Fulton Street Books is relocating this fall.

Fulton Street Books & Coffee in Tulsa, Okla., has temporarily closed while it relocates to 21 N. Greenwood Ave., in the city's historic Greenwood District, Tulsa World reported.

Store owner Onikah Asamoa-Caesar plans to have the bookstore and coffee shop open in its new home in October. The new space is larger than its original home on West Latimer St. and will have an outdoor patio as well as more space for author events. Asamoa-Caesar will also add beer and wine to the cafe's offerings.

She told Tulsa World she's "excited to join an ecosystem that has been rebuilding and creating a new narrative and carrying on the legacy of Black Wall Street." (In 1921, the Greenwood District was the site of one the worst race riots in U.S. history, resulting in the deaths of as many as 300 Black residents and the destruction of thousands of Black homes and businesses.)

Asamoa-Caesar founded Fulton Street Books & Coffee in 2019. Earlier this year she opened a satellite location at Tulsa International Airport. Her store focuses on books by and about people of color, and promoting literacy is a major part of its mission.

"In the time we are in now, where so many books are being banned or challenged and the majority of those books are being written by Black, brown, or queer folks, it's especially important to have a space that not only includes those voices but centers those voices," she said.

Bookstores Helping Bookstores, a fundraiser benefiting Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vt., and Next Chapter Bookstore in Barre, Vt., both damaged in the recent central Vermont floods, is set for Saturday, July 29. 

Sixteen Vermont indies, which are also New England Independent Bookstore Association members, have committed to donating proceeds from their sales on the 29th to Bear Pond and Next Chapter. Independent publisher Rootstock Publishing, meanwhile, is donating sales from books purchased on its website between July 18 and August 18.

"When the flood hit, we knew we had to do something to help our neighboring bookstores," said Becky Dayton, owner of the Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury, Vt. "NEIBA is a wonderful organization that fosters a vital and supportive bookselling community, and members truly value the importance of keeping our local stores alive. This shared value and our special Vermont Bookstore unity is why we're holding this fundraiser for Bear Pond Books and Next Chapter Bookstore."

Five more parents have joined the lawsuit filed in federal district court in May by PEN America, Penguin Random House, authors, and parents of students in Escambia County, Fla., against the county school district and school board over book bannings and the restriction of access to the area's public school libraries.

Plaintiffs noted that since the lawsuit was filed, the school district has "continued its policies of removing books from school libraries. In that time an additional 21 book titles have been challenged and 17 have been restricted, including Pulitzer Prize-winning Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, the landmark graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore, and the horror novel It by Stephen King."

Carin Smith, one of the parents who joined the suit, said, "As a Black mother of two teenage girls, I know how important it is for our children to have access to books like The Freedom Writers Diary and Beloved. I respect the right of parents to make decisions with and for their own children. In my opinion, we should not shy away from the real, raw struggles this country has faced, and my girls shouldn't be deprived access to books on those issues because our stories make someone else uncomfortable."

And Benjamin Glass, another parent joining the suit, said, "Someone with a master's degree in library science, also known as a librarian, should be deciding what's in libraries--not politicians. Parents, of course, should be involved in what is in their own child's best interest to read. But they shouldn't be making decisions on behalf of other people's children. You parent your child, I'll parent mine, and we'll let librarians do their jobs. That sounds good to me."

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Sally Bradshaw

In a Tampa Bay Times column called "What my second grade 'honorable mention' taught me about Florida book bans," Sally Bradshaw, founder and owner of Midtown Reader, Tallahassee, Fla., recalls winning "a box of beautiful hardback books" for her honorable mention in an essay-writing contest, books that she enjoyed starting on the ride home.

"As a bookworm growing up in a small Southern town, books were my portal to worlds very different from my own," she continues. "Our public library was a sanctuary. Our local bookstore, a hidden gem. I couldn't wait to get lost in the stacks by myself--away from my mom for just long enough to imagine I was a grown up with the power to choose my own adventure.

"I loved the sound of the librarian's stamp in a book's jacket pocket. I rushed to volunteer when I was old enough at my own school library. It was among those bookshelves that I found the power to see into a world beyond my own experience; to understand the far-ranging thoughts of others; and to find comfort in the knowledge that people can become extraordinary despite the trauma and challenges they endure.

