Total net book sales in 2021 in the U.S. rose 12.2%, to $15.4 billion, compared to 2020, representing sales of 1,369 publishers and distributed clients as reported to the Association of American Publishers. In December, total net book sales were up 2.8%, to $1.1 billion.

For the year, trade sales rose 11.8%, to $9.5 billion. In traditional formats, hardcovers were up 11.3%, to $3.7 billion, paperbacks up 18.8%, to $3.1 billion, mass market up 5.5%, to $240.9 million, and board books up 9.7%, to $212.1 million. E-book sales dropped 4.7%, to $1.1 billion, downloadable audio rose 13.4%, to $766.2 million, and physical audio dropped 16.4%, to $21.6 million.

Sales by category in 2021 compared to 2020:

In other AAP news, Michael Pietsch, CEO of the Hachette Book Group, has been elected chairman of the board for the 2022-2023 term, and Julia Reidhead, chairman and president of W.W. Norton & Company, has been elected vice chairman. Jeremy North, managing director, books, Taylor & Francis, has been re-elected treasurer, and Brian Napack, president and CEO of John Wiley & Sons, who served as AAP chairman from 2020 to 2022, is now immediate past chairman. In addition, Blaise R. Simqu, CEO of SAGE Publications, has joined the board as an appointed director.

Pietsch, who served as vice chairman for the 2021-2022 term and has been on the board since 2013, said, "AAP is engaged in a series of critical initiatives that go straight to the heart of how we value, protect, and incentivize authors and publishers. It is an honor to stand with my Board colleagues and the entire AAP team as we fight to preserve the foundational copyright principles that have served culture, education, and the economy for so long."

Reidhead added: "I have long admired AAP's mission-based approach, and since joining the Board, my respect for its work has only grown. Now, as I assume the role of vice chairman, I look forward to becoming even more active in supporting AAP's mission to safeguard free expression, support strong copyright protections, and ensure that publishers can compete fairly in the modern marketplace."

In preparation for its 2022 board elections, the American Booksellers Association has accepted the nominating committee's recommendation of two booksellers to stand for election to three-year terms as board directors, Bookselling This Week reported. They are Raquel Roque, Books & Books, Coral Gables, Fla., and Jeff Deutsch, Seminary Co-op, Chicago, Ill. They would fill vacancies created by the departures of Kris Kleindienst, Left Bank Books, St. Louis, Mo., whose second term is ending, and of Michelle Malonzo, who is leaving the board because she is reducing her hours at Changing Hands, Tempe and Phoenix, Ariz., to a part-time role so she can work as head of operations at the Word, a Storytelling Sanctuary.

In addition, Jenny Cohen, Waucoma Books, Hood River, Ore., is running for a second term; and Cynthia Compton, 4 Kids Books & Toys, Zionsville, Ind., appointed last year to take the seat of Bradley Graham, Politics and Prose, Washington, D.C., when he became president, will run for the one year remaining in Graham's term. Michael Herrmann, Gibson's Bookstore, Concord, N.H., who was appointed last month after Kenny Brechner, DDG Booksellers, Farmington, Maine resigned, will run for the one year remaining in Brechner's term.

A ballot for the board elections will be sent to ABA members the week of March 11, 60 days before the annual membership meeting, and must be returned by April 10. The ballot will include space for write-in candidates. The new board of directors will be announced in Bookselling This Week on April 13. The virtual ABA membership meeting will be held on May 26, 2-3 p.m. Eastern.

Jamie Raab

Deb Futter

Jamie Raab has stepped down from her role as president of Celadon Books to become publisher-at-large at Macmillan, while Deb Futter, who helped launch Celadon with Raab in 2017, has been named president and publisher of Celadon Books. Futter will report to Macmillan president Jon Yaged, and both appointments are effective immediately.

As publisher-at-large, Raab will acquire books across all imprints, work on strategic initiatives and edit the books she has under contract at Celadon. In a letter to staff announcing the changes, Yaged wrote: "Macmillan will continue to benefit from Jamie’s exquisite taste, incisive and thoughtful approach to the publishing process, and unflappable style. I look forward to working closely with her in this new role."

"It's been exciting to watch Celadon meet and exceed our initial expectations," Raab said, who was president and publisher of Grand Central Publishing before joining Macmillan. "As the world changed over the past year or two, I found myself ready for a change as well."

