Last week, Shelf Awareness talked to independent booksellers and ABA CEO Allison Hill about preparations for the upcoming holiday season. Featured here are the perspectives of three more indie booksellers.

"I'm going to separate how I feel about the world from how I feel about the business," said Nina Barrett, owner of Bookends & Beginnings in Evanston, Ill. "Of course I'm frightened about the state of things, but I don't feel specifically anxious about the holiday season."

For the most part, Barrett is treating this year "like any other holiday season," with the one notable exception being that she's adding a coupon to the holiday catalog, which she has never done before. The beginning of last year's holiday season, Barrett explained, was so slow that it was "downright alarming," and with that in mind, she's placed a coupon in the catalog that is valid only from November 1-26. The coupon is good for $10 off and a free tote bag with a purchase of $100 or more, and she hopes it spurs some early shopping.

Asked about what she's heard from publisher reps, Barrett said that some reps were "more pointed than others" about highlighting which books will be "one-shot." The idea that there may be only one shipment of a given title has become a standard part of her holiday planning, which she said was not quite the case prior to the pandemic. It's something "we've gotten used to."

Touching on sidelines, Barrett said she has seen messages coming in from vendors about increased prices. While she hasn't felt much of an impact related to it this year, she is concerned about prices continuing to rise in 2026. Gifts and nonbook items are part of the store's identity, Barrett continued, and "we feel we have to have those things."

The bookstore is doing well this year, Barrett reported, partly because of the opening of Middles Used Books, a sister store focused on used titles, and partly because of a concerted effort to encourage customers to pay with cash. 

She and her team have "put up signs everywhere" asking customers to pay cash and made it part of the "checkout conversation." It's gone well so far, Barret said, and "cash is up 125%" from last year. She noted that even if a customer doesn't have cash that day, "maybe next time they'll remember." 

During her time as a bookseller, Barrett recalled, she's seen that "whatever the general economy is doing," the same things are not necessarily mirrored in store. Part of that, she said, can be attributed to how independent bookstores are places of comfort and refuge for people. That said, it "continues to be really important to talk to customers about why we're here and why we're different, why it's worth supporting what we're doing."

Tom Nissley, owner of Phinney Books in Seattle, Wash., said he hasn't taken a markedly different approach to fall buying this year. The store has had a "very healthy year so far," he added, and the fall new releases look strong. He has heard the "usual warnings" from publishers about titles "where reprints might be tricky," but otherwise he has not heard many other supply-chain warnings, at least for books.

From sidelines suppliers, however, Nissley and his team have heard "warnings about tariffs and supply-chain issues." He has tried to stock up a bit to prepare, but "sidelines are not a huge part of our business."

Nissley said his short-term outlook for the store is "very good," explaining that Phinney Books has had nearly its "strongest year ever" and "our neighborhood and city are in daily good shape." His main concern is "for the medium- and long-term, both economically and politically," and he is also concerned about the "destruction of our intellectual life" that could stem from right-wing attacks on universities and cultural institutions as well as the "dismantling and automation of general book discussion." 

Phinney Books is often "cushioned here against those effects" and, to some extent, the worse things get, the more customers and community members seek out the store as a "thoughtful, un-automated oasis." But he wondered whether that can last indefinitely.

Nick Buzanski, general manager and buyer at Books Are Magic, which has two stores in Brooklyn, N.Y., reported that the approach to holiday ordering hasn't shifted in a major way. While things are more expensive and tariffs certainly don't help, costs have been rising for a few years already. As he put it, "costs since Covid have gone up and stayed up," and when something does go up in price, it's not always clear if it's due to tariffs. 

When it comes to buying generally, the store is putting more emphasis "on titles we're really passionate about" and that the staff knows will sell, rather than necessarily going with everything publishers are strongly pushing. Buzanski noted that during the pandemic and through about 2023, there was usually a push to "buy heavy," especially on "giftier, full-color books." This year, he hasn't received that message.

On the subject of nonbook items, Buzanski explained that Books Are Magic doesn't do a lot of sidelines that "aren't our branded merchandise," and much of that is made in the U.S. Some items have gotten more expensive, and some companies have changed their order models, but "nobody's saying specifically" that it's due to tariffs.

Asked about his general outlook for the end of the year, Buzanski said "cautiously optimistic would be where I'm at." Compared to some recent years, he said he feels that fall releases are "lacking some of those big-name books," but when that happens, "you just have to shift and handsell the books people might not know but you're passionate about." 

