Jamie Rogers Southern, executive director of Bookmarks, a literary arts nonprofit and independent bookstore in Winston-Salem, N.C., will step down in January 2027 after 15 years of service to the organization. The Bookmarks board of directors is launching a search for the organization's next executive director.

Jamie Rogers Southern

Southern was appointed executive director in April 2021 following a nationwide search, after serving six months as interim executive director and nine years as operations director. 

"Bookmarks has become so much more than a bookstore or a festival. It's a community built around books, curiosity and connection," she said. "I'm incredibly proud of what we've accomplished together over the past 15 years, and deeply grateful to the staff, board, volunteers, partners and readers who have made it possible. Bookmarks has a strong foundation and an exciting future, and I look forward to seeing what comes next."

Board president Candice Wooten Brown commented: "Jamie's leadership has helped position Bookmarks for its next chapter. We have a talented, experienced team, a strong board and a new strategic plan that will guide our continued growth and impact. We are grateful for Jamie's extraordinary contributions and confident in the opportunities ahead."

The board, which will begin recruiting the next executive director in the coming weeks, noted that it is seeking "a collaborative, forward-thinking leader who shares Bookmarks' passion for bringing writers and readers together and building community through books. The next leader will build on Bookmarks' established relationships, growing reach and strong organizational foundation to advance its mission and shape its next chapter."

Brown added: "Bookmarks is well positioned for the future. We're excited to find a leader who can build on this momentum while bringing new ideas and energy to the organization and the community we serve."

Ink & Intimacy, a romance-focused bookstore with an emphasis on sexual education and wellness, opened October 10 in Louisville, Ky., the Louisville Courier Journal reported.

Located at 1122 S. Shelby St. in Louisville's Shelby Park neighborhood, the women- and queer-owned bookstore carries a wide array of romance sub-genres along with nonfiction books about sexual health and wellness. Alongside books, co-owners Madeline Gregg and Sarah Lockhart also stock a selection of adult toys and related items. 

The store features an upstairs space that is divided in half between a lounge and a dedicated events space. Plans for events include classes on sexual wellness and book clubs, and customers will be able to rent out the space for private events. There is also a boudoir room that can be booked for photo shoots.

"In Shelby Park, the Highlands, Germantown, there's a huge queer community, and we need more spaces like this," Gregg told the Courier Journal. "We need queer third spaces. We need more education."

In addition to being bookstore owners, Gregg is a sexologist and TikTok influencer, while Lockhart is an attorney. So far, they said, the store has been received extremely well, enough for them to think of a possible expansion next year.

"I'm most excited for more shelf space because romance is such a broad and beautiful genre," Lockhart said. "Eventually, fingers crossed, next year... there's going to be even more space."

The Book Industry Charitable Foundation is offering eight $1,500 scholarships to comic book store owners and their employees to attend the 2027 ComicsPro Industry Meeting in Glendale, Calif., scheduled for February 17-20. Four of the scholarships are specifically for first-time attendees, thanks to support from the Data B.R.O.S. podcast.

The funds may be used for travel, lodging, and meals; ComicsPRO will cover the registration fee for the meeting. Scholarship guidelines and the application form are available here. The deadline to apply is November 30, at 5 p.m. Eastern. 

"The Data B.R.O.S. cemented our brotherhood at a ComicsPRO meetup, and we believe the annual meeting is the most important event on our calendars," said co-hosts Brian Garside, Django Bohren, and Jeff Figley. "We want to make sure that new retailers have the opportunity to experience the camaraderie that being part of this amazing retailer community gave us. That's why our companies Comic Shop Assistant and Manage Comics are proudly sponsoring this scholarship."

Binc CEO Pam French added: "We are proud to continue our support for comic retailers and grateful to have Brian, Django, and Jeff join us in recognizing that providing access to networking and education opportunities is critical to strengthening stores and helping build sustainability." 

Fiona Hickley

Fiona Hickley has been named the permanent CEO of World Book Day, after leading the charity since September 2025 as interim executive director. The Bookseller reported that Hickley has more than 25 years of experience in senior brand and partnership positions, including at Warner Bros., where "she worked on Harry Potter across all eight films, firstly as lead for consumer products EMEA before serving as global franchise director. She later joined Beano Studios to help lead the multiplatform relaunch of Beano and developed literacy, charity, publishing, cultural and education partnerships across Beano Studios and DC Thomson."

