At last night's Academy Awards ceremony, four movies based on books or with book connections had their moments, including One Battle After Another, which picked up six of the golden statuettes. This year's major category bookish Oscar winners are:

One Battle After Another, loosely based on Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland: Best picture; actor in a supporting role (Sean Penn); directing (Paul Thomas Anderson); writing, adapted screenplay (Paul Thomas Anderson); film editing (Andy Jurgensen); casting (Cassandra Kulukundis)

Hamnet, adapted from Maggie O'Farrell's novel: Actress in a leading role (Jessie Buckley)

Frankenstein, inspired by Mary Shelley's classic novel: Costume design; makeup & hairstyling; production design

The Singers, based on a 19th-century Russian story by Ivan Turgenev: Best live action short film

Other bookish nominees included Train Dreams, based on Denis Johnson's novella; Little Amélie or the Character of Rain, based on Amélie Nothomb's The Character of Rain; Jane Austen's Period Drama, a satire of Pride and Prejudice; The Lost Bus, based on the book Paradise by Lizzie Johnson; Kokuho, based on the novel by Shuichi Yoshida; and The Ugly Stepsister, a spin on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Cinderella.

Romantic Roots, a romance bookstore, "magical gift shop, and fantasy floral design studio catering to romantic hearts," held its grand opening celebration this past Saturday, March 14, at 3003 Pacific Ave. SE in Olympia, Wash.

Co-owner Angela Scott told the Olympian that romance novels, plants, and flower-arranging workshops "keep the romance going." Former longtime owner of bridal business Weddings with Joy, Scott is working with business partner Amy Smith, who owns the building where the new store is located. 

Scott added that workshops on terrarium building and flower arrangement also are under consideration, as well as a book club.

Referring to her previous business, she said, "While weddings may no longer be fitted here, love will always live in this space. Romantic Roots carries that history forward--through stories, growth, and shared experiences." 

Jaime Leifer (photo: Miguel Cervantes)

Jaime Leifer is joining the adult trade division of Bloomsbury US as publishing director, effective April 13. She was most recently the publisher of Columbia Global Reports, a nonprofit publishing imprint at Columbia University. Before that she worked for many years at Hachette Book Group as v-p, associate publisher at PublicAffairs, and then at Basic Books.

Bloomsbury US president Sabrina McCarthy said, "Jaime is an astute publisher with decades of experience working side by side with authors to make their books a success. Her creativity, financial acumen, intelligence and determination are the perfect combination to drive the next phase of growth for Bloomsbury's successful adult trade division." 

Leifer said, "It's an absolute honor to join the Bloomsbury team. I've always admired the incredible books that Bloomsbury publishes, and to get to be a part of bringing such smart, creative books to readers throughout the U.S. and the world is a dream come true. I can't wait to work with the fantastic team to identify great new voices in fiction and nonfiction and continue to publish Bloomsbury's authors brilliantly."

German writer Peter Schneider, "whose novels like Lenz and The Wall Jumper charted his country's tortuous course through the late 20th century, from the social tumult of the 1960s through the fall of the Berlin Wall and the uneven reunification of West and East," died March 3, the New York Times reported. He was 85.

Early in his career, Schneider wrote speeches for future German Chancellor Willy Brandt before drifting into revolutionary Marxism and Maoism, becoming a leader of the 1968 student protest movement, the Times noted. "Though he never disavowed his left-wing beliefs, he soured on the violent radicalism of the 1968 movement, a disillusionment that he documented in his first novel, Lenz, which appeared in 1973 and immediately cemented his reputation as a writer."

His most successful novel, The Wall Jumper (1982), established his international literary reputation. It contained what became Schneider's most famous sentence: "It will take us longer to tear down the Wall in our heads than any wrecking company will need for the Wall we can see."

He was also interested "in the way that Germany's sense of guilt over the crimes of the Nazi era percolated and transmogrified through the generations. Like other German intellectuals, he struggled with the tension between his country's seemingly endless moral debt and the need to somehow, someday move on," the Times wrote.

In a 1987 Harper's magazine essay, Schneider examined how the generations that came after World War II had mishandled their country's shameful legacy: "We will truly have the right to talk freely about Israeli politics only when we have admitted our very real historical inhibitions. For the moment, one suspects that the sins of the fathers are passed on both to the sons and the grandsons, and will continue to be until the sins have been acknowledged."

Schneider's left-wing activism brought him into contact with many young Germans who later took the movement in a violent and criminal direction, and he grew disenchanted with the extreme left.

"The most important achievement of the 1968 movement in Germany remains its mass, and perhaps permanent, break with the culture of obedience," Schneider wrote in his memoir, Rebellion and Delusion (2008), adding that "its leaders ultimately succumbed to a fundamentally anti-democratic doctrine and turned a blind eye to the crimes of their revolutionary role models in Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia and China."

In the 21st century, Schneider remained a harsh critic of what he considered the botched reunification of East and West Germany. "Let's not kid ourselves: Reunification has gone wrong," he said in a 2025 interview with the Frankfurter Rundschau. "The worst part is that the AfD emerged from it, and the other parties have no idea how to deal with this outcome."

