Publishers Weekly Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 4/5/2010 10:26:39 AM

Nantucket literary figure Mimi Beman died on March 31 after a brief illness. She was 62. Beman owned and managed Mitchell's Book Corner in Nantucket for 30 years before selling the building and bookstore in January 2008 to Wendy Schmidt, wife of Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Her parents founded the store, which they named for Nantucket astronomer Maria Mitchell, in 1968. With her passing, as sales representative Michael Watson of Watson & Woodward notes, "we lost one of our truly special booksellers."