian Barnes's 2005 Booker Award nominee, Arthur and George, is the story of two men — one an internationally celebrated author, the other a complete unknown — whose lives become inextricably intertwined in late-Victorian England. Critics are praising Arthur and George as "a triumph of storytelling" (Publishers Weekly), "a stunning literary achievement" (Seattle Times), and "a marvelous book" (Entertainment Weekly). Get your signed first editions now while they last!

INK Q&A: JONATHAN AMES
Jonathan Ames's new book, I Love You More Than You Know, collects his many varied essays, on subjects including "the Mike Tyson/Lennox Lewis fight of 2002, a trip to Club Med in 2003, my ninety-three-year-old great aunt, a pimple I had my on my nose during a book-tour in Germany, the most phallic building in the world, and so on." In this exclusive Q&A, Ames discusses why he'd like to date Anna Karenina, his favorite wicked indulgence, and his envy of Tarzan's upbringing. Read the Q&A and save 30% on I Love You More Than You Know.

BLOG: FIRST PARAGRAPH
We've all had that experience of browsing the bookshelves, pulling down a title, opening to the first page, and finding either that exquisite first paragraph that drew us inexorably into the novel, or a truly wretched opening that prompted us to slap the cover closed and toss the book back onto the shelf. Love 'em or hate 'em, first paragraphs can make or break a book (or at least, determine whether we pick it up or throw it down). If you're a first paragraph junkie like us, you should check out Dave's new feature, First Paragraph Previews, on the Powells.com blog. He takes the opening paragraph from an unpublished novel and tosses it onto the table to be dissected by our trusty, always opinionated bloggers. Get in on the fun and share your two cents... as well as getting the advance word on forthcoming books you won't want to miss (or will want to make a note to avoid).

After what seems like two consecutive months of nothing but rain, all of a sudden the sky has opened up... and temperatures have plummeted. We're trying to decide if frozen hands, feet, and other extremities (particularly on the face) are a fair trade for being dry. We'll probably remain undecided until the next wave of rain clouds passes over Portland.

BOOKCAST #5
This time on the Bookcast: Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman performs the "Hobo Matters," "Six Oaths of the Virtuous Child," and more from his groundbreaking almanac, The Areas of My Expertise. Jonathan Coulton accompanies the author on guitar and performs his blockbuster #1 hit (in Eritrea) "Skullcrusher Mountain." Plus, novelist Marc Acito chimes in with a fiction writer's perspective on James Frey's lies. All in... fifty minutes? It's true: the Bookcast's second season kicks off with our longest, and most entertaining, episode by far. Listen to key segments, or stream the whole thing start to finish.

REVIEW-A-DAY: GUEST HOSTS
Each Sunday, Review-a-Day will be featuring a rotation of guest hosts on a monthly basis, beginning with Boldtype.com, an email-based zine that offers a monthly shortlist of worthwhile reads. Look forward to a wide range of Sunday review hosts, including some old favorites (yes, the Times Literary Supplement will be making guest appearances) and fresh, new voices. Catch up with Boldtype's first two reviews here.

SELL US YOUR BOOKS AT OUR NW WAREHOUSE
If you live in or near Portland and you've got boxes of books taking up precious attic space and you don't feel like waiting in line at our stores, why not hop in the car and take a little trip to our Northwest warehouse? Every Saturday this spring (beginning March 4), we're opening our docks from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to buy books. There will be free parking and easy access.

GUEST BLOGGERS: JEN TRYNIN AND ELIZABETH KOLBERT
The guest writers keep rolling in for the Powells.com blog. Right now Jen Trynin, author of Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be, is sharing the exploits of a rocker turned author. Next up is Elizabeth Kolbert, whose Field Notes from a Catastrophe offers an argument for the urgent danger of global warming, earning comparisons to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Check out the blog now — and find out what you've been missing!

NEW IN STORES
Winner of the Newbery Medal for The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo returns with The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. And now in paperback: Michael Connelly's latest Harry Bosch opus, The Closers ("Connelly comes as close as anyone to being today's Dostoyevsky of crime literature," raves Publishers Weekly).

DVDs
New to DVD: Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous) returns with Elizabethtown, starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. Screenwriter Neil Gaiman and director Dave McKean's phantasmagoric MirrorMask will delight children and fans of esoteric fantasy everywhere. Based on Milan Kundera's beloved novel, Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche, comes to DVD in a special edition featuring commentary, a making-of featurette, and more. As always, all our DVDs ship for free!

In our next edition:
An interview with Melissa Bank (The Wonder Spot); an original essay from Jon Fasman (The Geographer's Library); and an INK Q&A from Mark Kurlansky (The Big Oyster).

eBOOKS
New to eBook: In Lisa Gardner's thriller Gone, a former FBI profiler plunges headlong into the shattering search for a killer, and for the love of his life, who may forever be... gone (hence the title). And in The Empress's New Lingerie, author Hillary Rollins gives your favorite childhood fairy tales a decidedly adult turn.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS
In Bury the Chains, Adam Hochschild, the acclaimed author of King Leopold's Ghost, offers a taut, thrilling account of the first grass-roots human rights campaign, which freed hundreds of thousands of slaves around the world. In Tell Them I Didn't Cry, Washington Post reporter Jackie Spinner chronicles the nine months she spent covering the war in Iraq. With an innovative style reminiscent of Jonathan Safran Foer and Dave Eggers, T. Cooper's Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes is a literary tour de force that spans the 20th century with one family's search for a lost son. Myron Ferguson's Better Houses, Better Living helps home owners and home buyers by explaining the basics of home design and building from a user's perspective. T. Jefferson Parker, the award-winning author of California Girl, plumbs the depths of the human heart in The Fallen, a carefully woven novel of suspense. Find these and other author readings in our events calendar.

FUP. STORE CAT.
A new hire bought the wrong kind of cat food.

Correct brand, wrong flavor. He thought he was doing everyone a favor by carrying the twenty-pound bag straight to Fup's quarters and filling up her bowl. He wanted to make a good first impression, on the cat and his coworkers. Fup's finicky palate never crossed his mind — how would he have known? — nor the general reluctance of pet stores to accept returns on open bags of food. He doesn't have a cat at home.

From the overturned bag in the office, Fup shuttles another mouthful of kibble down the length of an aisle and out to the sidewalk. Going through the door, she passes Oreo coming in. Bagheera has dropped out of competition, apparently; he's sunning himself on the concrete.

"No medal for you," Fup tells him, once she's emptied her mouth of dry food and slurped a good long while from the water bowl by the step, rinsing out the crumbs.

Out come Barleycorn and Clara, each with a mouthful, and then Oreo with another right behind them. Oreo's pile is so much bigger than the others that he pauses to eat a bit before heading back inside.

"Showboat," Clara says.

Zooey stands up and starts toward the food.

"No," Fup tells him.

The dog tilts his head. But Oreo just...

Fup says, "Off the court till the semifinals are done."

POWELLS.COM BESTSELLERS (UPDATED HOURLY)

1. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Science Fiction and Fantasy) 2. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Literature) 3. Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison's Kitchen by Deborah Madison (Cooking and Food) 4. In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant (Literature) 5. The New Best Recipe by Cook's Illustrated (Cooking and Food) 6. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (Popular Fiction) 7. Flying Leap by Judy Budnitz (Literature) 8. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins (Biography) 9. The Baby Book by William Sears (Child Care and Parenting) 10. Digital Fortress by Dan Brown (Popular Fiction)