This past week, Shelf Awareness sent our Kids & YA Pre-Order E-Blast to more than 330,000 of the country's best book readers. The e-blast went to 334,924 customers of 74 participating independent bookstores.

The mailing features four upcoming titles selected by Shelf Awareness editors and three advertised titles, one of which is a sponsored feature. 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 second Wednesday of each month; the next will go out on Wednesday, April 8. This is a free service for indies. Stores interested in learning more can visit our program registration page or contact our partner program team via e-mail.

Ad spots are also available in the Kids & YA Pre-Order E-Blast. For more information contact sales@shelf-awareness.com for details.

For a sample of the March Kids & YA Pre-Order E-Blast, see this one from The Green Dragon Bookshop, Fort Dodge, Iowa.

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

Breakout by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon (Quill Tree Books)
The Sweetest of Lemons by Daniel Nayeri, illus. by Rahele Jomepour Bell (Levine Querido)
The Second Life of Snap by Erin Entrada Kelly (Greenwillow Books)
The Heirs by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé (Feiwel & Friends)

Author Malcolm Kempt (A Gift Before Dying, Crown) and Random House Midwest adult sales rep John Hastie visited a handful of Chicago-area bookstores last week to meet with booksellers and sign stock. The stores included Roscoe Books, Bookends & Beginnings, and Unabridged Bookstore. At The Book Stall, in Winnetka, Ill: (pictured from left) Kari Patch, Mike Wysock, Malcolm Kempt, Stephanie Hochschild, Liz Carter, Caitlin Marz.

Congratulations to Dog-Eared Books, Ames, Iowa, which celebrated its fifth anniversary the weekend of March 7 and 8 with in-store discounts, door prizes, giveaways, audiobooks donated by Libro.fm, kids activities, more than 500 cookies baked by one of the store owners' mothers, and the presence of Shop Dog Story, who greeted customers and showed off her tricks, and new Mascot Dog, Deb, who made her debut appearance.

The main event was a daylong flash tattoo offering. Six tattoo artists with whom the store has planned previous flash tattoo fundraisers in support of fighting book bans, Palestinian relief, and reproductive rights, offered their times and talents to provide literary tattoos for Dog-Eared Books' customers. Store owners Amanda Lepper and Ellyn Grimm pledged a 25% lifetime discount to any customer who chose a flash tattoo drawn from the store's branding. Book lovers formed lines that stretched the block starting as early as 7 a.m., camping out with coffees, blankets, and books in every form--hardcovers, paperbacks, e-books, and audiobooks. By day's end, more than 30 customers had shown up to show off their new Dog-Eared Books tattoos and earn lifetime discounts.

"Squash, our beautiful and beloved cat, passed away last week," BookMarx in Springfield, Mo., posted on Facebook. "Squash was our original Bookmarx cat. Adopting Squash proved to be transformational both for me personally and the bookstore. He turned our store from place to browse Murakami novels into a place with warmth, even on his prickliest days. Squash was my first pet; I didn't think I was a pet person, much less a cat person until I met Squash and realized what was missing from my life was a fluffy companion on my chest blocking the text of my book as I read.
  
"Squash held no jealousy towards Googey's stardom. He was just happy to no longer be crammed in costumes for Instagram photos. Squash didn't need to be riding as grand marshal; he was happiest curled up on the lap of one of his many, many friends. Yes, he may hiss or scratch at you, but only when you tried to get up.  

"I adopted Squash at the beginning of a particularly low period of my life. While it sounds hyperbolic, the way we tend to talk about the effect of animals on our lives, my life, this life I am so blessed to have, would not exist if Squash had not come into my life. The bookstore would not have survived my alcoholism if it were not for the two adorable cats distracting customers from the bloated lush behind the counter. Without the bookstore, the flap of the butterfly wing that allowed me to meet Harvey and fall in love and have a family, and get sober, would have sent me down some other path. And my path, unbeknownst to me at the time, began with finding Squash.  

"When we brought Squash home in January, we knew he did not have a long time left with us. He came home from the vet, just days after Harvey's 15-year-old dog and best bud Charlamagne passed away. Having Squash at home providing companionship to Harvey and our kids made those difficult weeks much easier, and we were so grateful. And Squash, don't think you won't be celebrated like Googey, one day I'll open yet another store in tribute to you--Squasha's Ski Chalet? I don't know. I'm still workshopping ideas. Squash you were loved so much by so many. Thank you for sharing your time on this earth on our laps. Squash I love you forever."

Lexi Mangano has been promoted to v-p, adult mass merchandiser & distributor sales, at Simon & Schuster.

---

Lauren Chung has joined Little, Brown as a publicist with a focus on the Spark and Voracious lists. She was previously at Crown and Clarkson Potter.

The Good Pornographer: A Novel by Brian Bouldrey (University of Wisconsin Press).

Today:
CBS Mornings: Nelson Dellis, author of Everyday Genius: Hacks to Boost Your Memory, Focus, Problem-Solving, and Much More (Abrams Press, $28.99, 9781419784811).