He added that the store has a "really big event season booked" and has a significant preorder campaign going for Something from Nothing (Clarkson Potter), the new cookbook from Alison Roman, who is a local author. The store is also launching a first editions club this fall, featuring new titles chosen by author and store co-owner Emma Straub. It will debut in October with Lily King's next book, Heart the Lover (Grove), and as of July, already had more than 360 preorders.

Buzanski hopes the end of the year is strong for everyone, since it's "been a year already, you know," and he thinks booksellers will be able to accomplish a lot by "being kind to people and selling good books." --Alex Mutter

Copperfield's Books, which operates several locations in northern California, has reconsidered a decision announced last month to downsize its Petaluma store and eliminate the used books department by the end of September. 

In a statement posted on social media, the bookseller, which was founded by co-owners Paul Jaffe and Barney Brown in 1981, said a decision has been made to postpone the closure of the used books department in Petaluma until January 2026, "in a good faith effort to attempt to make the department financially solvent and to allow sufficient time to conclude negotiations with our landlords and for any potential reconfiguration of the store."

The owners will reconvene at the end of January and decide at that time "if anticipated intervening changes with the union's input are sufficient progress to warrant keeping the used books department operating. Copperfield's Books Management shared this information with the Copperfield's Books Petaluma Union yesterday, August 14, in response to a proposal that the Union had made in late July to postpone implementation of the decision. We also extended an invitation to the Union to continue brainstorming with us [about] ways in which to make the department sustainable."

The owners noted that sales in the used books department have dropped 24% since 2021, "creating an unsustainable loss that threatens the viability of the entire store. The initial decision to close the Used Books Department was made in order to preserve the bookstore and to keep it operating and serving the Petaluma community. The Copperfield's Books Petaluma store is comprised of three buildings, each of which are presently on
month-to-month lease agreements while we negotiate the terms of new leases with two different landlords. Changing the size of the store is complicated and not subject to Copperfield's sole control. 

"At the time of the department closure announcement, many possibilities were still to be examined, as we looked to begin good faith negotiations with the Copperfield's Petaluma Union. Copperfield's Management discussed options internally and with the buildings' owners. Therefore, while the 60% downsizing figure has been quoted, that figure is based on a worst-case scenario. Any statements to the contrary are inaccurate. We continue to believe that, in working closely with our landlords, community leaders, other professionals, and Union partners to make the department sustainable, we will be able to ensure that the Petaluma store and all that it means to, and provides for, the community will be here for years to come."

Amy Williams, owner of As the Page Turns bookstore in Travelers Rest, S.C., has launched a $15,000 GoFundMe campaign to help manage two separate leases as she moves the shop, WYFF reported.

The lease on her store at 32 S. Main Street, where she's been for five years, is set to expire at the end of the year and would double in cost, which is outside of her budget. The new space for As the Page Turns is at 3 Plaza Drive, where the lease will start on October 1. Williams is unable to break her current lease, so she will be paying temporarily for two locations.

"The markup on books is very, very slim. No one gets into the business of owning a bookstore to be a millionaire," Williams said. "You can enter the business because you love books and you love reading, and you love putting the right book in the right hand of the right reader, and, you know, small bookstores don't get the same advantages that big bookstores get."

On the GoFundMe page, Williams wrote that the money raised will go toward paying off the remaining lease amount and utilities for the final three months of 2025, and covering the costs of moving inventory, fixtures, and shelving. Thus far, a bit more than $2,300 has been raised toward the $15,000 goal.

"I am in tears every single day of the support that we've gotten so far," she said.

Greg Iles, the bestselling author of the Natchez Burning trilogy (Natchez Burning, The Bone Tree, and Mississippi Blood) and other works, died August 15 after a decades-long battle with the blood cancer multiple myeloma, the Associated Press reported. He was 65. Born in Germany, Iles moved to Natchez, Miss., with his family when he was three and developed a deep connection with the region, the AP noted, adding that many of his stories are set in the state, including historical fiction suspense novels exploring race and class in the 1960s Jim Crow South.

Greg Iles

His other books include Cemetery Road (2019), The Death Factory (2014), The Devil's Punchbowl (2009), Third Degree (2007), True Evil (2006), Turning Angel (2005), Blood Memory (2005), The Footprints of God (2003), The Quiet Game (1999), and Spandau Phoenix (1993).

