A romance-focused bookstore called A Novel Romance opened in Louisville, Ky., on July 15. It is Louisville's first romance-focused bookstore.

Located in Louisville's historic Middletown, A Novel Romance sells  romance titles in a variety of subgenres, including contemporary, historical, paranormal, and much more. In addition to books there are novelty gifts and an assortment of bookish items.

"Our mission is to provide a haven where readers can explore the vibrant world of romantic fiction, writers can find inspiration, and book enthusiasts can celebrate their love for literature," said owner Jonlyn Scrogham. An avid reader, Scrogham also has more than 20 years of retail and customer service experience.

Scrogham's event plans include book clubs, author signings, and other sorts of community gatherings. There will be a ribbon cutting for the store on August 25, hosted by the Middletown Chamber of Commerce, and the following day Scrogham will throw a grand opening celebration featuring special promotions, prizes, refreshments, and more.

Kendra Gayle Lee, owner of Bookish Atlanta, Atlanta, Ga., and Rachel Randolph, a bookseller with Parnassus Books, Nashville, Tenn., are the inaugural recipients of the Sarah McCoy Grants for Bookseller-Writers. The grants were created by author Sarah McCoy (Mustique Island) in partnership with the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance "for any unpublished southern women or nonbinary booksellers who harbor ambitions to be published writers." 

Each winner receives $1,500 to be used toward writing craft development. Both recipients will be honored August 10 at SIBA's upcoming Town Hall meeting during the New Voices New Rooms conference.

Kendra Gayle Lee

"There's something so magical about people responding to the stories I tell," Lee said. "Receiving the Sarah McCoy grant felt like a huge vote of confidence from the Universe--and a much appreciated financial boost to support my writing.... I believe Black Lives Matter. I care deeply about housing justice, education, reproductive justice and finding magic in this world."

Rachel Randolph

Randolph is a frontline bookseller and a recent graduate of Lipscomb University with a degree in creative writing, commented: "I am so thankful to Sarah McCoy and the folks at SIBA for the opportunity to apply for this grant. Elevating female and nonbinary voices is of the utmost importance, and I hope the stories I write will always do so. I know this grant will be a stepping stone that I look back on with immense gratitude."

McCoy said, "It was such an honor to meet the McCoy Grant applicants through their submitted writing samples! All were of exceptional merit with great writing potential, which made the decision quite challenging. This is a good problem to have! And speaks to the talent in our book community. A budding author is one of literature's most valuable commodities."

SIBA executive director Linda-Marie Barrett added: "Now we have this incredibly generous grant from author and friend Sarah McCoy. The McCoy Grant will make a real difference in the lives of unpublished Southern bookseller women/nonbinary writers."

Libro.fm will launch internationally next Wednesday, July 26, and is currently adding some 132 international stores. Altogether, the company partners with more than 2,200 independent bookstores globally and offers some 400,000 audiobooks for downloading, including a growing number of titles in Spanish.

Currently Libro.fm partner bookstores are most represented in North America, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand. Payments for libro.fm can be made in six currencies: U.S., Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand dollars; the British pound; and the euro.

CEO and co-founder Mark Pearson said, "As an employee-owned company with just 18 employees in the U.S. and U.K., we have experienced firsthand the impact of large corporations on our business, just like many independent bookshops have. But we believe in the irreplaceable value of independent bookshops in local communities and economies. By expanding globally, we hope to provide readers, authors, and publishers with new ways to help their local bookshops thrive via audiobooks, all while making reading more accessible."

Plans for international expansion were announced in March.

During the European & International Booksellers Federation's international call this spring, representatives from member associations gathered to discuss updates, challenges, and initiatives in bookselling across various countries. 

Joy Dallanegra-Sanger, COO of the American Booksellers Association, reported encouraging growth in the number of bricks-and-mortar bookstores across the U.S. since the pandemic, but also highlighted challenges, including a softening of sales in recent months and increasing concerns about banned books.