Fresh Air: Daniel Okrent, author of Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn't Easy (Jewish Lives) (Yale University Press, $35, 9780300270211). 

Drew Barrymore Show: Chris Appleton, author of Your Roots Don't Define You: Transform Your Life. Create Your Comeback. (Hanover Square Press, $30, 9781335001429).

Tonight Show: Daniel Arsham, author of Future Relic: Failures, Disasters, Detours, and How I Made a Career as an Artist (Authors Equity, $30, 9798893311761).

Also on the Tonight Show: Demi Lovato, author of One Plate at a Time: Recipes for Finding Freedom with Food (Flatiron, $34.99, 9781250393449). She will also appear tomorrow on the Today Show. 

Tomorrow:
Drew Barrymore Show: Robin Arzon, author of Eat to Hustle: 75 High-Protein Plant-Based Recipes (Voracious, $35, 9780316594271).

A Netflix series is in the works on the tempestuous relationship between Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, with Patricia Riggen (Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan) and Gabriel Ripstein (600 Miles, Narcos) directing, Variety reported, adding that the series "dovetails with the objectives of the streamer which last year announced a $1 billion investment in production over the next four years in Mexico."

The as yet untitled project is an adaptation of French writer Claire Berest's book Rien n'est noir, with writer-actor María Renée Prudencio (Los Adioses, Club Sandwich) serving as head writer.

"The ambition of this project is unprecedented," said Carolina Leconte, content v-p, Netflix Mexico. "We want to show a real Frida--a Frida who seems to step out of the screen and take you by the hand so you can live her story alongside her, during one of the most significant eras in this country: a Mexico that Frida and Diego placed on the world map."

The longlist has been selected for the 2026 Stella Prize, which celebrates "exceptional works by Australian women and non-binary writers." The shortlist will be announced April 8 and the winner May 13. The winner will receive A$60,000 (about US$41,935). 

The longlist:
KONTRA by Eunice Andrada (poetry)
The Rot by Evelyn Araluen (poetry)
Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks (nonfiction/memoir)
Ankami by Debra Dank (nonfiction/memoir/social commentary)
Fireweather by Miranda Darling (fiction)
Apron-Sorrow/Sovereign-Tea by Natalie Harkin (nonfiction)
Cannon by Lee Lai (graphic novel)
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (fiction)
Wait Here by Lucy Nelson (fiction)
Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian Family by Micaela Sahhar (nonfiction/memoir)
58 Facets: On Violence and the Law by Marika Sosnowski (nonfiction)
I Am Nannertgarrook by Tasma Walton (fiction)

In Douglas Stuart's superb third novel, John of John, a young man seeks to reconcile his sexuality and artistic goals with his family's expectations and his devout upbringing.

Twenty-two-year-old John-Calum Macleod goes by "Cal" to distinguish himself from John, his overbearing, violent father. Cal is a penniless Edinburgh art school graduate when his father calls him home to their Isle of Harris croft one August in the '90s. Cal's maternal grandmother, Ella, has lived with them since Cal's mother, Grace, left when he was nine. Now Ella shows signs of heart failure. John expects Cal's help with the sheep and weaving Harris tweed. For Cal, it means an end to his hedonistic lifestyle of alcohol, drugs, and sex with men; and it means a return to secrecy.

In Falabay, piety is enforced: "Sabbath chains" block off playground equipment on Sundays. John is a pillar of the tiny local church, singing the Psalms in Gaelic, but Cal's faith wavers. The doctrine of predestination separates the Unsaved (such as Cal) from the Saved. Meanwhile, the population is decreasing and traditional professions are waning. Among the key members of the community are Innes MacInnes, John's best friend; and Cal's closest friends, brother-and-sister pair Doll and Isla Macdonald. Isla is assumed to be intended for Cal, but he's hoping to resume his friends-with-benefits situation with Doll. The Macdonalds can't make a living from fishing anymore and collect unemployment; mostly, Doll drinks himself into oblivion.

Stuart (Shuggie Bain; Young Mungo) builds an absorbing, deliciously melodramatic story around the contrast between modernity and the old ways. Much remains unspoken in this insular environment, yet the women--Ella, Grace, and Isla--know everything. Cal is more like his father than he realizes. There is irony but also rightness to the repeating of family patterns. The characters' power plays and acts of desperation are heartrending. Despite somber realities--illegitimate pregnancy, property disputes, physical and religious abuse--Ella's mischief and Cal's love of color and talent for crafts lend lightness. Stuart's every observation is profound (Cal "felt an oily resentment towards his father, a disgraceful rancour towards his grandmother's aging body"); the simplest phrase is memorable for its beauty ("the Sabbath bled by like a slow tide").

Intriguing in its particularities but timeless in wisdom, John of John offers hope that relinquishing shame creates freedom to be true to oneself. It's irresistible and an instant classic. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck

Shelf Talker: In a modern masterpiece with the weight of Scripture, Douglas Stuart contrasts the freedom of the big city with the harshness of a gay young man's religious island home.