In a social media post announcing Iles's death, Dan Conaway, his agent, described the author as "warm, funny, fearless, and completely sui generis. To be on the other end of the phone as he talked through character and plot, problem-solving on the fly, was to be witness to genius at work, plain and simple. As a writer he fused story-craft, bone-deep humanity, and a growing sense of moral and political responsibility with the ferocious precisions of a whirling dervish or a master watchmaker.... I also want to express my profound gratitude to Caroline, his wife, for her friendship, and my sorrow and sympathy to the whole Iles family for this impossible loss."

Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson posted: "I am heartbroken to hear of the passing of our beloved native son, Greg Iles. Greg was a talented and brilliant author who never backed away from standing for justice and being an outspoken advocate for change. His books were captivating and in fact mesmerizing. Once I would start reading one, I struggled to put it down. Sometimes I would stay up all night straining to stay awake as I turned each page. I was so blessed to call Greg a friend, not only personally but a friend to all of Natchez. We will forever miss him."

The Natchez Democrat noted that in a May 2024 interview after his final book, Southern Man, was published, Iles said he had intentionally put off a stem cell transplant in order to finish writing the book. Iles said he "waited to do the stem cell transplant, which some people will tell you is insane, but this book is so important. What it deals with is so dangerous and is what the country is dealing with right now. It's an important political novel. I was not going into a procedure like that, which could potentially kill me without it being finished."

Many writers paid tribute to Isles on social media, including Joseph Finder ("He was a terrific writer and a really good person, and I will miss him.") and Scott Turow ("Greg was a gigantic talent and lived with passion."). Stephen King noted that in addition to being a bestselling writer, he was "lead guitarist of a group of writers known as the Rock Bottom Remainders.... He was a hell of a writer and a hell of a player. He was also a good friend, and he'll be missed."

Square Books, Oxford, Miss., posted: "Our hearts are heavy today as we remember the life and legacy of legendary best-selling Mississippi author Greg Iles. We are grateful for his tremendous contribution to the literary culture of Mississippi, and consider him one of the great Southern writers of our time."

Mermaid Books, Milford, Conn., hosted Meg Waite Clayton (r.), who discussed her new novel, Typewriter Beach (Harper), with bookstore owner Kristen Mascia.

Posted by Scout & Morgan Books, Cambridge, Minn.: "When you're celebrating your birthday and living a childhood dream in a Belle dress, and are on your way to see Beauty and the Beast, a stop at the bookstore for books and a photoshoot make sense. Thank you, Stephanie, for including us in your celebration. Happy birthday to you!"

Posted on Facebook by Sulfur Books, Clifton Springs, N.Y.: "Taking a moment before we open our doors to take in the view, soak up the quiet, and appreciate all the 'things' that books provide--hope, knowledge, escape, understanding, perspective--all of the things that are contained within these walls.... Come say hi and find that 'thing' you're looking for."

Anne Tate Pearce is joining Broadside PR as a literary publicist, effective tomorrow, after 14 years at Simon & Schuster, where she served most recently as deputy director of publicity, and several years at HarperCollins and Random House before that. Pearce has worked on a range of titles, from fiction and memoir to narrative nonfiction and history, and has led campaigns for a number of award-winning, notable, and bestselling authors, including John Irving, Susan Orlean, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Amity Gaige, Safiya Sinclair, David Greenberg, Rebecca Giggs, Lisa Halliday, Saeed Jones, Jessamine Chan, Martin Cruz Smith, Mary Higgins Clark, Michael Schur, and Rinker Buck.

The Winding Willow by Will Hillenbrand (Holiday House).

Today:
The View repeat: Bob the Drag Queen, author of Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert (Gallery Books, $27.99, 9781668061978).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Harley Pasternak, author of The Carb Reset: Store Less Fat, Burn the Rest, and Harness the Power of Carbs to Lose Weight (Rodale, $28, 9780593578810).

Drew Barrymore Show repeat: Pamela Anderson, author of I Love You: Recipes from the Heart (Voracious, $35, 9780316573481).

Netflix has greenlit six Mexican movies, including an adaptation of Carlos Fuentes's 1962 short novel Aura, which will be written and directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios, with Stacy Perskie producing, Deadline reported. 

Among the other upcoming projects are México 86, starring Diego Luna and telling the story of Mexico landing the 1986 World Cup, as well as movies from Jorge Michel Grau, Rodrigo García, Ariel Winograd, Alonso Ruizpalacios, and Maite Alberdi.

"Our commitment is real," said Carolina Leconte, Netflix's v-p of content for Mexico. "Mexico is a diverse and rich country, full of unique and authentic stories still waiting to be told. Its talent--both behind and in front of the camera--is renowned globally. That's why today, to celebrate Mexican Cinema Day, we are announcing a film slate that represents that diversity." 