Yaged called Futter "an inseparable part of the success Celadon has enjoyed since its inception," noting that she and Raab started the imprint in a "shared workspace on the top floor of the Flatiron Building." Futter has acquired and edited authors Abby Wambach, Steve Martin and Harry Bliss, Alexis Schaitkin and more. Before joining Macmillan, Futter was publisher of Twelve and vice-president and editor-in-chief of Grand Central Publishing.

"Her pragmatic approach to leadership, editorial prowess, and passion for her authors and team are the perfect combination to continue Celadon’s stellar trajectory," Yaged added.

Noor Shawaf

Noor Shawaf is joining the Seminary Co-op Bookstores in Chicago, Ill., as director of events and finance. Shawaf is a senior editor for Sixty Inches from Center, a Chicago arts publication and archiving organization that has promoted and preserved the practices of artists across the Midwest since 2010. Shawaf was also the director of special projects and publications with the Social Justice Initiative at University of Illinois at Chicago, collaborating on the Portal Project, a think tank of scholars and activists who are working for racial and social justice. Earlier she was Mellon Diversity Fellow at the University of Chicago Press, where she worked to expand the content and voices represented in academic publishing. She is also a freelance editor of scholarly and arts publications.

Clancey D'Isa, newly promoted director of strategy and development, will continue overseeing the events programming of the stores, as Shawaf acclimates to her new position.

Boulder Book Store in Boulder, Colo., has raised $87,000 to help children and families who lost everything in the Marshall Fire late last year rebuild their home libraries. Per the CU Independent, Boulder Book Store started the fundraiser on January 10 and officially reached its goal of $87,000 on January 24.

To manage the fundraiser, Boulder Book Store partnered with the nonprofit Impact on Education, which supports students in Boulder Valley public schools. Impact on Education will be assembling comfort kits that will include $100 gift cards to Boulder Book Store along with art supplies, journals and letters of support from the community. And while the face value of the gift cards will be $100, the store will be adding an extra $50 worth of value.

"For these kids who lost their books, to even get back a handful of them can be a real comfort," Arsen Kashkashian, Boulder Book Store co-manager, told the CU Independent. "Books can make you feel like you're safe and that you have what you need."

Carole Boston Weatherford

Two-time NAACP Image Award winner Carole Boston Weatherford has written more than 60 books--four of which have won Caldecott Honors. Her books have received nine Coretta Scott King Award nods, including R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, The Queen of Soul and Becoming Billie Holiday. Among her recent releases is the Newbery Honor book BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom. The Baltimore native is a professor at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina. This week, Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre (illustrated by Floyd Cooper; Carolrhoda Books) won the Coretta Scott King Author and Illustrator Award and received two honors: a Caldecott and a Sibert.

It was a big day for Unspeakable, a title that was already longlisted for the National Book Award. Your artistic partner, Floyd Cooper, passed in July of 2021. This book is his first Caldecott Honor and your first CSK Author Award. Did you two work directly with each other? Did you build a relationship?

Except when I'm working with my son, Jeffery Weatherford, I rarely collaborate directly with the illustrator. Politically, Floyd and I were of the same mind, and we exchanged news articles and pop-culture references about the massacre. Our mutual admiration sparked brainstorming about future collaborations.

Writing this book must have been incredibly difficult. Did you learn new things in your research? Was there anything you wanted to include in the book but couldn't?

Because the massacre was not taught when I was in school, my knowledge of the massacre resulted largely from research. Had the book been for an older audience, the depiction of the violence might have been more graphic.

Titles like Unspeakable and Black Birds in the Sky by Brandy Colbert as well as shows like Lovecraft Country are responsible for teaching many contemporary people about the Tulsa Race Massacre. How do you feel being a part of such an important educational moment?

In 1921, Tulsa's white leaders deliberately depicted the massacre as a race riot and then, for 75 years, suppressed the truth. Floyd and I started this project before the television series aired. Though encouraged that pop culture has shed new light on the massacre, I detest book bans designed to uphold white supremacy. Oklahoma schools just started teaching the massacre this century, but new state laws could bar books like Unspeakable.

Who do you hope reads this book?

Unspeakable belongs in classrooms and in homes to spark crucial conversations about social justice. Although Unspeakable is a picture book, it can be used in secondary schools to study segregation and to provide historic context for persistent hate violence.

Are you working on something new?

My son Jeffery and I are collaborating on a family history set at Maryland's largest slaveholding plantation where Frederick Douglass was enslaved as a boy. The verse novel conjures the voices of our ancestors and their contemporaries.

Floyd Cooper

Is there anything else you'd like to say to Shelf Awareness readers?