"Never did I imagine that other children would not have the power and solace afforded by an unfettered access to books. Yet, today this is the stark new reality in Florida and increasingly across America. We have arrived at the Orwellian moment when under the ironic cry of 'freedom,' Florida government has effectively empowered extremist groups and outliers to become censors for everyone, pulling literature from public bookshelves if just one parent finds a book offensive. More than 350 books have been removed from school shelves in Florida over the last year.

"In Florida's Panhandle this has a particularly devastating effect, because rampant poverty in our region makes libraries the only available source of books for many thousands of children. Absent stories and the power of the written word, and without books in libraries which make those stories available to all, how will we give these children the tools to understand and overcome their own circumstances and provide a vision to which they can aspire?"

She concludes, "Recently someone asked why our bookstore Midtown Reader in Tallahassee has made banned books a regular topic of discussion. We've worked hard to be a place where everyone, of every background and political persuasion can gather to read, think and share. We've refrained from partisan battles preferring to provide diverse content and allow readers to pursue ideas and consider opposing viewpoints as a healthy and appropriate outcome of reading and learning.

"But when it comes to real freedom--the kind where you exercise the sovereignty of the individual while others are fully allowed to do the same--there can be no compromise."

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Lee Rowland

Lee Rowland, policy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union, will become executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, effective September 11. She replaces Chris Finan, who announced in March that he is retiring. Before joining NCAC in 2017, Finan was president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, which he joined in 1998. (ABFFE merged with the ABA in 2015 and became the American Booksellers for Free Expression.) Earlier he was executive director of the Media Coalition.

Rowland served for more than a decade as a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, the Brennan Center for Justice, and the New York Civil Liberties Union. She has extensive experience as a litigator, lobbyist, and public speaker. She has served as lead counsel in federal First Amendment cases involving public employee speech rights, the First Amendment rights of community advocates, government regulation of digital speech, and state secrecy surrounding the lethal injection process. She has also written many amicus briefs and blogs, about issues such as speech and privacy, student and public employee speech, obscenity, and the Communications Decency Act. She also has represented several NCAC partner organizations.

NCAC chair Emily Knox called Rowland "an experienced and talented defender of free expression. Her decades of work as a civil libertarian make her the right person to lead NCAC as it confronts the book banning crisis and the many other difficult challenges to free expression."

Rowland said, "As a lifelong free speech advocate, I am thrilled to join the NCAC,  an organization I have long respected for its principled and nonpartisan commitment to free expression. Our rights to read, think, create, and explore are always essential to a just, egalitarian, and inclusive democracy. NCAC is uniquely positioned to help us defend those rights against censorship and oppression. It's an honor to be joining the organization in this fight."

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Dave Grogan

American Booksellers for Free Expression director Dave Grogan has rejoined the board of the Media Coalition, as reported in Bookselling This Week. The Media Coalition is "an association that protects the First Amendment rights of producers and distributors of books, movies, magazines, recordings, home video, and video games, and defends the American public's First Amendment right to have access to the broadest possible range of information, opinion and entertainment."

HarperCollins Focus is launching a Spanish-language imprint, HarperEnfoque, that will publish "a variety of content dedicated to empowering lives and fostering change" and be led by Cris Garrido, v-p and publisher, Spanish division.

The first releases published under the new imprint, appearing this fall, include Pablo Muñoz Iturrieta's Turn off Your Phone and Turn on Your Brain, Sara Huff's How to Manufacture a Feminist, and Margarita Pasos's I Could and You Can Too!. The imprint will also publish titles by Agustín Laje, John Maxwell, Dave Ramsey, Brian Tracy, Daniel Habif, Zig Ziglar, and others.

Garrido said, "Our vision is to hand-select an exclusive number of projects each year that are uniquely positioned to capture the interest of readers through content that challenges and inspires the mind and helps them to change their world. HarperEnfoque will be a natural extension of the HarperCollins Focus overall position in the marketplace--one that equips readers to lead a life of significance, integrity, and purpose."