Netflix has already released Rodrigo Prieto's magical realist film Pedro Páramo, based on the 1955 novel by Juan Rulfo. Deadline noted that the company's "Mexican fare has been resonating globally.... International success is clearly welcomed, but Leconte explained that the priority is always finding an audience at home."

"We love seeing Mexican stories being so well received, not just here but all over the world," she added. "Still, our main focus is always on creating local content for local audiences. What matters most to us is telling stories that reflect who we are, that help us see ourselves and our reality on screen. If those stories go on to cross borders, that's amazing--but our heart is always with what moves us as a country."

Author and editor Ed Park has been named as the recipient of the 2025 Deborah Pease Prize from A Public Space. The prize, named for one of A Public Space's founders, honors a person who has "advanced literature and the arts." The prize will be presented to Park on October 20 in New York City.

Park is the author of the novels Same Bed Different Dreams, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and Personal Days, and the story collection An Oral History of Atlantis. His essays have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, the New York Review of Books, and Bookforum. He was an editor at the Village Voice in the 1990s and one of the founding editors of the Believer in the 2000s. He has also worked as an editor at the Poetry Foundation, Penguin, and Amazon.

A Public Space board member Yiyun Li said, "Ed Park is one of the most innovative and nimble-minded fiction writers working today. His novels and stories are sharp, playful, and imaginative; full of unexpected turns and astute observations of the absurdities of both historical events and contemporary life. He is also one of the most generous and supportive figures in publishing, as a writer, a reader, an editor, and a critic. The world is lucky to have Ed, and we are lucky to have him among us."

Argentinean comics artist Sole Otero (Mothballs) offers a tale that meanders through historical and speculative fiction with Witchcraft, a graphic novel that spans centuries in Buenos Aires. In Otero's evolving but recognizable visual style, the opening scene emerges spookily from the fog, as a ship arrives in Nuestra Señora del Buen Ayre in 1768. (One of a series of footnotes explains that this was the original name of Buenos Aires, given by the conqueror Pedro de Mendoza.) Readers see three women disembark with their goat, taking with them the three-year-old son of another passenger, to the latter's wails of despair. From these early, atmospheric pages, a sense of unease is established and maintained.

The following sections of the narrative undertake large jumps in time. In more or less present-day Buenos Aires, a man tells his friend a scarcely credible story of nude women dancing around entranced nude men, with a goat and a chalk circle and "this super creepy music." In an earlier, historical setting, a Mapuche woman goes to work at a grand estate for three sisters who are both feared and respected in their local village, to a horrifying end. In modern times, a reclusive woman exchanges e-mails with a similarly lonely man, the veterinarian who came on a house call to look at her sick cat; he tells strange, disturbing tales about his family and the elderly goat they want him to save. A nunnery sends an allegedly evil orphan girl to live with three sisters who normally adopt only boys. From these and other narrative threads, populated by spirits, witch hunts, pleas and losses, readers begin to piece together the fractured story of the María sisters and their unusual, perhaps supernatural, habits.

Otero's style of illustration varies somewhat between sections, but is often distorted or off-kilter, and highly detailed; in full color, her characters' facial expressions and contortions advance the unnerving atmosphere of the larger story. Page spreads may include carefully spaced panels or no panels at all; text style likewise shifts, with infrequent footnotes to help readers along. This results in a sinister, mysterious, and deeply compelling reading experience. Translated by Andrea Rosenberg (who also translated Otero's Mothballs), Witchcraft blends horror, dark magic and dark humor, rage and righteousness. This disjointed, sometimes discomfiting, entertaining story addresses colonial power and indigenous resistance alongside ritual, sex, and sacrifice in an eerie, phantasmagoric package not soon forgotten. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: This graphic novel follows an unusual household over several centuries in Buenos Aires, Argentina, through various characters whose lives are impacted, if not ruined, by three enigmatic sisters.

The following were the most popular book club books during July based on votes from book club readers in more than 92,000 book clubs registered at Bookmovement.com:

1. The Wedding People: A Novel by Alison Espach (Holt)
2. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (Doubleday)
3. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (Riverhead)
4. Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall (Simon & Schuster)
5. The Briar Club: A Novel by Kate Quinn (Morrow)
6. Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty (Crown)
7. The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters (Catapult)
8. My Friends by Fredrik Bachman (Atria)
9. The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali (Gallery Books)
10. All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker (Crown)

Rising Stars:
A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci (Grand Central)
The Story She Left Behind: A Novel by Patti Callahan Henry (Atria)