I will never forget Floyd Cooper or what we produced together. I believe that this book is his magnum opus.

Floyd Cooper (1956-2021) was a Coretta Scott King Award winner and illustrator of numerous books for children, including Ruth and the Green Book, A Spy Called James and Unspeakable. He received a degree in fine arts from the University of Oklahoma and went on to develop a distinctive art technique called oil erasure. Readers can see a video of him discussing Unspeakable here. --Siân Gaetano, children's/YA editor, Shelf Awareness

Regis and Kahran Bethencourt

Husband-and-wife duo Regis and Kahran Bethencourt are the imaginative forces behind CreativeSoul Photography, Atlanta, Ga., specializing in child and lifestyle photography incorporating authentic visual storytelling. Their first picture book, The Me I Choose to Be (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), received the first Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award given for photography.

This is the first time photography has been honored with the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award--how do you feel?

It feels amazing! We were totally surprised by this award and are humbled to be among so many great authors and illustrators!

Would you tell us a bit more about the process behind your photographs? How much is taking pictures. How much is digital art? 

We do a lot of the heavy lifting in the actual photos: getting the models into wardrobe/hair/makeup, setting the lighting so that it matches the scene we're planning and adding props where needed. In the post-processing part, we're able to extend our images beyond anything we'd have access to in the real world. We love that we were able to add a bit of fantasy into our images using digital art.  

How do the two of you work together to build your beautiful pieces?

Regis is the magic man behind a lot of our costumes, sets and props. I am usually on the lookout for new ideas and inspiration, and he's usually able to bring my crazy ideas together. 

What was it like to take picture book text and turn it into art? Were children's books something you had considered doing previously?

We had thought of doing a children's book in the past but had no idea it would be this soon. In the beginning, we had to wrap our heads around the process because it's a bit different when shooting for specific text. We had to figure out which part of the text would work best in photos and how we could capture the essence of the story in just one or two photos. 

Do you have any plans for more children's books? Perhaps one you write yourselves?

We definitely plan for more children's books and even writing our own. Stay tuned! 

Who do you hope reads this book?

We honestly would be thrilled to see kids of all races and ethnicities around the world reading this book. We think that it's so important to normalize positive representation of Black kids in the media, so it's important that we're able to reach the next generation with this positive message. 

Is there anything else you'd like to say to Shelf Awareness readers?

We'd just like to say that we are grateful to everyone who has supported our movement, purchased our books and shared the word with their family and friends. For those who are not familiar with our work, we hope that they will be inspired to dream big. --Siân Gaetano, children's/YA editor, Shelf Awareness

"Raise a Book to Fred! Happy #FredBassDay book lovers!" the Strand bookstore in Manhattan posted on Instagram. "Since 2018, January 26th in New York City has officially been dedicated to the second-generation owner of The Strand. Set aside some time today and read a chapter in his honor--link in bio to check out some of Fred's favorite books."

Posted on Facebook by Under the Umbrella Bookstore, Salt Lake City, Utah: "Another cozy corner of the bookstore. Over here you can find our queer romance section, pulp fiction, and mystery books. What's your favorite?... We recently added a third shelf to the romance section +, a second shelf for mystery, thriller, and horror!

"ID: A corner of the bookstore. Straight ahead you can see the end of the fiction section, which has a beautiful mural by @frankfregosogardner above the shelves. To the right there are two green chairs, a small shelf that holds our mystery books, and a spinning rack with our pulp fiction selection. To the left is two shelves full of queer romance books."

At the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group:

Milena Brown will join Doubleday as director of marketing, effective February 7. She began her publishing career at Penguin Random House, where she worked as a publicist at Plume and Blue Rider Press until 2017. Most recently, Brown was the associate marketing director at Atria Books at Simon & Schuster.

Andreia Wardlaw has joined the Pantheon publicity team as publicity assistant. She started as a temp in May 2021, while finishing a graduate degree at Columbia University in African-American Studies and writing her thesis. She earlier worked as an educator at the New-York Historical Society and as a research assistant at the Center for Civil Rights History and Research at the University of South Carolina.

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Ariana Abad has joined the Bloomsbury Children's publicity team as associate publicist. She was previously a publicity assistant at Riverhead Books.

The Murder Rule: A Novel by Dervla McTiernan (Morrow).

Today:
Tamron Hall: Chloe Gong, author of Our Violent Ends (S&S/McElderry Books, $19.99, 9781534457720).

Tomorrow:
Tamron Hall: Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, author of Darryl's Dream (Random House, $12.99, 9780593487747).