Hickley said: "World Book Day is a very special charity, and it is a real privilege to have the opportunity to lead it. Reading for fun can open up whole new worlds for children, and I am hugely excited to keep working with our brilliant team and partners to help more children find the books, stories and characters that lead them to a lifetime of reading."

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In the Philippines, the National Book Store chain "is reinventing itself for the new generation," Esquire Philippines reported. NBS president and CEO Adrian Ramos describes the recent developments at the company as a "complete reconfiguration." 

"I don't think about [our achievement as a company] in terms of number of stores anymore," he said at the launch of an NBS superbranch in Festival Mall, Alabang. "Because while we're opening, rebuilding, and moving branches, we're also closing down a lot. So it's a complete reconfiguration."  

Ramos noted that the new Alabang store "reflects the understanding that people today are looking for third spaces where they can spend time. Our business is no longer meant to be purely transactional. It's about creating experiences, offering hands-on activities, and helping kids and adults alike build core memories. That mission helped us envision a space like this."

He is optimistic about investing in larger physical stores, describing the superbranch format as "the pinnacle of what NBS can offer to make the shopping experience meaningful to today's customers," though he acknowledges only a handful of locations can support stores of this size. 

The company is also "gradually rolling out medium-sized branches, many of them outside Metro Manila, where it has been testing new concepts and ideas. Ramos hopes these stores will resonate with customers just as much as the larger flagship branches," Esquire noted. 

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Australian book clubs are evolving "to include beers at the pub or live jazz as background ambience," the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported as it checked in with current book groups like the Vision Australia Book Club; Book Doof, "a nod to outdoor raves known as bush doofs"; and Tough Guy Book Club, which has about 120 chapters around Australia and 60 more throughout the world, including the U.S., Canada, Singapore, the U.K., Ireland, Sweden, Myanmar, and Hong Kong.

"But we're not 180 clubs, we're one big club so we all read the same book every month," said founder Shay Leighton. "We live in a remarkably lonely time and men often tell me they would like to make more friends and have more interesting conversations.... We didn't make book clubs and put them in pubs. We're the guys who were already in pubs and started a book club."

Simon Winchester, a British-American journalist, author, and broadcaster "who traded an early career as a geologist exploring East Africa for an even more peripatetic résumé covering stories from Northern Ireland's bloodstained Troubles to Watergate-era Washington, the Falklands war and China," died November 3, the New York Times reported. He was 82. 

Simon Winchester (photo: Setsuko Winchester)

Winchester's books include The Professor and the Madman, The Men Who United the States, The Map That Changed the World, The Man Who Loved China, A Crack in the Edge of the World, and Krakatoa. His most recent work, The Breath of the Gods, was published in November 2025. In 2006, he was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth.  

"We are deeply saddened by the passing of Simon Winchester, an extraordinary writer, historian, and storyteller whose remarkable body of work captivated readers around the world," HarperCollins, his publisher, noted. "With his boundless curiosity, meticulous research, and singular gift for bringing history to life, Simon illuminated the people, places, and events that shaped our world. His writing reflected a profound love of knowledge and an infectious enthusiasm for discovery."

Jonathan Burnham, HarperCollins president & publisher, said, "Simon will be much missed. He was a mesmerizing raconteur, a polymath, a travel writer, an intrepid war correspondent, a prolific journalist and a man of incredible energy and charm and inspired enormous loyalty from his publishing partners. With a life and career spanning the U.K. and the U.S., he has been a HarperCollins author on both continents since 1998 and the publication of his first book, The Professor and the Madman. His legacy will remain through the remarkable list of non-fiction bestsellers which we're so proud to publish."

Arabella Pike, publishing director, William Collins, added: "Simon was a dear friend and an exhilarating writer. His long and adventurous life was driven above all by curiosity and a taste for adventure. Only last week he was full of stories for a memoir--not to mention plans for conquering peaks in Bolivia for a history of silver. Irrepressible, kind and a genius storyteller--he will be so missed by all those privileged to know him and his legions of fans across the world."