Laura McCormack of the Booksellers Association of the U.K. & Ireland noted the need for support in Ireland due to instances of bookshops being targeted for promoting LGBT literature. The BA is creating a support kit for its Irish members.

Jessica Sänger of the Börsenverein, the German book industry association, discussed the importance of collaboration in addressing similar challenges faced by the international publishing and bookselling community.

Laura de Heredia from SLF, the French Independent Booksellers Association, cited activists trying to disrupt an event in a bookshop, while Fabian Paagman, EIBF co-president and owner of Paagman bookshops in the Netherlands, raised concerns about children's books being exploited for political agendas.

The BA's McCormack also shared positive feedback from U.K. and Irish booksellers, with overall stability in the market despite challenges such as increasing prices and supply-chain issues. Maria Hamrefors of the Swedish Booksellers Association discussed concerns about rising salaries and energy costs in Sweden. Graça Santos from the Portuguese Independent Bookshops network expressed concerns about slow sales, rising costs, and declining membership.

Raluca Selejan, owner of La Două Bufniţe bookshop in Romania, shared concerns about declining sales in the country, where sales have dropped to the level of 2009. Raluca mentioned that the Romanian Ministry of Culture has proposed a fixed price law, which is still under analysis and awaits voting. It remains to be seen whether this law will be implemented, as the publishers association does not agree with it.

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Noting that last year "all of literature's big prizes went to small publishers," the Guardian reported that in "a risk‑averse climate, edgy debuts and 'tricky-to-sell' foreign titles have found a home at the likes of Fitzcarraldo Editions and Sort of Books--and the gamble has paid off," sparking a "quiet revolution" in British publishing. 

"The thing about the publishing world is that most people don't understand how it works," said Valerie Brandes, CEO of Jacaranda Books. "Even people in publishing don't understand how it works! But I'd make so bold as to say the real publishing is happening at the bottom." 

Literary agent Anna Webber noted: "In our risk-averse climate, a lot of what is exciting, original and untested is being published by independent publishers." 

"I think anybody involved in editing likes to be involved in the whole chain of publishing a book," said Marigold Atkey, publisher of Daunt Books Publishing, adding that she can pick authors to acquire without "a whole roomful of people from all these different departments looking at somebody thinking: 'Oh, they've not got very many followers.' "

Jacques Testard, founder of Fitzcarraldo Editions, observed: "Collectively, indie publishers represent a stability of purpose. We're not all going to swap jobs.... We have different tastes and interests but I think we're all invested in the long-term--we're all going to just carry on doing what we're doing." 

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In a recent episode of Let's Talk Bookselling, RISE Bookselling's podcast series showcasing themed conversations with experts in the field, host Alice Hříbalová, EIBF's events & planning officer, was joined by Robbie Egan, CEO of BookPeople, the association for Australian bookshops, to discuss the state of bookselling in the country and the value of reading. --Robert Gray

Barnes & Noble will reopen its store in the Avenue at White Marsh shopping center in Baltimore, Md., next week.

The White Marsh store has been closed for renovations since September 2022. It will officially reopen, complete with a redesign and new B&N Cafe, at 9 a.m. on July 26. Local author Liv Constantine will be on hand for a ribbon cutting and signing of her new book The Senator's Wife (Bantam).

Keith Finley, bookstore owner and former publisher of the Peninsula Beacon, died last month, SD News reported. He was 60.

For two decades Finley was the owner of Ocean Beach Books in Ocean Beach, Calif., which sold used, rare, and antiquarian titles. He was also an early publisher of the Peninsula Beacon newspaper in San Diego, Calif., which he and a classmate purchased after they graduated from college.

Not long after buying the newspaper, which at the time was bi-weekly, Finley's co-owner sold his share in the business to Howard Owens, another former classmate. They worked together on the newspaper for years, until Finley eventually sold it to a community newspaper group.

Owens said of Finley: "Keith was a hard-working man dedicated to whatever tasks he took on. He was driven to see a task through. Keith was as dedicated a community journalist as I've ever known."

