At Lagardère, Hachette Book Group's parent company, publishing division revenue in the first quarter fell 1.1%, to €615 million (about $724.4 million), but rose 1.4% when currency fluctuations, primarily a weak dollar, pound, and UAE dirham against the euro, are taken into account. Overall revenue rose 3%, to €2 billion (about $2.4 billion), but rose 3.8% with currency fluctuations. Chairman and CEO Arnaud Lagardère said that in the quarter, "amid an uncertain geopolitical climate, the Lagardère group recorded solid revenue growth of almost 4% driven by all its businesses and supported by its diversified international footprint."

In the U.S., "amid a market that contracted by 4.5%" revenue grew 2% and was notable, Hachette Book Group CEO David Shelley said, "for the quantity of New York Times #1 bestsellers: James Patterson and Viola Davis's Judge Stone (Little, Brown); You with the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate (Little, Brown); Abby Jimenez's The Night We Met (Forever/Grand Central); The Housemaid by Freida McFadden (Grand Central); and Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! by Liza Minnelli (Grand Central). We also saw viral success from What Can I Say? by Catherine Newman (Storey/Workman Running Press Group)."

Shelley noted that the company has "a very strong second quarter of releases including 26 Beauties by James Patterson (Little, Brown); Fury Bound by Sable Sorensen (Requited/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers); Birth Vibes by Jen Hamilton (Grand Central); David Baldacci's Hope Rises (Grand Central); Rocket's Red Glare by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann (Little, Brown); Michael Connelly's Ironwood (Little, Brown); and The Land and Its People by David Sedaris (Little, Brown)."

Hachette is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year "by amplifying our Raising Readers initiative, which promotes the value of reading aloud to children and helps provide books to kids who don't have access to them." It's also supplying 200 Little Free Library boxes to underserved areas nationwide and giving children's books to Title I public schools across the country. Raising Readers already has 40 cross-industry partners, and the company is working on more related activities. 

In other news, HBG's Changing the Story business pillar "continues to be crucial for us, and GCP's Legacy Lit division joined our Black Employee Resource Group to host more than 150 people at a hugely successful inaugural Behind-the-Scenes in Publishing event with editors, publishers, and senior executives sharing what it takes to succeed in our industry," Shelley said. With Macmillan and Penguin Random House, Hachette has teamed up with PEN America as lead partners to create the U.S. Author Safety Program to offer trainings, consultations, resources, and support for authors facing threats or harassment.

Texas Star Trading Co., a book, gift, and gourmet shop at 174 Cypress St. in downtown Abilene, Tex., has been put up for sale after more than 20 years in business. Owners Glenn and Carol Dromgoole are retiring and hope to find a buyer who is interested in expanding and growing the business. They noted that the downtown area has recently undergone an upgrade in new sidewalks, landscaping, limestone benches, improved streets and parking, and a new downtown park that is almost finished. 

The store is in leased space in an historic building, and the lease is assumable, the Dromgooles added. The inventory concentrates on Texas titles and authors, including a sizable number of local authors. The store also offers gift baskets, Texas gourmet and gifts, souvenirs and T-shirts.

Carol and Glenn Dromgoole

They opened Texas Star in 2004, and have operated continuously in the downtown area since then. This was a second career for the Dromgooles, who were both newspaper journalists. Glenn Dromgoole is also a published author with more than 30 books, most still in print.

In an Instagram post, the owners wrote: "It's been a great run--and the opportunities for continued growth are extremely good, especially with the completion of the Cypress Street project. But we have reached the point that we want to do some other things with our lives, while we can. So, with much gratitude, we feel it is time to move on. Meanwhile, we will continue to operate the store as usual, having events, being fully stocked, maintaining our website, and continuing to strive to provide excellent customer service. We appreciate your business and your friendship."

For more information about the sale, contact Abilene Acquisitions.

