Books Inc.'s new store in North Berkeley. (Photo: John McMurtrie/SFGate.com)

The Books Inc. store in Berkeley, Calif., has completed its move and reopened yesterday at 1491 Shattuck Ave. in North Berkeley. The space once housed Black Oak Books, which moved in 2008 to 2618 San Pablo Ave.

Last fall, co-owner and CEO Michael Tucker said that the new location is pedestrian-friendly and has better foot traffic, which will allow the store to build a strong community relationship. According to SFGate, the new store is about 400 square feet larger than the 3,000-square-foot store on Fourth Street, which closed on May 24.

"The response from the public so far has been overwhelmingly positive," manager Schyler Baker told Berkeleyside.com. "Even as we did construction, passerby would stop and pop their heads in to check if we were open yet."

He added that the larger space "allows us to expand our book and magazine selection, especially children's books and cookbooks."

The Nebraska Bookstore Co.'s flagship store, in Lincoln, home of the University of Nebraska, is closing next month, the Lincoln Journal Star reported. The store was founded in 1915 as Long's Campus Bookstore, and in 1937 was bought by an employee who renamed it Nebraska Book Co. It has moved several times over the years.

The store was the foundation of the company that operates more than 200 college stores, has a wholesale division that rents and sells more than seven million textbooks a year and installs and supports tech platforms and e-commerce sites at more than 1,200 stores.

Nebraska Book Co. said that the store wasn't performing to expectations, adding: "This store closing is consistent with our strategy of regularly reviewing all areas of our business to ensure a leading position in the higher education marketplace."

The University of Nebraska has agreed in principle to buy the bookstore building and real estate for $4.75 million. The building was built in 1985.

The store is one of only three that Nebraska Book Co. owns. The company went through a structured bankruptcy three years ago and closed at least 40 off-campus stores.

Total industry attendance at BookExpo America, May 27-29, rose 5.2%, to 20,895, compared to BEA 2014, while total attendance fell 1.2%, to 10,832, show director Steve Rosato announced. BEA's larger figure includes exhibitors as well as all non-exhibitors, including book buyers, press, licensing and right professionals, and others.

Rosato said that BEA expects the show's Chicago location next year to result in "a nice uptick" in ABA members attending. It's the first BEA outside New York since 2009.

Attendance at BookCon, held on Saturday and Sunday, May 30 and 31, rose 80%, to 18,000. Rosato noted that many books were sold during the consumer fair, "especially at the bookstore run by WORD." He said that "the crush of business" caused some long lines on Saturday, but fixes the next day made every run "a lot smoother."

Amazon has opened its one-million-square-foot fulfillment center in Kenosha, Wis. The Milwaukee Business Journal reported that the facility "east of Interstate 94 at the intersection with Burlington Road has two buildings, including the large fulfillment center and a 'sortation center' building that is about half the size. The smaller building opened late last year." The online retailer began collecting sales tax in the state in 2013.

Reynold Levy

Reynold Levy has been elected to the board of directors of the National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards.

Levy, who was president of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts for 13 years, until early last year, is also an author: his fourth book, They Told Me Not to Take that Job: Tumult, Betrayal, Heroics, and the Transformation of Lincoln Center, a memoir, was published by PublicAffairs last month. He has also been president of the International Rescue Committee; the senior officer of AT&T in charge of government relations; president of the AT&T Foundation; executive director of the 92nd Street Y; and staff director of the Task Force on the New York City Fiscal Crisis. Levy is currently a senior advisor to the private equity firm General Atlantic; adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International Affairs; a consultant to several nonprofit institutions and foundations; and a director of First Republic Bank.

"Having someone with Reynold Levy's experience and expertise in nonprofit management on the Foundation's board of directors will strengthen the Foundation immeasurably," David Steinberger, Foundation chairman commented. "By helping us reach out to new constituencies he will have enormous impact on our work."

Vincent Bugliosi, the former prosecutor turned crime author, died on Saturday, the Los Angeles Times reported. He was 80.

As a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, Bugliosi prosecuted Charles Manson and three followers for the Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969 and co-wrote Helter Skelter, the wildly popular book about the murders and trial. Bugliosi went into private practice and later wrote and co-wrote more than a dozen books, including Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away with Murder, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder and Divinity of Doubt: The God Question.