Doug Brunk, a friend and former classmate of Finley, added: "Keith knew a lot about many things. He was one of the most genuine people. His authenticity really rang through. He couldn't care less about keeping up with the Joneses. He just wanted to enjoy his family and his friends. He was just a dedicated, good guy who was happy with his life and so incredibly proud of his kids. There's a lesson for all of us in that."

Author Katherine Center (in black) and Stephanie Hockersmith, aka @PieLadyBooks (to Center's right), celebrated the release of Center's Hello Stranger (St. Martin's Press) with a talk and signing at Barnes & Noble in Briargate, Colo. They're holding pies, baked by Hockersmith, modeled after the novel's cover.

Barack Obama has released his summer reading list. On Instagram, he wrote, "Here's some books that I'm reading this summer. Check them out and let me know what I should be reading next." Obama's list:

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane
King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
Hello Beautiful by Anne Napolitano
All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Crosby
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
What Napoleon Could Not Do by DK Nnuro
The Wager by David Grann
Blue Hour by Tiffany Clarke Harrison

"Stop by and make yourself comfortable. We are here 10-7 on weekdays and would love to see your face!" Wheatberry Books, Chillicothe, Ohio, posted on Facebook.

Independent Publishers Group has added or expanded distribution services for the following publishers:

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, the religious publisher in Grand Rapids, Mich., which will have international print sales and distribution handled by IPG, effective January 1, an expansion of the companies' existing sales and distribution agreement.

Rabsel Editions, the Buddhist publisher that was founded in 2010. The agreement includes global distribution of Rabsel's print and e-books, effective November 1.

Milet Publishing, which specializes in bilingual and multicultural books. The agreement includes sales, marketing and distribution of its print and e-book titles worldwide, excluding Australia and New Zealand, and was effective July 1.

The Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 56 independent and equal member countries with a goal of achieving development, democracy, and peace. It publishes research and knowledge products for policymakers, academics, professionals, and the wider public across the world. The agreement with IPG's Eurospan is for worldwide sales, marketing, and distribution, and was effective June 1.

Madeline Muschalik has joined Scholastic as marketing & publicity assistant, global brands.

20th Century Studios has released a new trailer for A Haunting in Venice, its third Agatha Christie adaptation from actor-filmmaker Kenneth Branagh after Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express. Deadline reported that the new project is based on the novel Hallowe'en Party, featuring Inspector Hercule Poirot (Branagh). It hits theaters September 15.

The cast also features Tina Fey, Michelle Yeoh, and Kelly Reilly, Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, and Riccardo Scamarcio. 

Branagh directed A Haunting in Venice from a script by Michael Green. The former also produced alongside Judy Hofflund, Ridley Scott and Simon Kinberg, with Louise Killin, James Prichard, and Mark Gordon serving as executive producers. 

Newberry Library's Gail Kern Paster (l.) with author Toya Wolfe.

On July 15, interim president of the Newberry Library Gail Kern Paster presented the 2023 Pattis Award to author Toya Wolfe for Last Summer on State Street (Morrow) at the Newberry Library in Chicago, where the two were in conversation about Wolfe's work.

The Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award at the Newberry Library is an annual award presented to "a book that transforms public understanding of Chicago, its history, or its people." Heather Hendershot was the shortlist award recipient, for When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America (University of Chicago Press). The prize was established in 2021 by the Pattis Family Foundation in partnership with the Newberry Library.

The Botanist by M.W. Craven has won the £3,000 (about $3,875) 2023 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, presented by Harrogate International Festivals. Organizers said The Botanist, featuring D.D. Washington Poe, "follows the disgraced detective as he is tasked with catching a poisoner sending the nation's most reviled people poems and pressed flowers, whilst his close friend, pathologist Estelle Doyle, seeks his help when she is arrested for the murder of her father."

Elly Griffiths was recognized as "highly commended" for the penultimate mystery in her Dr Ruth Galloway series, The Locked Room. "Set in the early days of the pandemic, Dr Galloway is locked down in her Norfolk cottage, working to uncover why her late mother had a photo of the cottage dated years before she moved in, when DCI Nelson, who is investigating a series of deaths of women that could be murders or could be suicides, breaks curfew to visit her."

