Wild New England

Armchair travelers stocked up on books that transported them to distant lands, while backpackers and other tourists visited the specialty shop in Harvard Square for books, maps, and advice from staff about their destinations.

Now that owner Patrick Carrier has announced he will close the store by the end of the month, the goodbyes have begun. On a world map, customers are marking places they have visited. Some are redeeming their frequent traveler discount cards; others are keeping them as mementoes.

The shop was one of the first travel bookstores in the country when it opened in 1982 in downtown Boston, and at one point Carrier had expanded to three stores. The roster of guest speakers over the years is a who’s who of travel and adventure writers, among them Bruce Chatwin, Arthur Frommer, Peter Mayle, Jan Morris, and Paul Theroux.

Citing health reasons, Carrier put the store up for sale in November but no suitable buyer has been found. “Although we did receive several offers, none met our requirements for selling the business,” Carrier wrote in a newsletter to customers. He noted, however, that he will continue to operate the website, www.globecorner.com.

New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton also was put up for sale that month. Steve Gans, chief operating officer, said there has been “tons of interest” in the 54-year-old bookstore, and the owners are in negotiations. Given the turmoil in the bookselling industry, he said, closing a sale may require creative terms.

Pearlman wins PEN award Brookline author Edith Pearlman has won the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the “art of short fiction.” “Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories” (Lookout), her fourth collection, was published to wide acclaim in January.

A reviewer in The New York Times called her writing “intelligent, perceptive, funny and quite beautiful.” Her stories frequently involve love: young, old, and thwarted. The settings include New England, Russia, and Central America.

The $5,000 award, established in 1988, is named for the writer Bernard Malamud.

Coming out ■“The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-First Century”by Alex Prud’homme (Scribner) ■“Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks” by Juliet Eilperin (Pantheon) ■ “The Big Book of Adventure Stories” edited by Otto Penzler (Vintage)

Pick of the week
Julia MacDonald of the Yankee Bookshop in Woodstock, Vt., recommends “Sister” by Rosamund Lupton (Crown): “In this debut novel, Beatrice, informed of her sister’s disappearance, returns home to London to fulfill what she assumes will be her usual big-sister role with the free-spirited Tess. When Tess is found dead by apparent suicide, Beatrice becomes obsessed with solving what she believes to be a case of murder. Written with a clever twist, ‘Sister’ is both poignant and captivating.”

Jan Gardner can be reached at JanLGardner@yahoo.com.