Carl Cowling, CEO of WH Smith Group, has resigned following an independent Deloitte review, which cited, among other reasons, inconsistent accounting practices in the company's North America division, the Bookseller reported. He will remain with the company until February 28, 2026. Andrew Harrison, CEO of U.K. Travel for the company, will serve as interim CEO while WH Smith begins a search for a new CEO. 

Carl Cowling

In addition to the problems with the North American division, the review, which was released Tuesday, found "insufficient systems, controls and review procedures for supplier income across commercial and finance functions," along with "weaknesses in the composition of the finance team." The review was commissioned after an accounting blunder lead to millions being wiped from its profits, causing shares to tumble, the Bookseller noted.

Cowling said: "While the issues identified in the Deloitte review arose in our North American division, I recognize the seriousness of this situation and as group CEO feel it is only right that I step down from my position. It has been a privilege to lead WH Smith for the past six years as CEO. 

"During this time, we have guided the company through the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic, pioneered our highly successful one-stop shop for travel essentials and completed the divestment of our high street and online businesses. I would like to thank the entire team for their support and I wish them well."

WH Smith chair Annette Court commented: "On behalf of the company and the board, I would like to thank Carl for his significant contribution to WH Smith over the past 11 years. Upon being appointed as group CEO in November 2019, Carl successfully navigated the company through the global pandemic and, more recently, has strategically repositioned the group as a pure-play travel retailer. We wish Carl every success in the future." 

Court added that Harrison "will join the board with immediate effect. With the support of an external executive search firm, the board is now committed to appointing the strongest candidate to lead the next phase and guide the group's long-term growth strategy."

Harrison said the immediate priority for WH Smith is "to maintain a relentless focus on operational excellence and execute the remediation plan with discipline. We have a very resilient business and the fundamentals of the group are strong. Working alongside Max Izzard, group CFO, I am confident that we can move forward and position the group for long-term growth and success."

In March, WH Smith sold its 480 high street--or main street--stores to Modella Capital for £76 million (about $99.6 million), saying it would focus on its travel business, particularly its 1,200 stores in airports, hospitals, railroad stations, and elsewhere in 32 countries.

A bookstore and wine bar called Bound & Vine is set to open in Fayetville, N.C., on Saturday, November 22, the Greater Fayetteville Business Journal reported.

Bound & Vine will reside in a 1,400-square-foot space at 134 Person St. and carry a range of general-interest titles. The bar side of the business will serve a variety of alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks. 

"The vision for Bound & Vine is to be more than a bookshop; but a sanctuary for exploration, empowerment, and escape," said store owner Kellie Artis. "We look forward to welcoming everyone as we open our doors to the Fayetteville community."

The festivities on the 22nd will include three local author signings in the afternoon followed by live music in the evening. The first 50 visitors will receive a free gift.

Books & More Bookstore, a new and used bookstore with titles for all ages, held a grand opening last month in Missouri City, Tex., the Fort Bend Star reported.

Marissa and Michael Mathernes

Owned by brother-and-sister team Michael and Marissa Matherne, the bookstore is located at 3340 FM 1902 Rd., Suite 13. It carries a general-interest inventory highlighting children's books and local authors, along with puzzles, games, and other gift items. 

The Mathernes host storytime sessions and author appearances, with an event featuring a dozen local authors scheduled for Saturday. Early next year the owners plan to launch a membership program that will provide discounts and other benefits.

Marissa and Michael Matherne are both lifelong residents of Fort Bend County, in which Missouri City resides. Prior to opening the bookstore, Michael Matherne spent eight years as an elementary school teacher.

"I have a love for teaching as well as a love for books and community," Matherne told the Fort Bend Star. "I wanted to bring the classroom to the community. That's why I started Books & More... a bookstore that offered learning opportunities and community events in addition to selling books."

Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y., recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new on-campus bookstore, which will be operated by Barnes & Noble College at the Cheel Campus Center, North Country Now reported, adding that the university's original storefront site downtown at the corner of Market and Raymond remains vacant. 

"The new space places the store at the center of student activity and provides easy access for community members attending Clarkson hockey games and other campus events," the university noted. "The move reflects Clarkson's commitment to enhancing student life and creating a more vibrant, accessible hub for students, faculty, staff and the Golden Knight faithful."

Bob Puma, B&N College regional manager, said the company "truly values the partnership with Clarkson. This was a complex undertaking, which took many meetings and difficult discussions to bring to fruition. I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome. I'm also quite impressed with the student involvement with the project. This was instrumental in achieving the finished design and the outstanding look and feel of the store."

