Shawn Morin

Shawn Morin, president and CCO of Ingram Content Group, has been named president and CEO of the company. John Ingram, who has been chairman and CEO, will continue as chairman.

"Shawn is a proven leader, well-known across our industry, and he is certainly the right CEO as we write the next chapter in our company's story," John Ingram said. "Ingram has experienced tremendous growth and transformation, particularly over the past few years. Shawn's leadership, technology and engineering backgrounds, and passion for our business and our clients have helped make this evolution possible."

Ingram added that he will continue his leadership role, particularly in the areas of strategy, new business opportunities and developing new connections, and participating in strategic relationships across the publishing industry.

Morin joined Ingram in 2009 as chief information officer. In December 2009, he was named president of VitalSource, Ingram's learning technology division. In 2012, he was named COO and was named president and COO in January 2015. Before joining Ingram, Morin was chief information officer and v-p of information technology at Bass Pro Shops. Earlier, he was the lead engineer working on the on-board flight software for the Space Shuttle program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Last week, Ingram bought the distribution operations of Perseus Books Group, which handles distribution for 600 client publishers.

Completing the rebranding of its Harlequin publishing subsidiaries in Europe, HarperCollins has created HarperCollins France, consisting mainly of Harlequin SA, which has operated for 30 years and was a joint venture between Harlequin and Hachette Livre. Now fully owned by HarperCollins, the business will continue to publish romance under the Harlequin imprint as well as expand its commercial trade publishing with titles from HarperCollins and local authors.

"Hachette has been a fabulous partner for many years and we look forward to a great ongoing partnership for distribution and sales as we move forward with an expanded list in the coming months," said Brian Murray, president and CEO of HarperCollins. "There is a long and successful history of publishing in France and we look forward to growing the program further and providing our authors with a global, multi-language publishing platform."

Emmanuelle Bucco-Cancès, managing director of the former Harlequin SA, who is becoming managing director of HarperCollins France, said, "We are thrilled to become HarperCollins France and expand our publishing program in mainstream fiction under the HarperCollins imprint. We will leverage our strong experience in publishing and our commercial strengths to develop HarperCollins authors locally, while continuing to grow our position in romance under the Harlequin imprint."

The move follows similar HarperCollins efforts, after its purchase of Harlequin two years ago, to consolidate and build foreign-language publishing in Germany, Poland, the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Brazil and Japan.

The Book Worm, which "has occupied a prominent spot in the heart of our community," Powder Springs, Ga., is for sale, Authors 'Round the South wrote. Owned by Susan Smelser, the Book Worm began as an online store but was doing so well that in 2005, Smelser opened its bricks-and-mortar location, which stocks about 30,000 new and used titles, CDs and DVDs.

Smelser said she is looking for a new owner who is, "above all, someone who has their heart in the community. Merchants in Powder Springs are a close-knit group. We're all just two doors down."

Smelser wants to sell the store--and the building, in a separate transaction--to devote herself fulltime to being a health coach, an avocation she embarked on after she and her husband together lost 280 pounds.

Smelser may be reached at 770-605-7323.

Kim Bockius-Suwyn has been named executive director of the Savannah Book Festival, replacing Robin Gold, who left the position after this year's festival.

A longtime resident of Savannah, Bockius-Suwyn was mostly recently COO and co-owner of Enriched Business Strategies and earlier was development director for the Historic Savannah Foundation. She has held several leadership positions in many local community organizations and chaired the annual Savannah Tour of Homes and Gardens.

Festival chairman Jack Romanos said, "Kim comes to the Festival with established roots in our community and vast experience in both event management and fundraising. Like the thousands of book lovers who participate in our annual Presidents' Weekend events, she shares the Festival's enthusiasm for encouraging and celebrating the written word."

For her part, Bockius-Suwyn said, "The Savannah Book Festival celebrates the exploration of books and their impact on all curious readers. I am looking forward to working with the publishing community to attract an array of engaging and thoughtful authors to the 2017 Savannah Book Festival."

The next Festival will be held February 16-19, 2017.

Poet Douglas Gordon Jones, who "was one of the great statesmen of Canadian poetry" and "lived during the formative post-war years of Canadian literary nationalism," died March 6, the Globe & Mail reported. He was 87. A double winner of the Governor-General's Award, Jones "provided an example to his fellow writers of how to span Canada's 'two solitudes' with grace and ease. He did this not just as a poet and translator, but as an essayist, an editor... and as a professor," the Globe & Mail wrote.