Daydream Bookstore Cafe, a romance-focused bookstore and cafe, debuted last month in Arlington, Tex., the Shorthorn reported. Located at 380 East Front St., 110, the bookstore offers a curated selection of romance titles while the cafe serves a variety of coffee drinks. Owner Alma Sardas welcomed customers on March 14 for Daydream's soft opening before hosting a grand opening celebration on April 4.

Sardas is a lifelong lover of books and had been working on opening Daydream for a year and a half. Initially she'd hoped to open in January, but permits and health inspections made the process take longer than expected. Nevertheless, the community was always supportive, no matter how many times she had to reschedule.

"I am genuinely shocked with the amount of feedback and support and everything," Sardas told the Shorthorn. 

Daydream already hosts four book clubs, with one focused on contemporary romance, another on dark romance, a third on romantasy, and a fourth on LGBTQ+ romance. Looking ahead, Sardas plans to expand the store's event offerings.

"I just want to be known as a girl who followed a passion, who had a dream, who is striving and working her tail off every single day to make it happen," Sardas added. "And with the support of my family, my loved ones and the amazing community that we have here, we’re able to do that."

The Australian Booksellers Association has launched the inaugural Lifetime Achievement in Bookselling Award, recognizing "an individual who has given extraordinary and sustained service to bookselling in Australia... someone whose dedication to books, readers, and to their community has helped shape the culture of bookselling itself."

The ABA added that the honoree would be a bookseller "who has shown up year after year with passion and generosity, who has built something lasting in their community, championed books through changing times, and made their bookshop a safe haven and a special place."

The award is open to any Australian bookseller, from owner to floor staff. Support from a second nominator will be viewed favorably, the ABA said, adding that, where possible, this should be from a publisher, author, or other industry colleague beyond the nominee's own bookshop. Nominations close May 4.

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In Poland, a new study found that only 41% of respondents 15 years old and over read at least one book last year (unchanged from 2024), "but reading habits remained broadly stable despite fewer literature lovers choosing to spend money in bookstores," TVP World reported.

Conducted by Poland's National Library, the annual survey has tracked reading habits for more than three decades. It noted that the share of those who read seven or more books also remained flat at 7%. TVP World wrote that the results "suggest that Poles' appetite for books has stabilized after a post-pandemic slump and exceeds readership levels recorded in the late 2010s." The highest reading rates were recorded among teenagers aged 15 to 18 (56%), and among residents of Poland's largest cities (71%). 

"While it's difficult to imagine functioning in the modern world without the ability to read, books, including those in digital formats, are not the only form of literacy and aren't even dominant," the study said. 

The share of people buying books, in digital or physical form, fell from 50% to 43%, while those receiving books as gifts dropped from 34% to 26%. TVP World wrote that "bookstores in Poland have been in decline for many years, with the Polish Chamber of Books estimating that one in three such shops closed their doors between 2010 and 2020." 

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Booksellers from the Paper Cat Children's Bookshop in Herne Hill, London, shared Instagram reels chronicling some of their experiences at this week's Bologna Children's Book Fair in Italy:

"It's our first Bologna Children's Book Fair as The Paper Cat! Wow--what a first day (Tuesday for us!) we had an AMAZING time. Lovely to meet so many people--authors, illustrators, publishers and distributors! And thank you @doremi_books for a scrumptious dinner date in the evening! On to our day two (Wednesday!)."

"Our Day 2 and the final day of the Bologna Children's Book Fair--it was just as fabulous as our day 1! We meet more brilliant people--including the lovely Helen @wonderlandbookshop and fellow Nibbies nominee. At the same snack break the gorgeous @clarehelenwelsh came to catch up too--see you soon at the shop hopefully, Clare! Now on our way back to London feeling FULL of book love and ace times."

Time magazine recently released its annual list of the "100 Most Influential People." Among the authors showcased:

Tayari Jones
Imani Perry wrote: "A daughter of Atlanta and a writer of the world, Tayari Jones has blazed her own path through American fiction. Her sensitive coming-of-age stories bloom into rich landscapes of Black women's interior lives. In them, key social issues and important historical moments come alive by way of her characters' wounds, yearnings, and dreams. Her fifth and most recent novel, Kin, is an exquisite journey through a lifelong friendship between two girls born in Louisiana who enter adulthood at the dawn of the freedom movement.