Rachel Cooke, a journalist with the Observer for 25 years who "reviewed books, interviewed celebrities, politicians and writers, championed graphic novels, wrote a weekly TV column for the New Statesman, and also published three books," died November 14, the Bookseller reported. She was 56

Lennie Goodings, chair of Virago, which published her most recent title, The Virago Book of Friendship (2024), said, "I remember, most poignantly now, that it was inspired by the death of her great friend, Carmen Callil, Virago's founder. It will be published in America in December by Norton as The Book of Women's Friendships. Her first book, Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties [2013], was published by us too and she also collected her beguiling Observer pieces in Kitchen Person: Notes on Cooking & Eating [2023] , published by Juliet Annan [publishing director] at Weidenfeld.... All three of her wonderful books reflect the passions and the wit of a great writer."

Goodings added that Cooke's "journalism, her books and her love for her beloved husband, the writer Anthony Quinn, lit up the world for her--and for us. Witty and inspiring, her knowledge and sheer appetite for life was shared with millions of readers."

After editing the student newspaper Cherwell during her final year at Oxford University's Keble College, she started working as part of a Sunday Times trainee initiative, "and rapidly established herself as a hard worker who grasped that journalism could also be fun," the Observer wrote, adding that when she was offered work on the paper's review section in 2001, she agreed. Beginning in 2009, she wrote a column on food, as well as television reviews for the New Statesman, interviews for Esquire, and other Observer work. In 2006 she was named Interviewer of the Year at the British Press Awards.

In a tribute, Tim Adams, editor of the Observer's New Review, noted: "Rachel could not only do everything as a journalist--fearless and funny commentary, ego-piercing interviews, campaigning social reporting, erudite and blistering book reviews, taste-making food writing, courageous foreign reportage--she could invariably do it all better, and quicker, than anybody else."

Jane Ferguson, a former editor of the New Review, said Cooke had "intellectual ballast, lightly worn, authority, bite, humor and positively fizzed with ideas.... Despite filing over 100,000 words annually over decades, she somehow still had time to read and see everything."

Journalist Sonia Sodha, a former colleague of Cooke's at the Observer, said: "I feel so lucky to have had Rachel Cooke as a friend and colleague in recent years." Sodha described Cooke as "funny, kind, clever, a truly exceptional writer" who was a "loyal sister-in-arms" to feminist colleagues.

This past week, Shelf Awareness sent our Kids & YA Pre-Order E-Blast to more than 268,000 of the country's best book readers. The e-blast went to 268,312 customers of 64 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, December 10. 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 November Kids & YA Pre-Order E-Blast, see this one from Laurel & Leaf Bookshop, Somerset, Pa.

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

The Swan's Daughter: A Possibly Doomed Love Story by Roshani Chokshi (Wednesday)
Ghost Boys: The Graphic Novel by Jewell Parker Rhodes, illus. by Setor Fiadzigbey (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Pizza and Taco: Go Viral! by Stephen Shaskan (Random House Graphic)
Bored by Felicita Sala (Neal Porter Books)

Novelist Marilynne Robinson was awarded the inaugural Lewis H. Lapham Award for Literary Excellence from Harper's magazine at their 175th anniversary gala last week. In her speech, Robinson noted, "Harper has proved the power of true witness in the face of corrupt economic forces and outright disaster. In this moment, it reminds us that the voice of a free people is full of turbulence and also grace." (photo: Beowulf Sheehan)

The inaugural Chicagoland Holiday Bookstore Trolley will make its debut next month. Organized by the Chicagoland Independent Booksellers Alliance, the holiday trolley will take a group of 25 book lovers plus one guide on a festive tour of independent bookstores in Chicago and surrounding suburbs.

Ten route options are available, with each route featuring stops at 4-5 indie bookstores--in total, 43 Chicago-area indies are taking part. The trolley tours will run on December 6, 7, 13, 14, and 20, with morning and afternoon options available.

Per Fox32 Chicago, all of the initial routes sold out within 48 hours, and organizers are working to add more.

"The solution to all your problems may not be in a bookstore, but you should probably check." That was the sidewalk chalkboard message in front of Novel Bay Booksellers, Sturgeon Bay, Wis., which noted: "No promises... but we think it's worth a stop in the bookstore just in case."

"Life seems to slow down in here, and we love it that way," Fabled Bookshop & Cafe in Waco, Tex., posted on Facebook.

Tomorrow:
Today: Cynthia Erivo, author of Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They're Too Much (Flatiron, $28.99, 9781250428325).

The View: Nate Berkus, author of Foundations: Timeless Design That Feels Personal (S&S/Simon Element, $45, 9781668026137).