Winchester switched from geology to journalism after reading Coronation Everest, a book about the 1953 first ascent of Mount Everest by Jan Morris (then known as James Morris). The New York Times wrote that Winchester "read the book while encamped in Uganda's Rwenzori Mountains and resolved to become a reporter himself, writing to Ms. Morris to seek advice. She replied that, if he wanted to join the ranks of traveling writers, his best course would be to return to England and work on a newspaper. He duly began his own ascent on the profession's heights not in the Himalayas but in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in northeast England" by joining the Guardian in 1969.

In 1972, Winchester was posted to Washington D.C., where he published his first book, In Holy Terror, based on his years as a reporter in Northern Ireland. His breakthrough work as an author, however, came in 1998 when he was living in New York, with publication of the bestselling book The Professor and the Madman, which was later adapted into a movie starring Mel Gibson and Sean Penn. Winchester went on to write or contribute to about 30 books on themes as varied as the origins of geology and the impact of the wind.

Last week, Shelf Awareness sent our monthly pre-order e-blast to more than 932,000 of the country's best book readers. The e-blast went to 932,376 customers of 288 participating independent bookstores.

The mailing features 11 upcoming titles selected by Shelf Awareness editors and a sponsored title. Customers can buy these books via "pre-order" buttons that lead directly to the purchase page for the title on each sending store's website. A key feature is that bookstore partners can easily change title selections to best reflect the tastes of their customers and can customize the mailing with links, images, and promotional copy of their own.

The pre-order e-blasts are sent the last Wednesday of each month; the next will go out on Wednesday, November 25. Stores interested in learning more can visit our program registration page or contact our partner program team via e-mail.

For a sample of the October pre-order e-blast, see this one from Lakeside Bookshop in Lake St. Louis, Mo.

The titles highlighted in the pre-order e-blast were:

The Bridge by Colm Tóibín (Scribner)
The Best Journey in the World: An Antarctic Story by Kim Stanley Robinson (Little, Brown)
Chosen Son by Adrienne Young (Saturday Books)
First Ladies' Guide to Murder by Amanda Flower (Kensington)
Call Me Traitor by Everina Maxwell (Tor Books)
To Grieve Is to Carry Another Time by Matthew Salesses (Little, Brown)
Fetal Positions by Carolyn Huynh (Atria)
1,000 Words Left to Live by Gyatei Murasaki (Avocado House)
Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk (Riverhead)
House of Forgotten Souls by Cho Kat (Bloomsbury)
Cave Jumpers by Ellie Owens (Entangled)

Anderson's Bookshop, Downers Grove, Ill., shared a joyous bookselling experience, "one of those events that makes you say to yourself 'THIS is why we do what we do.' "

Store manager Kathleen March recounted: "We are totally smitten with Daniel Nayeri's new book, This Is a Door (Stonefruit Studio). So much so that we approached our local school district, Downers Grove Grade School District 58, about possibly doing an event.

"Long story short: on Friday, 10/30, Daniel Nayeri met with 1,100 4th and 5th graders, teachers, and librarians. We hosted the event at the historic Tivoli Theater in downtown Downers Grove and sent every student and educator home with a copy of the book.

"What really made this event special was the way the community rallied behind us in covering every single penny of this event. The school district received a grant to cover the cost of the 25 buses needed for transportation as well as the venue rental.

"Because we wanted every attendee to have their own copy of This Is a Door but did not want to burden families with an unexpected cost, we turned to the Downers Grove community to help. And help they did! From local not-for-profits, PTAs, Reading Councils, and book clubs--including our very own Anderson's Banned Book Club--to individuals, we were able to get the cost of every single book covered."

Considering the art of "brain buffering at the bookstore," Black Cat Books & Oddities in Medina, Ohio, posted a video depicting: "What I think I look like working in a bookstore.... How I actually look."

Chapters Books & Gifts in Seward, Neb., shared a video highlight from the shop's "first week of closing in the dark," noting: "Evenings are getting cozy, and we're slowly making our way toward peak holiday bookstore magic."

Although bookstores often share photos of their storefront window displays on social media, Winchester Book Gallery in Winchester, Va., offered a peek at the store from another angle, noting: "Check out our refreshed back window! We are gearing up for Christmas so you already know we have hundreds of amazing gift books to choose from. Come say hi!"