"In this novel, as in her preceding books, Tayari revels in language that is both literary and vernacular, and she uses her abundant gifts to deeply contemplate love in all its complexity. Standing in the tradition of civil rights organizers and writers of the late 20th century Black women's literary renaissance, she wears these inheritances like a crown. Tayari is building a legacy while nurturing her fellow writers and dazzling her readers with grace, charm, poise, and a brilliant smile." 

Freida McFadden
E.L. James wrote: In person, the author Freida McFadden (her nom de plume) has a sweet, shy demeanor--but don't be fooled. Hers is a dark, dark mind that weaves deceptively simple tales into terrifying psychological page turners like The Housemaid. Fast-paced and addictive, her writing grabs you from the get-go, taking you on a wild roller-coaster ride that delivers one whiplash plot twist after another.

"Her backdrops may be familiar to the reader: a suburban home, a cozy marriage, a housekeeping routine--but with McFadden, nothing is as it seems. Steadily she ratchets up the tension, with hot-button themes of gaslighting, abusive relationships, manipulation, and revenge. She brings the terror home, subverting the familiar, until you can't trust anyone.

"Perhaps it's her background as a physician specializing in brain injuries that gives her this rare insight into the shadows of the human mind. Or maybe she's just as twisted as we think. Whatever sorcery is at work, McFadden is a writer at the top of her game--and the undisputed mistress of the psychological thriller."

Yiyun Li
Salman Rushdie wrote: "More than 20 years ago, Yiyun Li's first story collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, announced the arrival of a writer of exceptional gifts. American literature has been greatly enriched of late by new voices from everywhere--Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from Nigeria, Viet Thanh Nguyen from Vietnam, and from China, Yiyun Li, who now stands at the heart of this brilliant group. Li's life has been marked by dreadful tragedy, the loss of both her sons to suicide, which would destroy many mothers. She has somehow managed, through an act of 'radical acceptance,' to make a masterly literary response to the unbearable in a memoir from the 'abyss': the National Book Award finalist Things in Nature Merely Grow. The memoir joins high intelligence with remarkable emotional restraint, honoring the dead while also insisting on life. I don't know how she did it, but I'm in awe."

Barbara Gordon, whose bestselling 1979 memoir of prescription pill abuse and a mental breakdown, I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can, was adapted into a movie starring Jill Clayburgh, died April 7. She was 90. The New York Times reported that the book "found a wide audience in an era when prescription drug abuse was far less well known than it is today, when checking into 'rehab' to kick an addiction was not nearly so commonplace, and when mental illness carried a far greater stigma in work and social life."

In 1975, when she was 40, Gordon was an Emmy Award-winning documentary writer and director at WCBS in New York, with an addiction to 30 milligrams a day of Valium, which a psychiatrist had prescribed for her anxiety. "When she told her doctor that she wanted to stop the pills, he assured her they were not addictive and instructed her to quit 'absolutely cold.' Instead of easing off the medication, Ms. Gordon spiraled quickly downward to the edge of psychosis. Unable to work, she spent months in two mental hospitals," the Times wrote.

Gordon began writing her memoir in 1977, after leaving the second hospital and discovering she couldn't find work in media. "Maybe it was stigma, maybe it was timing," she observed, "but I couldn't find a job in the business I had worked in for 20 years."

Her memoir, an indictment of American psychiatry, sold more than two million copies. She described herself as "a victim of the individual and collective ignorance of a profession that, because it is essentially unmonitored, attracts into its ranks a brand of charlatan that wouldn't dare practice in other branches of the medical establishment."

Harper & Row paid a modest $7,500 hardcover advance, but I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can was a big bestseller. Paramount paid $200,000 for the film rights and Bantam bought paperback rights for close to $500,000. 