In addition, Ann Cleeves received the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award in recognition of her impressive writing career. Cleeves, the author of more than 35 novels, is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope, Jimmy Perez, and Matthew Venn, who have been subjects of popular TV series in the U.K.

photo: Jen Lee Productions

Laura Sims is the author of the novel Looker, now in development for television with eOne and Emily Mortimer's King Bee Productions. An award-winning poet, Sims has published four poetry collections; her essays and poems have appeared in the New Republic, Boston Review, Electric Lit, and more. She and her family live in New Jersey, where she works part time as a reference librarian and hosts the library's lecture series. Her second novel, How Can I Help You (Putnam), is a psychological thriller about two librarians at a small-town public library.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

A literary suspense novel about two local librarians whose lives become dangerously intertwined when one's mysterious past becomes fodder for the other's writerly obsession.

On your nightstand now:

Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin. I loved her first novel, Fever Dream, and this one is also eerily prescient and disturbing, a deeply considered exploration of the relationship between humans and technology. Also on the nightstand: The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li, my next read; Lockwood & Co.: The Whispering Skull by Jonathan Stroud, which I'm reading aloud to my tween; a bound manuscript I'm about to read for a blurb; Conversations with Octavia Butler, edited by Consuela Francis, for inspiration; and finally, Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer by Arthur Lubow, a book I'm using to research my next novel-in-progress. 

Favorite book when you were a child:

All the Nancy Drew books, start to finish. I read them all by third grade, recorded my secrets in a Nancy Drew diary, and even set up my own (unsuccessful) detective agency inspired by the books. I was shocked to learn that there was no "Carolyn Keene" who authored them but, instead, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, and I cried at the news of her death. (I was nine years old at the time.)

Your top five authors:

Virginia Woolf, David Markson, Toni Morrison, Elena Ferrante, Sigrid Undset, Miriam Toews, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Alice Munro, Nnedi Okorafor, Rachel Cusk, Jane Gardam, Shirley Jackson, Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Strout. Does anyone really list just five??

Book you've faked reading:

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It's more that I've avoided reading it, but I may have faked reading it once or twice.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson. I read it when I was just beginning to think I may like to write fiction one day, but writing fiction felt impossible to me as a poet. Markson's book--brilliant, formally innovative, and fragmented--taught me a whole new way of thinking about the novel. And I simply adored the book. I'm still haunted by its vision of a (possibly) empty world, and its final scene is one for the ages.

Book you've bought for the cover:

The Vegetarian by Han Kang. I love red books--I was also drawn to Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder for the same reason--and this one, with its female profile in black against the red (before that was such a common book cover design), drew me right in. It was a match made in heaven; I devoured the book--ha ha--and am still influenced by it to this day.

Book you hid from your parents:

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews--and many of its tawdry sequels. I read those books in middle school! And got in trouble with my English teacher for doing a book report on Heaven in the sixth grade. She drew me aside and told me it wasn't "appropriate reading." As a librarian, I don't like hearing that, but in this case, I think she was right. Maybe I'm still scarred by those books today, which is why I write such dark fiction.

Book that changed your life:

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I felt so at one with this book and fully, deeply understood it when I read it as a college student. My professor asked me if I'd read it before, in another class, because I knew it so well. That and James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man really cemented and nourished the core of what I believed to be the elements of an artist's life: isolation, constant struggle, and misalignment with mainstream society--interrupted by periods of ecstatic enlightenment. That all seemed very romantic to me in my late teens.

Favorite line from a book:

I love this quote about writing--and others like it--from Virginia Woolf's A Writer's Diary: "What a grind it is; and I suppose of little interest except to six or seven people. And I shall be abused." If I'm ever feeling down about the writing process, or worried about reader responses and reviews, knowing the great Virginia Woolf had similar fears and anxieties is immensely reassuring.

Five books you'll never part with:

Ariel by Sylvia Plath; Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson; The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison; Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson; Final Harvest by Emily Dickinson.