Martha Saxton

Historian Martha Saxton, "whose penetrating examinations of women's lives led her to new insights into figures ranging from the author Louisa May Alcott to the 1950s actress and sex symbol Jayne Mansfield to Mary Washington, the mother of the first president of the United States," died July 18, the New York Times reported. She was 77.

"I have spent my life studying and writing North American women's history to try to retrieve some of what has been lost, to try to replace incomprehension or criticism with historical context, and to substitute evidence for stereotypes and sentiment," she wrote in The Widow Washington: The Life of Mary Washington (2019).

"Saxton showed that Mary Washington was very much a person of her time, and that her life was a window into the experiences of women in 18th-century Virginia," the Times noted, adding that she "brought the same perspective to her first book, Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties (1976), which was also the first serious assessment of an actress better known for her physical endowments than her dramatic skills." She followed the Mansfield book with Louisa May Alcott: A Modern Biography (1977), writing: "Little Women became a handbook for girls desiring wisdom about becoming good women."

After establishing herself as a published author, Saxton decided to pursue a Ph.D. in history at Columbia University. She received her doctorate in 1989, eventually publishing her dissertation in 2003 as the book Being Good: Women's Moral Values in Early America. She joined the Amherst faculty in 1997, and received emerita status in 2015.

"As an academic, Professor Saxton expanded her scope of historical inquiry, looking beyond middle-class white women to examine the lives of women of color, enslaved women and incarcerated women," the Times wrote. With Amherst colleague Amrita Basu, she developed courses on human rights activism and gender and the environment. 

At her death, Saxton was nearing completion (all that she lacked was a final chapter) of her last book, a biography of the 18th-century English historian Edward Gibbon. Author Judith Thurman, a close friend, and Basu said they would be finishing the draft.

Courtney and Tyler Galicia, who opened A Great Notion bookstore in Auburn, Mass., earlier this year, spoke with WBJ about their experiences thus far. Among the highlights of the q&a:

So, let's get the big question out of the way, fully recognizing that I personally 100% believe in the value of independent bookstores, why did you think opening a bookstore was a good idea now?
Courtney: It was what was best for us, our souls, our family, and our future. Selfishly, we needed it, but we knew Auburn didn't have anything like that. As soon as the location fell into place, the entire picture came together. We have an awesome real estate agent we've worked with, who is basically a friend at this point. She showed us this location, and we were sold. It's wheelchair accessible, it has a bathroom, and it's small but not too small. It was just cozy enough. That really solidified it for us.

How would you describe the store's vibe or ethos?
Courtney: Welcoming and safe. It piques your curiosity. There are so many little niches to it. Even though we're small, people say they feel like they still haven't seen everything after one visit. I've heard others use the word whimsical; our inventory is eclectically gathered.

How do your experiences working in education inform how you approach running a bookstore?
Tyler: I'm an English teacher, so my inherent interest is to get people interested in reading. So, at A Great Notion, that's the angle I take: I just love books, and I collect them at home. I'm trying to entice people to read further and read more.

Do you have any final thoughts for anyone who is thinking about pursuing their dream career change?
Courtney: I saw this thing the other day, and it just clicked with me. It was about why you should quit your job in 2023. While we might not have had all the knowledge upfront about what we were about to do, we knew if we put our minds to it, we could make it work. We've made mistakes, but I feel like I'm becoming more of an expert every day. A Great Notion is the story of, 'Okay, just do it.' Or, do what we did: Do it scared.

"Inspired" by Elon Musk's rebranding of the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Scuppernong Books, Greensboro, N.C., tweeted (Xed?): "Today, we're re-branding Scuppernong Books as X. Not for any particular reason, but because we are geniuses. Nonsensical mission statement to follow. Please refer to us as X from now on. We won't answer to that other name."

"Roo has some concerns about her job security," WordHaven BookHouse, Sheboygan, Wis., posted on Instagram.

I Will Swim Next Time by Emily Joof, illustrated by Matilda Ruta (Floris Books).

Today:
Fresh Air: S.A. Cosby, author of All the Sinners Bleed (Flatiron Books, $27.99, 9781250831910).

Tomorrow:
Today Show: Thao Thai, author of Banyan Moon (Mariner, $30, 9780063267107).