Also on Tamron Hall: Jay Glazer, author of Unbreakable: How I Turned My Depression and Anxiety into Motivation and You Can Too (‎Dey Street, $27.99, 9780063062856).

The View: Carl Bernstein, author of Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom (Holt, $29.99, 9781627791502).

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this weekend from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, January 25
9 a.m. Andrew Roberts, author of The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III (Viking, $40, 9781984879264). (Re-airs Saturday at 9 p.m.)

10 a.m. Charles Gallagher, author of Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front (Harvard University Press, $29.95, 9780674983717). (Re-airs Saturday at 10 p.m.)

2 p.m. Geoff Shepard, author of The Nixon Conspiracy: Watergate and the Plot to Remove the President (Bombardier Books, $19.99, 9781637585665). (Re-airs Sunday at 2 a.m.)

3:30 p.m. Cameron Blevins, author of Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West (Oxford University Press, $34.95, 9780190053673). (Re-airs Sunday at 3:30 a.m.)

4:45 p.m. Fay Yarborough, author of Choctaw Confederates: The American Civil War in Indian Country (The University of North Carolina Press, $32.95, 9781469665115). (Re-airs Sunday at 4:45 a.m.)

Sunday, January 26
8 a.m. Jess McHugh, author of Americanon: An Unexpected U.S. History in Thirteen Bestselling Books (Dutton, $28, 9781524746636). (Re-airs Sunday at 8 p.m.)

9 a.m. Peter Robison, author of Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing (Doubleday, $30, 9780385546492). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m.)

10 a.m. Barbara Walter, author of How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them (Crown, $27, 9780593137789). (Re-airs Sunday at 10 p.m.)

2:45 p.m. Mary Trump, author of The Reckoning: Our Nation's Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal (St. Martin's Press, $28.99, 9781250278456).

4:45 p.m. Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, authors of The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III (Anchor, $18, 9781101912164).

5:45 p.m. Wil Haygood, author of Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World (Knopf, $30, 9780525656876).

PEN America has announced the finalists for the 2022 PEN America Literary Awards, which include the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection, the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay and the PEN Translation Prize. The finalists can be seen here.

The winners will be announced at an in-person event on February 28 in New York City.

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A longlist of 16 novels has been released for the $50,000 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, which recognizes "excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage the readership of high quality Arabic literature internationally through the translation and publication of winning and shortlisted novels in other major languages." Six shortlisted titles will be announced in March, and the winner named in May. Check out the complete longlist here.

The award is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, at the Department of Culture and Tourism--Abu Dhabi, and was originally mentored by the Booker Prize Foundation in London. Collectively the longlisted authors span the age range of 30-65 and hail from nine countries. 

Professor Yasir Suleiman, chair of the board of trustees, said: "The novels on the longlist for this, the 15th prize cycle, continue to explore a range of themes that deal with fracture and the unresolved questions that have bedevilled the relationship of Arab society and culture with its various strands and with the external Other. Voices from the margins of society are made to speak and question in different registers of exclusion and resistance that articulate the feeling of alienation, bewilderment and, at the margins, some nascent hope. Despite their considerable local achievements on the Arab literary scene, authors on this list are poised to be celebrated by a broad pan-Arab readership at home and in the diaspora."  

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, February 1:

The Christie Affair: A Novel by Nina de Gramont (St. Martin's Press, $27.99, 9781250274618) fictionalizes a key part of Agatha Christie's life.

Free Love: A Novel by Tessa Hadley (HarperCollins, $26.99, 9780063137776) tracks a young woman's life in 1960s London.

Black Cake: A Novel by Charmaine Wilkerson (Ballantine, $28, 9780593358337) follows two estranged siblings reunited by their mother's death.

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb (Anchor, $28, 9780593315415) is about a violinist trying to find his lost violin.

The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss by Mary-Frances O'Connor (HarperOne, $27.99, 9780062946232) is written by a neuroscientist and psychologist.

From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy by Scott Meslow (Dey Street, $27.99, 9780063026292) is a history of romcom movies.

The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale by John A. List (Currency, $28, 9780593239483) explores how business can scale up.

Paperbacks:
Ramses the Damned: The Reign of Osiris by Anne Rice and Christopher Rice (Anchor, $17, 9781101970331).

The Family She Never Met: A Novel by Caridad Pineiro (Sourcebooks Casablanca, $14.99, 9781728249469).

Woman Last Seen: A Novel by Adele Parks (Mira, $16.99, 9780778312048).