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

Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy or Sophie's Choice by William Styron. Both were such intense, vivid reading experiences for me. I read both while living in Japan just after college. I had an undemanding job, lived alone in the countryside, and decided to fill my free time by reading as many of the classics I'd missed as I could. I read The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Ulysses by James Joyce, The Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, and more. I remember biking to a river one idyllic autumn day to picnic and read Sophie's Choice. I'll never forget it--or any of the books I read during that time. I don't think I could replicate that kind of reading intensity now, in the midst of a busy life. Maybe someday.

Best film adaptation of a novel:

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist (the original Swedish film version). Haunting, original, and perfectly minimalist. The best vampire movie ever, though it's really about friendship.

Birdie & Harlow, the first book by blogger Taylor "Tay" Wolfe, is an adventurous memoir filled with bittersweet stories about how Harlow, a much beloved dog, accompanied the author and her husband over 10 years of ups and downs on the way to becoming the parents of their beautiful daughter, Birdie.

When Wolfe--eccentric, inherently rebellious, and restless by nature--was in her 20s, she held tightly to the belief that she "wasn't a 'baby person.' " While struggling to find her place in the world, she decided, on a lark, to buy her boyfriend, Chris, a puppy for their two-year dating anniversary. She and Chris, Nebraska natives, were living and working at the time in Gridley, Kan., when a Google search resulted in "Hungarian vizsla," a type of hunting dog Chris found "cool-looking." The minute Wolfe was introduced to a brood of lively, rust-colored puppies, she fell in love with a pup "a little more clumsy and less polished" than his "snooty siblings." The puppy instantly bonded with Wolfe, who named him Harlow. The dog brought "permanence" to Wolfe's love for Chris as the two went on to marry, move several times, and start a family when they were in their 30s.

Wolfe's spirited narrative--sprinkled with witty conversations with Harlow--traces experiences shared while the couple spent time with sensitive, manipulative, mischievous, and energetic yet adoring Harlow. The trio moved to Chicago, where Wolfe spent many years trying to find her professional niche. She went from one meaningless, unfulfilling job to the next, while also dabbling in stand-up comedy. She ultimately turned her focus to writing--maintaining a blog, The Daily Tay, which humorously documented her life experiences, the lovable antics of Harlow, and ultimately led to her launching a novelty graphic T-shirt and sweatshirt line.

This fun, briskly paced memoir takes a more serious turn when Wolfe shares details about the many sad, heart-wrenching challenges she and Chris faced on the bumpy road to parenthood. Wolfe, however, doesn't dwell or wallow in self-pity: "What I was experiencing, what we all are, is something called life. And we don't get to only sign up for the good parts; we sign up for all of it." The buoyancy of Wolfe's warm, witty storytelling will keep readers rapt--tearing up one minute and laughing the next. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Shelf Talker: Birdie & Harlow is a lively, spirited memoir about how a dog named Harlow rallied a young couple who faced many challenges on the way to parenthood.

I've long had a rocky relationship with the word hope; never quite trusted it. My watchwords were culled long ago from Paul Auster's novel In the Country of Last Things, where he wrote of one character: "It was as though he had imagined every possibility in advance, and therefore he was never surprised by what happened. Inherent in this attitude was a pessimism so deep, so devastating, so fully in tune with the facts, that it actually made him cheerful." 

And yet, when I consider the three decades I've spent immersed in the world of bookselling, it's hard to imagine the survival of this precarious business without a high daily dosage of that fragile word. Just consider a few of the indie hope-killers that have hit over the last 30 years--chain bookstores, Amazon, the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic. Booksellers have always found a counter strategy in order to adapt and move on. Hope cannot be dismissed as a potent ally.

Earlier this month, the devastating floods that hit parts of Vermont, my home state, became the latest regional challenge. Shelf Awareness chronicled some of the damage, and I've been keeping an eye on social media posts about the after-effects. One thing that often manifests in tragedies is, well, hope, despite the odds against. Booksellers and their communities have once again rallied around each other. Recovery is no small task, and some shops may not survive this latest blow, but it won't be for lack of effort and resilience and... hope.