The Kelly Clarkson Show: Lauren Roberts, author of Fearful (S&S Books for Young Readers, $16.99, 9781665971072).

The Forge has released a trailer for The Chronology of Water, based on Lidia Yuknavitch's memoir. Deadline reported that Kristen Stewart, who adapted the screenplay, made her feature film directing debut on the project, which had its world premiere at this year's Cannes Film Festival. The movie opens in New York and Los Angeles theaters on December 5 before a national release on January 9.

Imogen Poots stars as Lidia, "a young woman who finds escape from an abusive father through competitive swimming in the 1980s. After her athletic dreams are derailed, she navigates love, loss, addiction, sexuality and her own self-destructive impulses while discovering her voice, and healing, through the transformative act of writing," Deadline noted. The cast also includes Thora Birch, Jim Belushi, Earl Cave, Tom Sturridge, Charlie Carrick, and Kim Gordon. 

"The reason that I wanted to make this was to screw with form, because it's not about what happened to Lidia Yuknavitch, it's what happens to us all and how we can internalize that violence," Stewart said in Cannes. "I know it sounds dramatic, but it's true. It's incredibly violent to be a woman."

Winners have been announced for the 2025 Writers' Trust of Canada Awards, "presented for individual works and career achievement, and in recognition of accomplishments in the fields of fiction, nonfiction, short fiction, poetry and literature for young readers." 

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson was awarded the C$75,000 (about US$53,465) Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction for Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead; Maria Reva received the C$70,000 (about US$49,900) Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for Endling; and the C$10,000 (about US$7,130) Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers went to Roza Nozari for All the Parts We Exile. 

Four authors received awards for mid-career and lifetime achievement: Bren Simmers won the C$60,000 (about US$42,770) Latner Griffin Writers' Trust Poetry Prize; Sheree Fitch was named winner of the C$40,000 (about US$28,515) Matt Cohen Award: In Celebration of a Writing Life; Julie Flett took the C$40,000 (about US$28,515) Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People; and Kim Thúy was given the C$25,000 (about US$17,820) Writers' Trust Engel Findley Award.

photo: Janice Checchio

Steve Ramirez is a neuroscientist and associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University, where he leads a research lab focused on imaging and artificially manipulating memories in the brain. He completed his PhD in neuroscience at MIT and is a former Junior Fellow of Harvard University. Ramirez is a TED speaker, a recipient of the White House PECASE Award, and his work has been featured by National Geographic, Forbes, and NPR. He loves boxing, playing Mario Kart, and cheering for all sports teams Boston!

His debut book, How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist's Quest to Alter the Past (Princeton University Press, November 4, 2025), is a blend of memoir and science that explores memory's incredible power to shape who we are--and how we might one day learn to rewrite our own.

On your nightstand now:

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here by Jonathan Blitzer.

This is my top pick for best book of 2025, and it has resonated deeply. It unpacks the complex sociopolitical forces that shaped immigration between Central America and the United States, and I couldn't help but hear my parent's voices on every page. It's a heck of a story to escape a civil war and give your family a fighting chance at life--one that I'm so glad can continue to be passed down. It's also provided an inspiring, sobering, and emotional undercurrent that I hope to imbue in my own writing.

Favorite book when you were a child:

The Giver by Lois Lowry. It was the first book that made me realize memory could be a kind of rebellion against the present, and yet, the present inevitably applies a new coat of paint to what we experience and remember. It's trippy, just like the changeability of memory itself!

Your top five authors:

Stephen Greenblatt
Bill Bryson
Mary Roach
Carl Sagan
Daniel Gilbert

I had to stick to nonfiction or else this would actually be an even more impossible question to answer!

Book you've faked reading:

Ulysses by James Joyce. I want to read this book, and I want to love this book. I've started it more times than I'd like to admit and then find my brain pretzeled into a narrative knot, so each time I promise myself this will be the time I actually finish and untangle its story.

Book you're an evangelist for:

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. This book made all of reality feel like a playground worth exploring, which we can then transform into a story by connecting all the "dots," so to speak, that have ever existed.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. The artwork is as mesmerizing and recursive as the book itself, and I knew before reading a word that it would bend my brain in a way that'd probably take me the rest of my life to understand.

Book you hid from your parents:

None! My parents would drive me to Barnes & Noble almost every week before I could even drive, and I almost always picked out a book to bring home. Reading was one of the things that they did their best to encourage and, if anything, they made it so that I never had to hide any readings from them by entertaining my obsession.