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Roger Vergé, "a founding father of nouvelle cuisine who developed a highly influential version of Provençal cooking" at his renowned restaurant Le Moulin de Mougins near Cannes, France, died Friday, the New York Times reported. He was 85. His cookbooks include Roger Vergé's Cuisine of the South of France, Roger Vergé's New Entertaining in the French Style and Roger Vergé's Vegetables in the French Style.

New owner Beth Albrecht flanked by Iris Yipp (l.) and Rose Joseph.

Beth Albrecht, a long-time customer, has bought the Magic Tree Bookstore in Oak Park, Ill., from Rose Joseph and Iris Yipp, two of the original founders of the children's bookstore. Last year, Joseph and Yipp announced that they wanted to retire after more than 30 years in business and were putting the store up for sale.

Albrecht has been buying books at the store for her three daughters for years and plans to continue in-store events, such as poetry readings, book clubs and book signings. She is, Joseph and Yipp wrote, "energized to lead Magic Tree to great heights in the coming years."

Magic Tree was founded in 1984.

Congratulations to Book Soup, West Hollywood, Calif., which celebrates its 40th birthday this coming Friday, June 12, at 7 p.m., with a party that will include cake, refreshments, shopping discounts--and "some of our great friends" reading from "infamous celebrity biographies." Confirmed readers include Frank DeCaro, author of The Dead Celebrity Cookbook and a Sirius XM Satellite Radio host; Beth Lapides, creator and host of Uncabaret and author of Did I Wake You?; Meredith Maran, author of A Theory of Small Earthquakes and Why We Write; and Pam Ward, author of Get Some, Want Some.

Book Soup was founded by the late Glenn Goldman and is now owned by Vroman's Bookstore, Pasadena.

Seeking help at BEA.

The Little Paris Bookshop, Nina George's international bestselling novel first published in Germany, is coming to the U.S. from Crown on June 23. It follows Monsieur Perdu, a "literary apothecary" who sells books from a barge floating on the Seine. Perdu prescribes curative novels to mend whatever spiritual wounds afflict his customers. The book is a July IndieNext pick and a June LibraryReads Top 10.

Crown has come up with some unusual marketing medicine to promote The Little Paris Bookshop: its own book prescription service. The Book Apothecary gives readers a selection of psychological woes--anxious, depressed, irritated, overworked, etc.--and suggests three titles that might cure such troubles. For "anxious," and "overburdened by adult life," the apothecary recommends Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins and the Chronicles of Narnia.

An in-person iteration of the Book Apothecary found fans at BEA and BookCon. Show attendees used an app to diagnose convention-specific maladies like "overwhelmed by too many people," for which they received a free copy of Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin. Other ailments prompted one of five other Crown titles: Ready Player One, I Take You by Eliza Kennedy, Dead Wake by Erik Larson, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling and, of course, The Little Paris Bookshop.

In a merger of a newly popular genre and a blockbuster series, later this year Bantam is releasing an adult coloring book inspired by George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire novels--which are the basis for HBO's Game of Thrones series. According to the AP (via the New York Times), the book will have 45 black-and-white illustrations by "leading fantasy illustrators." (Use of the book may require several extra red crayons!)

Martin's most recent book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, Dance of Dragons, was published in 2011, and fans are eagerly awaiting volumes six and seven.

The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen (Harper), sequel to The Queen of the Tearling.

Tomorrow on Tavis Smiley: Matthieu Ricard, author of Altruism: The Power of Compassion to Change Yourself and the World (Little, Brown, $30, 9780316208246).

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Tomorrow on the View: Lisa Lillien, author of The Hungry Girl Diet: Big Portions. Big Results. Drop 10 Pounds in 4 Weeks (St. Martin's Griffin, $16.99, 9781250061027).

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Tomorrow night on Coast to Coast AM: Ben Mezrich, author of Once Upon a Time in Russia: The Rise of the Oligarchs (Atria, $28, 9781476771892).

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Tomorrow night on the Daily Show: Colin Quinn, author of The Coloring Book: A Comedian Solves Race Relations in America (Grand Central, $26, 9781455507597).

The official trailer has been released for Ridley Scott's The Martian, adapted from Andy Weir's novel and scheduled to hit theaters in November. The film stars Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Kate Mara, Michael Peña, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Donald Glover.