Gordon wrote two other books, the novel Defects of the Heart (1983) and Jennifer Fever (1988), a work of pop sociology about older men in relationships with younger women. 

Although most of her therapists had been men, Gordon also wrote in detail in her memoir about her sessions at the second hospital with a female therapist she called "Julie." 

"I have a haunting, almost obsessive picture in my head, Julie," she recalled saying in one session. "Thousands of women all across the country being given pills by male doctors. Men sedating women, tranquilizing them, helping to rob them of themselves. It's obscene."

Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews, Chapel Hill, N.C., hosted Spring Council (r.), author of Southern Roots: Recipes and Stories from Mama Dip's Daughter (Countryman Press), in conversation with North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green. (photo: Regina Mahalek)

"Have you added a heart to our window yet?" Decoy Bookstore in North East, Md., posted on Instagram. "Come in today by 5 p.m. and tell us why you love independent bookstores! We'll be collecting them until Saturday, 4/25, for Independent Bookstore Day!"

Noting that "teamwork makes the dream work," the Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid, N.Y., shared an Instagram reel: "Boss: Not everything is a two-person job. Us...." 

"Odyssey welcomes our newest intern," Odyssey Bookstore in Ithaca, N.Y., posted on Instagram. "Frankie has a strong love of Indie Presses and spent her first afternoon dusting (putting that long fluffy tale to good use!) and shelf arranging. Next up--look for her unique 'shelf barkers.' "

At the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group:

Sarah Hayet is promoted to senior publicist, Doubleday. She joined the publicity department in 2024.

Kelly Shi is promoted to publicity manager at Knopf. She has been with Knopf for three years.

Elka Roderick is promoted to publicist at Knopf.

Disney+ and Hulu have released a full-length trailer for the second season of Rivals, based on Jilly Cooper's Rutshire Chronicles novel series. Deadline reported that the trailer "sees the return of all the favorites from the first series, with David Tennant, Danny Dyer, Aidan Turner, Katherine Parkinson, Emily Atack, and Alex Hassell reprising their roles. Hayley Atwell and Rupert Everett have joined the cast for the upcoming season."

In the new Rivals season, "the battle for the Central South West television franchise reaches a fever pitch as the war between Corinium and Venturer enters a dangerous new phase. More ruthless than ever, Tony Baddingham (Tennant) is determined to dismantle his rivals piece-by-piece, weaponizing scandal and manipulating those closest to him to maintain his grip on power," Deadline wrote. 

Rivals season 2, a Hulu original which airs on Disney+ outside the U.S., launches May 15 and will release in two six-episode batches.

Paramount has released the first footage from Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol, a new take on Charles Dickens's 1843 novella that is directed by Ti West and stars Johnny Depp as Scrooge., Deadline reported. Paramount is calling the movie a "bold new twist" on the classic tale.

Depp said it was "an extraordinary privilege to step into a story I have been obsessed with since I was a little child.... When I was approached by Ti West, my first thought was, there's no one who can do it as good as Alastair Sim did in the '30s or whatever. It's a magical performance. But then I thought, that's no reason not to attempt something.... I think Ti really did something very special." 

Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol releases November 13. Nathaniel Halpern wrote the script, with Emma Watts producing. The cast also includes Rupert Grint, Andrea Riseborough, Sam Claflin, Daisy Ridley, Arthur Conti, Ellie Bamber, Charlie Murphy, Tramell Tillman, and Ian McKellen.

Winners were announced for the 2026 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, sponsored by the Cleveland Foundation and "dedicated to literature that contributes to our understanding of race and our appreciation of the rich diversity of human cultures." This year's winners include:

Fiction: Make Your Way Home by Carrie R. Moore
Nonfiction: Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City by Bench Ansfield
Memoir: The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders by Sarah Aziza
Poetry: Death Does Not End at the Sea by Gbenga Adesina
Lifetime Achievement Award: Nell Irvin Painter 

"It is never easy to choose a single work in each genre from so many excellent books published each year," said jury chair Natasha Trethewey. "That each of this year's winners is a debut makes the honor all the more profound--new voices, already essential. These books matter because they deepen our understanding, enlarge our empathy, and remind us of literature's power to illuminate who we are."

