Bards Alley bookstore, Vienna, Va., will host its grand opening and ribbon-cutting tomorrow, the Vienna Patch reported. The store is located at 110 Church St. NW.

Owner Jen Morrow, who had been thinking about opening a bookshop for years, said that for Bards Alley, it's all about the atmosphere: "Teaching my own children to read took my love of reading to a new level said Morrow. I rediscovered how good it feels to slow down and immerse yourself in a great book. I wanted to help create a community for kindred spirits who share a love for stories, learning and connecting with one another."

In addition to books, Bards Alley "serves up rotating selections of beer, wine, locally made bread, soup and more at its cafe. It also holds book clubs, author readings, book signings, children's storytime, poetry and writers' workshops," the Patch noted. 

The Publishers for Puerto Rico auction to raise money to help the people of Puerto Rico, which was devastated by Hurricane Maria, begins this morning at 9 a.m. Eastern and runs until this Thursday, October 5, at 10 p.m. Eastern.

There are 315 prizes for everyone, from mega-fans to industry professionals to those seeking to get published, and every cent donated goes directly to organizations helping those in Puerto Rico. As auction team member writer and Puerto Rican Mara Delgado told Shelf Awareness, "The news coming from Puerto Rico was heartbreaking and we wanted to figure out a way to help. We banded together to create #PubforPR and were blown away by the outpouring of support from the publishing community."

Those donations poured in from every corner of the industry, including authors like Roxane Gay and Matt de la Peña, as well as many with direct ties to Puerto Rico, like author Kiera Cass and award-winning illustrator and artist Rudy Gutierrez. "As a Puerto Rican myself, I understand why they immediately jumped at the chance to help," said donor and auction team member Marietta Zacker. "Our hearts ache and nuestra isla needs us."

In its sixth year, the Penguin Random House Two-Day Transit program begins again today and will run for five months, until March 2. Under the popular program, orders for PRH physical titles received from independent booksellers by 3 p.m. Eastern, Monday-Friday, will ship no later than the following business day--weather and transport conditions permitting--for arrival at the bookstores within two days. The company's Westminster, Md., and Crawfordsville, Ind., operations centers have weekend shifts in place to enable orders received on Fridays and Saturdays to be shipped Monday.

The program includes all frontlist and backlist books from the imprints of the Crown and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Groups, Random House, Penguin Publishing Group, Random House Children's Books, Penguin Young Readers and Penguin Random House Audio--as well as those from Penguin Random House Publisher Services' many clients.

Random House began the program in 2011 as a two-month experiment and has since expanded its duration and, in 2015, added Penguin and distribution clients.

Jaci Updike, president, Penguin Random House Sales Group, commented: "Our speedy supply chain, coupled with state-of-the-art sales analytics, help us keep our most popular titles in stock throughout the holidays, and provides important support to independent bricks-and-mortar bookstores at a critical time of year. Our goal is keeping our books and authors front-and-center throughout the busiest shopping weeks of the year."

Annette Danek, senior v-p, fulfillment, Penguin Random House, added: "We love this time of year. My colleagues in Westminster and Crawfordsville, in partnership with the home office, are always seeking new ways to enhance our service to indie bookstores. Innovative technology allows us to get books from our dock to their door faster than ever before."

Roy Schonfeld

Congratulations to Roy Schonfeld of Abraham & Associates, who has won the Voice of the Heartland Award, given by the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association and Midwest Independent Booksellers Association to "outstanding individuals who uphold the value of independent bookselling and who have made a significant contribution to bookselling in the Midwest."

The organization noted that after working as a bookseller and a book buyer, Schonfeld was "one of Stu Abraham's first hires when he started Abraham & Associates in 1992 and has served on the board of the GLIBA and contributes to the Heartland Fall Forum educational program." Schonfeld is retiring at the end of the year.

Cary Loren of the Book Beat in Oak Park, Mich., a longtime customer and friend, said, "Roy is that rare creature in the book rep world able to endorse what he believes in, take orders without padding them, and leave an appointment before rush-hour traffic. We will miss Roy and remember dearly all those multiple trips to his car lugging hundreds of catalogs and samples from the bottomless list of publishers he represents."

Schonfeld will receive the award during the book awards dinner on Wednesday, October 11, during the Heartland Fall Forum.

Last week was Banned Books Week, and we highlighted a selection of your creative events, displays, social media posts and more. Here are a few more notable ways bookstores were celebrating:

Banned Books display at Interbang Books, Dallas.

Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, Colo.: "They were challenged and now we're recommending them! Today is the last day of #BannedBooksWeek and we hope you discovered some new gems for your to-be-read list. If you haven't already, head over to our Instagram to find out why these books were banned and what our staff has to say about them!"

Green Apple Books, San Francisco, Calif.: "Be bad. Read a Banned Book.... Hey fellow book lovers, Happy Banned Books Week! Have you read anything from the Top Ten Challenged Books of 2016? Do you want to? We know just the place. Is there a book (banned or not) that challenged your assumptions and helped you expand your horizons?"

McLean & Eakin Booksellers, Petoskey, Mich.: "#bannedbooksweek continues, and not even Harry Potter is safe from its clutches! Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and the rest of the series, made the list because 'they promote witchcraft; they set bad examples; and they're too dark.' Keep magic alive by reading banned books!"

Horton's Books & Gifts, Carrollton, Ga.: "Our children deserve the right to read!"

Secret Garden Bookshop, Seattle, Wash.: "Our Banned Books window has been generating quite a bit of buzz amongst our passers-by, and generates at least a few spirited conversations at our front counter per day. Photos (and window design) by Suzi Spooner."

Half Price Books, which operates more than 120 stores in 17 states, "partnered with the Book Fairies to hide books around the country that have been banned or challenged at some point due to its contents. They are powerful and deserve to be read. Each book has a special surprise for the finder inside.... (a note letting them know to pick up $25 gift card at their nearby store)."

photo: Ariana Paliobagis

At Country Bookshelf in Bozeman, Mont.--the third stop in a six-city, 10-event barnstorming tour of the state--Montana Noir contributors (l.-r.) Walter Kirn, James Grady, Yvonne Seng, Keir Graff and David Abrams display their most serious noir faces. Grady and Graff also co-edited the anthology, the latest installment in Akashic Books' Noir series.

Highlighting "30 Amsterdam bookstores that will make you forget time," Dutch Wannabe noted: "Welcome to Amsterdam, reader!... If you're anything like me, you can't deny yourself the pleasure of seeking out bookstores, comparing the books on the featured shelves and stocking your suitcase with magazines and books by the end of any trip.... So today, I'm dishing out the best Amsterdam bookstores that you just have to put on your Amsterdam itinerary." 

At Firebrand Technologies's NetGalley:

Lindsey Lochner has been promoted to v-p, marketing engagement, responsible for all marketing and advertising services for NetGalley and Bookish.com, which NetGalley acquired last year.

Tarah Theoret has been promoted to director, community engagement, and will manage the readers communities for NetGalley.com and Bookish.com.

Kristina Radke has been promoted to v-p, business growth & engagement, responsible for all publisher acquisition and management for the NetGalley platform in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, as well as overseeing partner relationships in Germany, France and Japan.

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Effective October 10, Caitlin Sweeny will join Simon & Schuster Children's Books as associate marketing director. She was most recently senior marketing manager at Macmillan Children's Publishing Group.

Subhuman (a Unit 51 Novel) by Michael McBride (Pinnacle).

Today:
CBS This Morning: Bana Alabed, author of Dear World: A Syrian Girl's Story of War and Plea for Peace (Simon & Schuster, $22, 9781501178443).

Fox & Friends: Ainsley Earhardt, author of Through Your Eyes: My Child's Gift to Me (Aladdin, $18.99, 9781534409590).

Today Show: Whitney Cummings, author of I'm Fine... And Other Lies (Putnam, $27, 9780735212602). She will also appear tomorrow on Sirius XM's Howard Stern Show.

Fresh Air: Roz Chast, author of Going into Town: A Love Letter to New York (Bloomsbury, $28, 9781620403211).

Also on Fresh Air: Daniel Mendelsohn, author of An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic (Knopf, $26.95, 9780385350594).

Sirius XM's E Street Radio: Stephen King and Owen King, authors of Sleeping Beauties: A Novel (Scribner, $32.50, 9781501163401).

The Doctors: Milan Ross, co-author of The Change Cookbook: Using the Power of Food to Transform Your Body, Your Health, and Your Life (Square One, $17.95, 9780757004384).

Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy (One World, $28, 9780399590566).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Teresa Giudice, author of Standing Strong (Gallery, $26, 9781501179198).

Fresh Air: Jonathan Eig, author of Ali: A Life (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30, 9780544435247). He will also appear on Tavis Smiley.

The View: Russell Brand, author of Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions (Holt, $27, 9781250141927).

Wendy Williams: Quvenzhané Wallis, author of A Night Out with Mama (Simon & Schuster, $17.99, 9781481458801).