Book that changed your life:

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. This wonderful book reframed how I think about storytelling, science, and memory, which are some of the unifying forces that bind us together as people. All of mythology, like science, has a shared goal of making sense of being alive, and we see its influence everywhere around us: from movies to music to shows, there's a larger common story being told at the level of humanity. I hold that universalness close to my heart.

Favorite line from a book:

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" -The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I mean, c'mon! That sentence is as beautiful as it is haunting. It also happens to capture what I consider an entire theory of memory in one breath.

Five books you'll never part with:

God: A Biography by Jack Miles
Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Each of these books blends hard-hitting research with poignant storytelling in a way that creates raw, lasting impact. Whether it's taking a literary lens to the God of the Old Testament, learning about the near-infinite storage capacity of our brain, cruising through the beginnings of the universe with a Big Bang, finding patterns in what makes us happy, accepting the tragedy of life's fragility, these books have all given me glimpses into my deepest sources of happiness as well as fear. I like to think their stories held my hand as I took my first steps into authorhood.

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

Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt.

Reading it felt like falling through time and landing in Shakespeare's mind, right in the middle of the English Renaissance and brimming with all the sound and fury that would become Shakespeare's plays, poems, and characters--how awe-inspiringly rich the world looks from this vantage point! I'd love to have that first encounter again and again to remind myself that every little and big thing in existence has a story to tell if you listen closely enough.

What made you want to write How to Change a Memory?

It started as a childhood dream: to write something that mattered to me and, by extension--hopefully--that mattered to the world. I wanted to braid my personal story with whatever career I decided to dedicate my life to, and that ended up being science. But the dream of writing this book became something much deeper along the way. It was a direct way to honor my late friend Xu, whose memory and scientific discoveries live at the emotional core of this book. That childhood dream transformed into this book: it's about the science of remembering, yes--but it's also about what it means to carry someone with you.

Young adult literature has no shortage of riffs on Louisa May Alcott's classic bildungsroman, Little Women. The best of these, such as So Many Beginnings by Bethany C. Morrow, converse fluently with Alcott's novel while adding new perspectives in a way that seems essential, almost predestined. Katie Bernet's audacious debut, Beth Is Dead, is an astonishingly successful addition to their ranks.

The 21st-century-set novel opens as Jo and Amy March find the body of their sister Beth near the house of Jo's friend and Amy's clandestine hook-up, Laurie. Bernet nimbly moves among the points of view of all four March sisters to unspool the ensuing investigation and to reveal events in the distant and immediate past that lead up to the murder.

In a novel filled with numerous smart and imaginative authorial choices, the smartest is also the most significant break from Alcott's canon--well, after murder. In Bernet's rendition, Mr. March isn't an army chaplain but an author. His breakout novel is Little Women, a thinly veiled depiction of the lives of his daughters (Beth dies in this one, too), which he publishes to immediate controversy and commercial success.

This move allows Bernet to put her March sisters in relationship with readers' preconceived notions of Alcott's March sisters and to push against simplistic, unfairly limited understandings of their characters: villainous Amy, sweet Beth, pretty Meg, clever Jo. The sisters must reckon with what their father's book got right and wrong about them and the consequences of the tension between reality and fiction. What's more, Bernet isn't afraid to implicate readers in this tension. "I thought Dad made me a stereotype, but the fans did that," Meg reflects.

Lest this all sound too cerebral to be fun, don't forget that Beth Is Dead is a murder mystery--and a whopping good one. Who among the denizens of Alcott's Concord, Mass., could be capable of such a heinous crime? As the case turns up suspect after suspect, readers will see familiar characters such as Sallie Gardiner (Meg's best friend), Henry Hummel (Heinrich in Alcott's novel, a member of the immigrant family helped by the Marches), and Fred Vaughn (Amy's would-be suitor) in new and significantly more homicidal lights.

Toward the end of Beth Is Dead, Jo recounts asking her father why his fictional Beth had to die. "He said that... her loss would stay with his readers forever." Bernet's novel will, too. --Stephanie Appell, freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: Katie Bernet's audacious and astonishingly successful debut novel reimagines Little Women as a metafictional murder mystery.

The top 10 bestselling Libro.fm audiobooks at independent bookstore locations during 2025:

1. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green (Penguin Random House Audio) 
2. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (Penguin Random House Audio) 
3. Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros (Recorded Books)
4. Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
5. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Penguin Random House Audio) 
6. Bury our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab (Macmillan Audio) 
7. Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager)
8. Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams (Macmillan Audio)
9. My Friends by Fredrik Backman (Simon & Schuster Audio)
10. A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna (Penguin Random House Audio)