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The shortlist has been selected for the £25,000 (about $33,830) Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, which "celebrates quality, innovation and ambition of writing," and is open to books first published in the previous year in the U.K., Ireland, or the Commonwealth. The books must have been written in English and should be largely set more than 60 years ago. The winner will be named June 12. Each shortlisted author is awarded £1,500 (about $2,030). The shortlisted titles are:

The Pretender by Jo Harkin 
The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly 
Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet 
Once the Deed Is Done by Rachel Seiffert 
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood 

The judges said: "The five shortlisted novels for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize probe intimate lives lived in both small and big settings. Readers will hear voices usually unheard but which, once heard, won't be forgotten. The shortlist choice is always difficult, but our authors each reveal the hidden, and in doing so offer new insights into our own times as well as the times in which their novels are set. Above all, our five authors are storytellers, so if you like a good story, the 2026 Walter Scott Prize shortlist is one you won't want to miss."

photo: Zoe Fisher

Jennifer Acker is a writer, editor, and translator. She is the author of the novel The Limits of the World, a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award, and the essay-length memoir "Fatigue." Acker's second novel, Surrender (Delphinium Books, April 14, 2026), is about a woman who retreats from academic life in New York City to manage a family goat farm in New England. In the other half of her literary life, Acker is editor-in-chief of the Common and directs LitFest at Amherst College. She lives in Western Massachusetts and Portland, Maine.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

Midlife crisis / queer goat famer / love story

On your nightstand now:

I direct a literary festival at Amherst College and so all the guest authors' books are on my nightstand! To name a few: the essay collection Putting Myself Together by Jamaica Kincaid (I'll be interviewing her on stage); Wanting by Claire Jia, an exquisite and intricately plotted novel about how several residents of Beijing navigate their complex relationships with America, and one another; The Unbroken Coast by Nalini Jones, a beautiful, in-depth and intertwined story of two families living in a suburb of Mumbai, one well-off and one less so; and Bernie for Burlington by Dan Chiasson, a reflection on the rise and staying power of the influential Bernie Sanders, by a native son of Vermont. All of these terrific books are tangibly steeped in specific places, always a hook for me as the editor of a place-based literary journal.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Published in 1897, Prince Uno is not a classic. Or, if it was once well known, it's now obscure. No one I know has even heard of it, and the Internet turns up barely more than an image of the frontispiece from the Library of Congress. (If any readers know this book, let's hear from you!) My grandmother used to read it to me because her mother read it to her. Their names are inscribed in my inherited copy.

The author, known only as Uncle Frank (no last name), writes in the introduction that he composed this tale for a dangerously ill nephew: "In order that he might endure the extreme suffering caused by the medical treatment, it was necessary that his mind should be diverted from his sufferings on that day. Before the sun should set he would be either convalescent or past help."

Uncle Frank spins a magical story of his visit with the beneficent Prince Uno and Princess Ino in Fairyland. Together they find their royal son, who has been captured by evil wood sprites.

Your top five authors:

Shirley Hazzard
Mavis Gallant
Marilynne Robinson
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Katie Kitamura

Book you've faked reading:

Until getting my MFA at age 30, I'd somehow escaped reading William Shakespeare (except Romeo and Juliet in high school) and would just nod along when anyone mentioned King Lear (now my favorite play).

Also, Thomas Mann. I read half of The Magic Mountain and then just... stopped. I was enjoying it, I can't say why I put it down, but I've never gone back to finish it.

Book you're an evangelist for:

The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard. I don't think any novel has captured me on both an emotional level and at the level of language that this novel has. Every line is exquisite, and it's a devastating love story. My husband and I read it aloud together during the pandemic. It was my third time through, and still I relished so many new insights and details and plots twists.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Flesh by David Szalay, though I haven't read it yet!