"Doug Jones was one of the most significant Quebec poets to follow the generation of F.R. Scott and A.M. Klein and Anne Hébert," said Michael Ondaatje. "He always had one of the most precise and careful as well as suggestive poetic voices in the country. I suppose my favorite book of his was Under the Thunder the Flowers Light up the Earth. It was one of the best books we did at Coach House Press."

Lake Forest Book Store, which relocated just four doors south of its former location to a larger space at 662 North Western Avenue in Lake Forest, Ill., celebrated the move with a ribbon cutting ceremony last Thursday and a grand opening event Sunday featuring prizes, raffles, gift cards and refreshments.

Yesterday, the bookstore posted on Facebook: "Thank you to all of our friends and family, from near and far, who came out to support our GRAND OPENING yesterday!"

Thursday is National Beer Day, and the Northshire Bookstore, Manchester, Vt., prepared for the big day with a "Read This. Drink That." sales floor display matching books with beer.

Pennie Clark Ianniciello, Costco's book buyer, has chosen Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben (Dutton, $28, 9780525955092) as her pick of the month for April. In Costco Connection, which goes to many of the warehouse club's members, she wrote:

"If you're a regular reader of this page, you'll know I'm not a frequent reader of thrillers. However, when I do get a hankering for a page turner, I reach for something by Harlan Coben. His writing is sharp, the suspense is palpable and he laces it all with real emotion. His latest novel, Fool Me Once--this month's book buyer's pick--is no exception.

"Maya, a former special-ops pilot, sees something on the nanny cam that she can't believe. It shows her 2-year-old daughter playing with Maya's husband, Joe, who was murdered two weeks earlier. To get to the bottom of what's really going on, Maya must come to terms with deep secrets from her past before she can face what's happening in the present."

The Bear and the Piano by David Litchfield (Clarion Books), a trailer that showcases Litchfield's artwork.

photo: Z. Lee/JHU Comic Books

"So, the Doctor just came in for a quick visit," JHU Comic Books in Manhattan posted on its social media accounts Sunday. Marvel's Doctor Strange movie was shooting nearby, and the star, Benedict Cumberbatch, "took some time in between takes to visit a local comic book shop" dressed as the title character, Entertainment Weekly reported. Director Scott Derrickson also posted an image from the shop, noting: "That's a wrap." Doctor Strange hits theaters November 4. NME featured video footage of the visit.

In a blog post headlined "Our 'Strange' Encounter With Benedict Cumberbatch," Rene Rosa, a manager at JHU Comic Books, wrote: "Well, during the day, the crew came in to check out the place because they were shocked to see a comic book store where they were filming.... It started to get really cold so many more of them started coming in and I told the PA that if ANYONE on the crew needed to use the bathroom, our door was open to them. A couple of hours later and in walks Dr. Strange.

"Everyone there was excited, laughing and couldn't believe it. Benedict Cumberbatch was incredibly nice, gracious and he and I went back and forth with some banter for a little bit before he had to go right back out and shoot more scenes. He didn't have time to do much more than shake hands, talk and take a few pictures, but we totally understood that and were lucky just to have him in!"

Today:
CBS This Morning: Lesley Stahl, author of Becoming Grandma: The Joys and Sorrows of the New Grandparenting (Blue Rider Press, $27, 9780399168154). She's also on the O'Reilly Factor today and Morning Joe tomorrow.

Tomorrow:
CBS This Morning: Nina Tassler, co-author of What I Told My Daughter: Lessons from Leaders on Raising the Next Generation of Empowered Women (Atria, $25, 9781476734675).

Dr. Oz: Kimberly Williams-Paisley, author of Where the Light Gets In: Losing My Mother Only to Find Her Again (Crown Archetype, $27, 9781101902950).

Diane Rehm: Richard Louv, author of Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life (Algonquin, $15.95, 9781616205782).

Tavis: Arianna Huffington, author of The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time (Harmony, $26, 9781101904008).

CNBC's Squawk Box: Steve Case, author of The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future (Simon & Schuster, $26.95, 9781501132582). He will also appear on Fox Business's Cavuto Coast to Coast.

Also on Squawk Box: Dan Lyons, author of Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble (Hachette Books, $27, 9780316306089).

PRI's the World: Juliette Kayyem, author of Security Mom: An Unclassified Guide to Protecting Our Homeland and Your Home (Simon & Schuster, $25.99, 9781476733746).