Late Night with Seth Meyers: Salman Rushdie, author of The Golden House: A Novel (Random House, $28.99, 9780399592805).

John Grisham's 1997 novel The Partner "is headed to television as a drama series project" at Fox from writer Jon Cowan (Suits, Private Practice), Davis Entertainment (The Blacklist) and Sony Pictures TV Studios, Deadline reported, adding that the novel "was previously in development as a movie at New Regency."

The Writers' Trust of Canada has announced finalists for the C$60,000 (about US$48,140) Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, which honors works published in Canada that "demonstrate a distinctive voice, as well as a persuasive and compelling command of tone, narrative, style, and technique." The winner will be named November 14. This year's shortlisted titles are:

Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote
Birds Art Life by Kyo Maclear
Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine by James Maskalyk
All We Leave Behind: A Reporter's Journey into the Lives of Others by Carol Off
Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga

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In conjunction with Hal-Con 2017 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association announced winners of its annual Aurora Awards for the country's best science-fiction, horror and fantasy titles. Robert J. Sawyer was doubly honored, winning the best novel category for Quantum Night; as well as a special Best of the Decade Award, given once every 10 years, for the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy. A complete list of winners is available here. 

Winner of the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction in the U.K., Naomi Alderman's (The Liars' Gospel) sci-fi thriller The Power asks how humanity's oldest balance of power would shift if women suddenly had strength beyond that of men.

After the Day of the Girls, the world is never the same again. Video online shows teenage girls delivering electrical shocks with their bare hands that can leave a grown man crying in agony. Soon the isolated incidents become widespread as young women all over the globe discover the power of the skein, an extra organ that lies along the collarbones and discharges electricity. The power awakens in girls everywhere: Roxy, a British crime lord's daughter who witnessed her mother's murder; Allie, an abused foster girl whose powers manifest alongside a mysterious voice in her head; and Jocelyn, an American teen who awakens the same dormant power in her mother, Margot, an ambitious politician. The girls are only the beginning. Like Margot, many grown women also carry skeins, and a touch of electricity from an active skein will wake a dormant one. Soon governments and families must accept that the power is the new reality. Over the coming years, it will change religions, borders and the order of human society as Allie, Roxy, Margot and other prominent women build followings and head toward a great collision.

Ostensibly the manuscript of a historical novel by a far-future male author, the story is bookended by letters between the humble writer and his condescending female editor, who calls him "you saucy boy" and patronizes the quaint idea of a patriarchal society as "a kinder, more caring and--dare I say it?--more sexy world." The author's is one of a scarce few male voices in the narrative, represented most notably by Tunde, a young man from Nigeria who posts the first video of the power in action and begins to travel the world to document its rise.

Alderman has built a suspenseful thrill ride filled with deep, contrasting female leads on a scaffolding of philosophical questions about how different men and women are at heart. Though her hypothetical underpinnings are based in biological gender only, Alderman does not ignore the variety present in nature; due to a chromosomal condition, Jocelyn's first boyfriend has an active skein. Reminiscent of the work of Alderman's mentor Margaret Atwood, The Power is perfect for book clubs, where readers will undoubtedly debate the finer points of nature versus nurture and whether a power shift can reverse a lifetime of socialization in middle-aged women. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Shelf Talker: When the world wakes up one day to find that women possess the power to electrocute with a touch, human society changes forever.

The bestselling Libro.fm audiobooks at independent bookstore locations during September:

Fiction:

1. My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent (Penguin Random House Audio)
2. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (Penguin Random House Audio)
3. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Penguin Random House Audio)
4. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (HarperCollins)
5. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Penguin Random House Audio)
6. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (Simon & Schuster Audio)
7. The Golden House by Salman Rushdie (Penguin Random House Audio)
8. Glass Houses by Louise Penny (Macmillan Audio)
9. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz (HarperCollins)
10. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Penguin Random House Audio)

Nonfiction:

1. What Happened by Hillary Clinton (Simon & Schuster Audio)
2. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie (Hachette Audio)
3. Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown (Penguin Random House Audio)
4. Believe Me by Eddie Izzard (Penguin Random House Audio)
5. Al Franken, Giant of the Senate by Al Franken (Hachette Audio)
6. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen (Simon & Schuster Audio)
7. David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell (Hachette Audio)
8. Why Buddhism Is True by Robert Wright (Simon & Schuster Audio)
9. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (Penguin Random House Audio)
10. Theft by Finding by David Sedaris (Hachette Audio)