PEN American Center announced several more awards during its prize ceremony last night in New York:

• The Dog by Jack Livings (FSG), a short story collection, won the $25,000 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction.
• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (Graywolf Press) won the $5,000 PEN Open Book Award.
• Theater of Cruelty: Art, Film, and the Shadows of War by Ian Buruma (New York Review Books) won the $10,000 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.
• Dead Boys, a manuscript by Adriana E. Ramírez won the new $10,000 PEN/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize.

A complete list of 2015 winners is available here.

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A shortlist has been announced for the €25,000 (about $28,190) Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. The winner will be honored during the Cork International Short Story Festival this September in Ireland. This year's shortlisted O'Connor titles are:

Refund by Karen E. Bender (U.S.)
The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies (U.K.)
Mr. Tall by Tony Earley (U.S.)
Infidelities by Kirsty Gunn (U.K.)
Crow Fair by Thomas McGuane (U.S.)
My Documents by Alejandro Zambra (Chile)
 
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The Crime Writers' Association announced its shortlist for the Dagger in the Library Award, which honors an author's entire body of work. The winner will be announced June 30 at the CWA Awards Dinner. The shortlisted authors are Peter May, Ann Cleeves, Mark Billingham, Christopher Fowler, Elly Griffiths and Peter James.

Vaughn Entwistle struck literary pay dirt when he partnered Sherlock Holmes's creator and Oscar Wilde in The Revenant of Thraxton Hall, the first Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mystery, in which Doyle is the detective and Wilde is his Watson. The dynamic duo has turned up again, this time in The Dead Assassin, and more good fun awaits.

London, 1895: Detective Blenkinsop requests Doyle's assistance one very foggy evening at the site of a "murder most 'orrible." Wilde accompanies him. They're told that Lord Howell, the prime minister's Secretary of War, has been found dead in his home, the front door completely smashed in, as was his bedroom door. His body was thrown against the wall with unimaginable force. He lies on the floor in a vast pool of blood, his neck completely turned around "by someone with a demon's grip." But the blood isn't his. He fired off six shots from his revolver. How could a person have walked away from that? Doyle, Wilde and Blenkinsop follow a trail of footprints down the street to discover a body in the dense fog outside, riddled with bullets. The detective recognizes him--Charlie Higginbotham, a murderer who was hung for his crime last week.

Back at the house, pompous Commissioner Burke has found a servant contorted and hidden in a cupboard, blood streaming from a bullet wound but alive. When material relating to Bolsheviks, anarchists and Fenians is found in his room, Burke proclaims he has found the murderer. Doyle, returning from his discovery, disagrees. But when the group attempts to retrieve Higginbotham's body minutes later, his body is gone. This most strange game is now afoot with the killer or killers able to strike again.

Entwistle inserts a love interest for Doyle. Doyle's wife is an invalid, but he still goes out for dinners and plays. He meets a radiant young woman, Miss Jean Leckie. Readers may judge him a bit of a cad for this, but they can't dismiss his and Wilde's witty banter and comfortable friendship as they put their substantial intellectual skills to the task of solving the murder. Entwistle injects the "Fog Committee," whose members included Lord Howell, as a sidelight. The committee is convinced that the recent, unusually dense fogs are "purely a function of the vagaries of the English climate," and any theories about London's excessive burning of coal in some way contributing to it is a "fantastical theory."

The Dead Assassin's paranormal aspects are lightly and intriguingly laid into the story. And even though Entwistle's portrait of Doyle isn't at the level of some other portrayals, this is a most entertaining pastiche pot-boiler with luscious Victorian atmosphere and ambiance. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher

Shelf Talker: The second installment in the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde investigations into Victorian crimes and the paranormal is a fine piece of divertissement.

The bestselling self-published books last week as compiled by IndieReader.com:

1. Mended by Sydney Landon
2. Beautiful Sacrifice (Maddox Brothers Volume 3) by Jamie McGuire
3. Summer Fire by Various
4. Somewhere Along the Way (The Andrades Book 4) by Ruth Cardello
5. Conviction by Corinne Michaels
6. Love, Diamonds, and Spades (Cactus Creek Book 2) by Violet Duke
7. Viper's Defiant Mate (Sarafin Warriors Book 2, Volume 2) by S.E. Smith
8. Just Say When by Kaylee Ryan
9. Love, Laughter, and Steamy Ever Afters by Various
10. Shuttergirl by C.D. Reiss

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]