Since I'm deep into Jamaica Kincaid's oeuvre at the moment, I have to shout out the design of her older books reissued by Picador. Each cover features a drawing by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, a British writer and painter. The drawings are portraits of fictional people, Black men and women, based on found images and the artist's imagination. The font is not named but looks like calligraphy from the time of writing with quill pens. I find these covers very striking and compelling.

Book you hid from your parents:

My parents never frowned on anything that I read. I don't know if that's because I wasn't terribly adventurous or if they didn't care to censor.

I was forbidden from watching certain TV shows, though, if they were violent or "too stupid." (This included cartoons!) I used to sneak watching Three's Company, and once my dad caught me. I was supposed to be helping him transplant tomatoes, and instead I was guffawing at Jack Tripper escaping the clutches of the randy Mrs. Roper. I got a good scolding for that!

Book that changed your life:

Not every book is memorable, but every book teaches me something as a reader or a writer, even if it's, Wow, I hated that character!

Favorite line from a book:

"Many had died. But not she, not he; not yet."

This is the last line of The Great Fire, another masterpiece by Shirley Hazzard. The book's love story is autobiographical, based on a relationship Hazzard had with an older man she met in Hong Kong when she was 17. (Hazzard had gone to Hong Kong with her family from Australia.) Her own romance ended "tragically," in her words, but Hazzard wanted the characters of the novel to have a fighting chance.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Oh, probably something overtly romantic with a deeply rooted sense of place like The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough, which is set in the Australian Outback in the first half of the 20th century. I think I read this tale of forbidden love in middle school and haven't gone back to it since. I have no idea what I'd think of it now, but I remember the drama keeping me awake at night back then!

Sofia Montrone's first novel, Nymph, handles the coming-of-age of a girl named Leo, alongside the aging of her family's Italian agriturismo. Leo and her family--Leo's Italian mother, her American father, her one-year-younger brother Max--spend every summer at the rural hotel, helping to run the family business. Readers watch Leo move toward adulthood over the course of two summers, when she is 10 and when she is 18.

When she is younger, Leo cleans rooms, collecting the motley items guests leave behind, and helps prepare food alongside her Nonna Tina. Max, who is better with people, works at the front desk. Their mother is unwell and mostly sleeps. Their father, a professor and a heavy drinker, reads and tells stories; his renditions of the epics of Homer are among the many threads that keep Leo captivated. She and Max "want to know where Atlantis is, what feathers are made of, whether hair grows right out of their scalps or from their tangled ends, and he tells them. They have no sense of what is real and what is play, only that the Absent-Minded Professor is a kind of god, all-knowing, and that with the right password, they will be privy to his secrets, which are the secrets of the world." Leo idolizes her father. By the novel's second part, the shape of her family will be changed irrevocably, and is still changing. Her Nonna Tina, the hotel's faithful employee Davide, and Leo's immediate family are maturing or withering. The hotel is in decline. Leo herself is on the cusp of the next stage of her life, as a newcomer--an American teenager, curious, creative, and enthralling--captures her attention.

"Nymph" refers to "those maidens that live in the rivers and trees" as well as "a baby grasshopper," whose short life plays a role in Leo's. Montrone's debut tracks these several processes in prose as lovely, fleeting, subtle, and shocking as growing up ever is. Ten-year-old Leo experiences the fallibility of her most beloved elders, and 18-year-old Leo finds her first love and still more loss. These tentative steps toward adulthood are set against a striking rural and natural setting, punctuated by the World Cup games that hold Italy rapt. "The mountains are nimbed with green light. Dark shapes swoop over the grounds, whether bats or birds she cannot say, only that they form black whorls like clouds." Nymph is concerned with growth, shedding, and origins. "Where does the story of one's life begin? At birth, with one's parents or grandparents, the first days of Italy and its legions of secretive, long-suffering women, Odysseus?" This nuanced, wise novel expands with quiet understatement to reach profundity. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: This sensual, yearning novel of personal tragedy and first love in the Northern Italian countryside will transport readers of all ages.