From last week's Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org, here are the recommended titles, which are also Indie Next Great Reads:

Hardcover
No Land to Light On: A Novel by Yara Zgheib (Atria, $26, 9781982187422). "Wow. How to find words that convey just how beautifully written and heartbreaking this novel is. I held the book close to my chest as I read it slowly, taking time to absorb each chapter. This book needs to be read, loved, and shared broadly." --Stefanie Lynn, The Kennett Bookhouse, Kennett Square, Pa.

Seasonal Work: Stories by Laura Lippman (Morrow, $26.99, 9780063000032). "What is there to say about a new Laura Lippman story collection except for: More, please! Each tale is a gem, and Tess Monaghan makes a couple of appearances. Laura Lippman knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men…and women." --Susan Taylor, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.

Paperback
Go Back at Once by Robert Aickman (And Other Stories, $17.95, 9781913505202). "With brilliant dialogue and oblivious schlepping, à la Stoppard's Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, Aickman's two hilarious ladies-in-waiting wander through the horrors of war, men of all disastrousies, and political upheaval unfazed." --Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop, Athens, Ga.

For Ages 4 to 8
Anzu the Great Kaiju by Benson Shum (Roaring Brook Press, $18.99, 9781250776129). "Just the sweetest, cutest book! A little kaiju without the destructive talents of his parents and grandparents. His talents are to make things grow, and he comes to realize he and those around him are happiest when he is just himself." --Lauren Nopenz Fairley, Curious Iguana, Frederick, Md.

For Ages 8 to 12
Operation Sisterhood by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich (Crown, $16.99, 9780593379899). "Oh. My. Goodness. My heart just could not take the kindhearted core of this book. It's fantastic! I'll be recommending to fans of A Soft Place to Land and The Babysitters Club." --Hannah Oxley, Mystery to Me, Madison, Wis.

For Teen Readers
When You Get the Chance by Emma Lord (Wednesday Books, $18.99, 9781250783349). "This book was so much fun! I have been humming and singing musicals since I started reading this fun romance à la Mama Mia and Buona Sera. Great romance with lots of great friendships and heart. Loved it!" --Jenny Cole, Page 2 Books, Burien, Wash.

[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]

Eleutheria, Allegra Hyde's debut, is a classic story of utopian yearning and collapse, affectingly updated to incorporate present-day concerns about climate change and the erosion of democracy. The novel begins when Willa Marks sets foot on the island of Eleutheria, determined to join a kind of eco-centric utopian commune called Camp Hope. Led by Roy Adams--whose book Living the Solution had a powerful influence on Willa--Camp Hope is meant to provide a blueprint for confronting climate change and environmental degradation. The camp also satisfies Willa's desperate need for optimism, to combat deep emotional wounds that the novel spends much of its length sensitively exploring.

Eleutheria frequently delves into Willa's past, starting with her traumatic upbringing by parents who are a pair of conspiracy-theory addicts and half-hearted survivalists who raise her on visions of soon-to-arrive apocalypses. After their deaths, Willa tries to escape her grief, as well as her parents' doom-and-gloom predictions, by joining up with Boston's utopian-minded Freegans and beginning an odd but increasingly intense relationship with a Harvard professor. As Willa struggles through young adulthood, grim visions of the future begin to develop in the background. Eleutheria reminds readers that daily life and the emotional turmoil of young adulthood carry on even as, in this case, the effects of climate change become increasingly evident and the United States starts to slip into authoritarianism. Eleutheria intelligently examines the way ideological convictions are formed from emotions and experiences, and how those convictions can lead to irreconcilable differences and heartbreak.

Hyde's (Of This New World: A Story Collection) concerns are many--recurring chapters piece together the island's bloody colonial history, for example--but they are all anchored by the character of Willa Marks. Willa is a live wire, hurting and causing pain as young people often do. But in an apocalyptic era, her actions have outsized consequences, and the novel finds its most effective theme in portraying utopian idealists like Willa as both dangerous and perhaps essential to begin to address problems so large that they seem unfixable. For all that, Hyde never loses sight of the grief and heartbreak at the root of Willa's actions. More alarming than Eleutheria's dark future might be how accurately it captures the sense of teetering between apocalypticism and hope, which seems as descriptive of the present mood as it is of an imagined future. --Hank Stephenson, the Sun magazine, manuscript reader 

Shelf Talker: Eleutheria is a moving meditation on the promise and dangers of utopianism in a potential future plagued by climate change and authoritarianism.