Live with Kelly and Michael: David Duchovny, author of Bucky F*cking Dent: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26, 9780374110420). He will also appear on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Watch What Happens Live: Bethenny Frankel, author of I Suck at Relationships So You Don't Have to: 10 Rules for Not Screwing Up Your Happily Ever After (Touchstone, $16, 9781451667424).

Tonight Show: Cameron Diaz, co-author of The Longevity Book: The Science of Aging, the Biology of Strength, and the Privilege of Time (Harper Wave, $27.99, 9780062375186).

The winners of the Hans Christian Andersen Award of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) are Rotraut Susanne Berner of Germany for Illustration and Cao Wenxuan of China for Writing.

IBBY said that Berner's work is "at all times recognizably hers, while simultaneously being intensely responsive to the demands of the text, or in the case of the Wimmel Books, to the specific world of a very specific town. She is willing to take risks--The Princess Will Arrive at Four is a brilliant example of this as is the fairytale comic book, Definitely Not for the Little Ones, and When Death Came for a Visit, written by Jürg Schubiger. Her books can be hilariously funny, and equally deeply moving. And she doesn't fear showing life's dark moments."

IBBY said that Cao "writes beautifully about the complex lives of children facing great challenges. He is a deeply committed writer, whose own difficult childhood has been deeply influential on his writing in which there are no easy answers. In Bronze and Sunflower, a novel set during the time of the Cultural Revolution in a rural Chinese village close to a re-education center for people sent from the city, a village boy who does not speak and a little city girl who ends up coming to live with his family can be said to 'save' each other. These children are entirely convincing and we care deeply about their fate. In Cao's Dingding Dangdang series we are captivated and moved by two brothers with Down syndrome who separately flee their village and then search for each other through a world that is alternately loving and rejecting. These books take risks and have a great deal at stake."

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The winners of the International Association of Culinary Professionals' annual awards included many cookbooks in a variety of categories, which can be seen here courtesy of Grub Street. The Cookbook of the Year was The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science by J. Kenji López-Alt (Norton), which also won the American cookbook category.

Simon Van Booy (The Illusion of Separateness) celebrates the parent-child bond through the story of an orphaned girl and the seemingly unsuitable uncle called upon to become her new father.

Van Booy follows two distinct time periods in Harvey's life. The first begins with a visit to the duck pond with her father during early childhood; the other is set in Paris on Father's Day where Harvey, now grown, waits for her father to visit her. However, the men Harvey calls "Dad" in the two scenarios are not the same person. When Harvey was six, her parents died in a car accident, leaving her alone in the world but for her father's estranged brother, Jason, an ex-con with a prosthetic leg who lived on disability checks and online sales of thrift items. Although Jason is no poster child for an ideal parent, Harvey's social worker Wanda can't help believing he and Harvey are each other's last chance, and with a good deal of emotional manipulation and rule-bending, she convinces both Jason and the state that Harvey belongs with her uncle. As grown Harvey presents Jason with a series of Father's Day gifts commemorating turning points in their lives together, Van Booy flashes back to the moment each gift symbolizes, treating the reader to the evolution of a memorable relationship.

Van Booy doesn't shy away from the challenges of parenting, from dealing with bed wetting and injuries to surprise expenses and personality clashes. Despite their struggles, the pair find moments of grace, such as the kindness of unexpected allies or the first time Harvey refers to Jason as her dad. Jason, with his personal life in shambles and a legacy of anger problems from his own father, has as much growing to do as Harvey, and his astonishment at his own capacity for change is touching to watch. Van Booy's great triumph, however, comes in using a family secret to underscore the message that family is as much a choice as a blood tie. In a time when criticism of both helicopter and free-range parenting styles abounds, a story focusing on the truth that all parents simply wants the best for their children feels deeply gratifying. Although any reader will find something to love here, someone who has benefited from a perfectly imperfect family will wear the widest smile. This little book with a big heart is suitable not just for Father's Day, but for any day. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Shelf Talker: When six-year-old Harvey's parents die, she forges a connection with the disabled ex-con uncle who becomes her second father.

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

1. Wild Things by Jennifer Ashle
2. Nikhil by M.K. Eidem
3. Claimed by Love by Melissa Foster
4. Shopping for a Billionaire's Wife by Julia Kent
5. Sinful Love by Lauren Blakel
6. The Family Simon Boxed Set by Juliana Stone
7. The McCain Saga: The Complete Series by Keary Taylor
8. Nights With Him by Lauren Blakely
9. Rushing the Goal (Assassins Series Book 8) by Toni Aleo
10. A Gateway to Love Box Set by Chloe T. Barlow

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]