At Scribner:

Kassandra Engel has been promoted to senior publicity manager.

Addie Gilligan has been promoted to senior publicist.

Ellie Crowley has been promoted to publicist.

Dollhouse Pictures, the Australian production collective led by Rose Byrne, Krew Boylan, Shannon Murphy, and Jessica Carrera, has acquired the screen option on Bri Lee's novel The Work following a negotiation with rights holder UTA, Deadline reported. Screenwriter Hannah Lehmann (Two Sides) is creating the series, with Lee and Carerra the executive producers. Screen Australia is supporting development.

The Work "is set between New York, Brisbane and Sydney and follows Lally, an ambitious New York gallerist, and Patrick, a Sydney-based junior antiques appraiser, two young professionals, both desperately trying to establish themselves in the contemporary art world," Deadline noted.

"I've always admired Bri Lee's writing and her willingness to question power, privilege and the institutions that shape us," said Carrera. "What excites me about The Work is its seductive world, where everything has a value and the rules are constantly shifting. At its heart is a complicated relationship that asks what if the person you desire most is also the person who costs you the most. Hannah Lehmann brings a sharp and assured voice to the adaptation."

Lee said The Work had found "a production and writing team that are committed to making this show properly gutsy, hella sexy, and seriously funny," adding that her novel "was always so cinematic in my head, and Dollhouse Productions are going to take the words off the page and build a magnetic, can't-look-away spectacle. Hannah is a genius who understands these characters' deepest fears and desires."

Shortlists have been released for Blackwell's Book of the Year, the Bookseller reported. The winner will be named on December 1. This year's shortlisted titles are:

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout 
The End of Everything by M. John Harrison 
John of John by Douglas Stuart
Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zi, translated by Lin King 
The Girls by John Bowen 
The New Dark Ages by James Marriott 
London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe
Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea by Emily Wilson
The Nerd Reich by Gil Duran
The Book of Birds by Robert MacFarlane & Jackie Morris
On the Equality of All Things by Carlo Rovelli
Finding Albion by Zakia Sewell 
The Beginning Comes After the End by Rebecca Solnit
Dear Grace by Claire Thomson, illustrated by Phoebe Rutherford 
The Lost Robot by Joe Todd-Stanton 
Believe by Catherine Doyle, illustrated by Freya Hartas

Carol Mitchell (Jaxon Photography)

Carol Mitchell is the author of the novel What Start Bad a Mornin', 19 books for children, and A Good Haunting (Akashic Books, November 3, 2026), a short story collection infused with Caribbean and African myths and cultures. She holds an M.F.A. and is a fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, StoryKnife, and several other arts institutions. By day, Mitchell teaches writing to support her current nightly obsession: working on her new novel.

Handsell readers your book:

Nine stories peppered with humor and scattered across world cultures exploring serious topics in unorthodox ways through characters grappling with real and conjured ghosts.

On your nightstand now:

I'm also reading Ghostroots by 'Pemi Aguda, which I connected to because of similarities to my work--writing about place and myths. I've started the award-winning Ibis by Justin Haynes, and I'm rereading All About Love by bell hooks. I just finished Dèy by Edwidge Danticat, which I enjoyed for its portrayal of family ties and the supportive community that often abounds in migrant communities, while exploring mental health and generational trauma. My novel-in-progress is postapocalyptic so I've been rereading some novels in that subgenre, including Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, and 1984 by George Orwell. I recommend reading them in that order; doing so really made me think differently about how these authors envisioned the future for women.

Favorite book when you were a child:

I grew up in Trinidad, where colonial British influences loom(ed) large. As a child I devoured everything Enid Blyton, from her fantastical fairy-and-gnome-filled series to the realistic child detective and boarding school series. I wanted to be everything like the children in her stories. That longing is a small part of why I write Caribbean children's books. I hope that some young person in another part of the world will long to experience life as a Caribbean child.