Cleanup underway at the Book Garden

The Book Garden, Montpelier, just set up a GoFundMe campaign to help with its reopening efforts. On July 11, the owners had posted on Facebook: "I'm eternally grateful that you thought of us during this ongoing disaster. I hope you reading this are safe and dry... That your loss was minimal and that any repairs go swiftly... I hope the other businesses in town and around the state recover quickly. I'm not sure what kind of help we will need in the coming days, but just seeing friendly faces will make me feel a lot better."

Fundraiser for Bear Pond Books

Bear Pond Books, Montpelier, which is also fundraising, noted: "Our customers have always been the most supportive and loyal group that we could have ever asked for. You have supported us through Covid times and good times alike. It is hard for us to ask you for more, but after last week's catastrophic flood, we feel we have little choice.... So many people have reached out to us and asked if they could donate or support us in some way and the answer is yes.... From the bottom of our soggy, muddy (but warm) hearts--thank you thank you thank you!"

Discarded fixtures at Bear Pond Books

More fortunate Vermont indie booksellers are supporting their friends. Bridgeside Books, Waterbury, wrote: "Our hearts go out to our fellow bookstore in Montpelier, a staple of their community for so many years. Vermont indie bookstore owners are a pretty tight bunch. In fact, there's a giant e-mail thread happening right now as we strategize how best we can help as a collective entity, so stay tuned for an announcement about that, but in the meantime, if you value bookstores, what they bring to their communities, and have enjoyed shopping at Bear Pond Books, please consider donating to their rebuild."

"We have been very fortunate in Middlebury not to have been affected by the recent flooding, but others in our tight-knit community of independent bookstore have not been so lucky," Vermont Book Shop noted, adding that the shop will be donating "a portion of our proceeds next weekend, July 29-30, directly to two Vermont bookstores badly damaged by the floods: Bear Pond Books in Montpelier and Next Chapter Bookstore in Barre."

The Yankee Bookshop, Woodstock, and Galaxy Bookshop, Hardwick, are actively raising funds for flood relief in their communities. Phoenix Books--with stores in Burlington, Essex Junction and Rutland--will donate 20% of sales this weekend to Vermont Community Foundation's 2023 Vermont Flood Response and Recovery Fund. For the rest of July and all of August, the charitable roundup at checkout for Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, "will be directed to the Stratton Foundation, a local organization that is providing disaster relief aid to support those Vermonters in need."

In a recent Guardian piece headlined "The Last Word on: Hope," Sophie Ratcliffe observed that hope "needs to fit the seeker. Whether we seek our uplift through a begonia, a bargain, a book or a bra, hope's locus cannot always be planned for. It has a crafty way of taking us by surprise. So much a part of our everyday lexicon ('I hope you are well,' 'let's hope for the best') that it's easy to overlook its small, understated poetry. Tentative, temporary, hope turns up when you least expect it."

Noting that "reading is part of life, but it can be a rehearsal for it too," Ratcliffe cites British author Ali Smith as the writer "I turn to when I cannot face reading much else. An early story tells of love coming back to life when all feels lost: 'The house creaks round us. I lean against you in the bed.... You lean back hard against me and it fills me with a hope so open that I'm scared to acknowledge it.' Smith, here, grabs the word 'open' out of 'hope' not so much like a rabbit from a hat as a flame from an ember."

In a 2021 Guardian interview, Smith, who had recently completed her amazing seasonal quartet of novels (Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer), observed: "When I say 'I can't be a pessimist,' I think of James Baldwin's 'I can't be a pessimist, because I'm alive.' Optimism and hope aren't the same: optimism's a state we can consciously bring about; hope... there's nothing bunny rabbit or self-indulgent or sparkly about it, because its obverse is despair. Hope is a tightrope across a ravine between a here and a there, and that tightrope's as sharp as a knife blade."

Okay, I think I've underestimated hope. Hmm... maybe there's a little spark of it buried in my old fatalist soul after all.