Your top five authors:

Nalo Hopkinson
Louise Erdrich
Octavia E. Butler
Marlon James
Agatha Christie

Book you've faked reading:

The book that came immediately to mind is a very famous prize-winning book by a super talented author that I know, so I won't name it. I do know for a fact that I'm not at all alone in being unable to fathom that book. One I will confess to is Omeros by Derek Walcott. It poses on my bookshelf as if it's been read, but I haven't completed it. Given that some of my own work involves reimagining myths, I will pick it up again... one day.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Book of the Little Axe by Lauren Francis-Sharma. This book is historical fiction and I've encouraged everyone I know to read it, first because it is a beautiful story and second because the history it reveals is fascinating. Much of the book takes place across the end of the 18th century and it intertwines the histories of the Caribbean and Midwest North America. It's impossible to describe this epic in a few words, but it underscores the fact that there are multiple untold stories even in well-documented periods of history.

Book you've bought for the cover:

I encountered that book at a book festival. I don't recall many details. I do know that it was published by a very small press and written by an author I hadn't heard of before. I can't even describe the cover, only the way it made me feel. The cover art was haunting, absolutely terrifying yet so compelling that I had to have it. I never read the book. I don't read horror and I truly did not buy it for the words. It sat on a table in our living room for weeks until I gave it away because everyone else in my family was freaked out by the cover image.

Book you hid from your parents:

The Other Side of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon. I was about 13 or 14 years old and visiting the home of one of my mother's friends. She picked that book off of her shelf and handed it to me to keep me busy while she and my mom talked. My mother said nothing in front of her friend but confiscated it as soon as we got into the car, which of course made me obsessed with reading it. I waited until she forgot about the incident, unearthed the book, and stayed up for two or three nights straight reading it under the covers. That book may have marked the beginning of my fascination with family sagas, but I was definitely too young for the content and decades later, I'm still slightly scarred by one of the more vivid scenes.

Five books you'll never part with:

Only five? I'm in the process of a book purge right now, and trust me, the list of books I want to keep is long! One of the books that will never land in the giveaway pile is a favorite of my children: Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler is a fun and uplifting (quite literally) book. I have so many great memories of reading it with my children that I will never part with it.

Beyond that, I gravitate toward books that fully inhabit and reveal unusual aspects of the setting and the culture in which they're set. Along those lines, I hold on to and revisit The Round House by Louise Erdrich, Augustown by Kei Miller, The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey, and The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson.

A forbidden love, a doomed voyage, and a magical madness bring two young women together and hold them apart in J.M. Voris's first novel for adults, the sapphic fantasy Into the Burning Deep. Voris also writes young adult fiction under the name Jenna Voris.

Adrian and Ophelia both dwell aboard The Lyre, a ship carrying thousands of people who represent the only known survivors of the country of Tyranos, but they live in completely different worlds. Ophelia's sister took on the role of captain when their father, the former captain, died, leaving Ophelia with little to do but throw fabulous parties, wear elegant dresses, and feel desperately lonely. Adrian's older brother was an officer, but he went mad from an outbreak of the outlawed magic that drove the king of Tyranos insane and destroyed the country. Now Adrian has no family or station and works below decks as a mechanic. The Lyre is set to make its first landfall in 10 years in Calista, the only country willing to accept its passengers after their antimagic quarantine. Ophelia's sister arranges a politically advantageous betrothal between Ophelia and a powerful Calistan man, but Ophelia's heart belongs to Adrian. Then Adrian hears singing and sees another ship on the horizon; the ship calls out in a voice laced with what Adrian recognizes as perilous magic, and Ophelia answers it. Adrian must save the girl she loves, and the answer may lie in a alchemical journal with a fairy tale that begins, "This is the story of a girl who lived in another world on the other side of an infinite sea."

The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice meets the movie Titanic (sans any awkward questions about whether two people can fit on one floating door) in this stunning, sea-swept adventure. Voris surrounds the lovers with traces of Gilded Age opulence in a fantasy world where magic has become a dangerous, lost science. Class striations and star-crossed timing bring tension to a passionate connection between two young heroines who feel "the bone-deep ache of their joined existence" with all the intensity of both first and true love. Readers of new-adult romantasy like Rebecca Ross's Divine Rivals should pick up this dreamy, atmospheric voyage and not look away from its spooky charms as it builds a mythology around the world-breaking proprieties of thwarted romance and the timeless echoes it leaves. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Shelf Talker: A doomed voyage, a ghostly ship, and a magical malady threaten to separate two star-crossed lovers in this sapphic romantic fantasy.