Also on Today: Hilton Carter, author of Living Wild: How to Plant Style Your Home and Cultivate Happiness (CICO Books, $45, 9781800652125).

Good Morning America: Morgan Cutlip, author of Love Your Kids Without Losing Yourself: 5 Steps to Banish Guilt and Beat Burnout When You Already Have Too Much to Do (Thomas Nelson, $28.99, 9781400239627).

Tamron Hall repeat: Luke Russert, author of Look for Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself (Harper Horizon, $28.99, 9780785291817).

SAG-AFTRA has granted a waiver to The Summer Book, a series based on Tove Jansson's novel, to shoot during the current strike. Deadline reported that the guild has now allowed 68 projects the ability to shoot during the current strike. The Summer Book, starring Glenn Close and Anders Danielsen Lie, is directed by Charlie McDowell, with Robert Jones adapting the book for screen. 

"I'm deeply honored to be adapting one of my favorite novels, Tove Jansson's The Summer Book, and to film in Finland, the beautiful country in which this story is based," McDowell told Deadline earlier this spring. "It's long been a dream of mine to work with Glenn Close. I've long admired her thoughtfulness, immense versatility, and deeply captivating presence both on the stage and on screen. I first discovered Anders Danielsen Lie from his brilliant collaborations with Joachim Trier, and he's quickly become one of my favorite actors out of Scandinavia. I can't imagine a more magnificent duo to collaborate with on this film."

Winners of the 2023 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were presented at Comic-Con International. The full list can be seen here. Among the winners:

Best Comics-Related Book: Charles M. Schulz: The Art and Life of the Peanuts Creator in 100 Objects by Benjamin L. Clark and Nat Gertler (Schulz Museum)
Best Academic/Scholarly Work: The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader: Critical Openings, Future Directions edited by Alison Halsall and Jonathan Warren (University Press of Mississippi)
Best Graphic Memoir: Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (Drawn & Quarterly)
Best Writer: James Tynion IV
Best Writer/Artist: Kate Beaton

In addition, the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award, given to a store that has done an outstanding job of supporting the comics art medium both in the community and within the industry at large, went to Cape & Cowl, Oakland, Calif.

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Longlists have been released for the £2,000 (about $2,565) Polari Prize and £1,000 (about $1,280) Polari First Book Prize, U.K. and Ireland awards for LGBTQ+ literature. The prizes are sponsored by literary PR consultancy FMcM Associates and the D H H Literary Agency. Shortlists will be unveiled September 27 and the winners' prize ceremony held November 24. 
 
Polari Prize founder Paul Burston said: "This year's Polari Prize long lists demonstrate a diverse range of LGBTQ literary talent, writing across many different genres and from a wide variety of perspectives. The volume and quality of submissions was extremely high this year, and the judges really had their work cut out. But these are long lists we can all be proud of. At a time when LGBTQ people are under attack, our stories matter more than ever. These are our stories. Read them. Learn from them. Celebrate them."

The Polari Children's and YA Prize will return in 2024, as a bi-annual award for books for children and young adults with LGBTQ+ themes or representation. 

The Golden Gate transports readers back to 1940s San Francisco in a well-plotted and clever whodunit that pits a tough-guy murder detective against one of the city's wealthiest families. It's a story that sheds light on the many ways that race and class play into the history of the West Coast town and the United States judicial system writ large.

Detective Al Sullivan is enjoying a drink with a pretty girl at the upscale Claremont Hotel when he's told there's been a murder upstairs in one of the guest rooms. The victim proves to be none other than a much-maligned presidential candidate with a laundry list of enemies in town. One of the suspects turns out to be the girl Sullivan had been out on the town with that same evening, also a member of the Bainbridge family, part of San Francisco's elite. As clues lead Sullivan to believe that the murder of the politician is connected to the unexplained death of one of the young Bainbridge daughters a decade earlier, he finds himself caught up in a murky, tangled investigation full of twists and turns that keep him--and readers--guessing to the very end.

Amy Chua (Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother), best known for her nonfiction, brings a keen eye for historical detail to her debut novel, filling The Golden Gate with trivia about San Francisco's growth as a port and then a bustling well-to-do city, as rife with elements of racism and classism as elsewhere in the U.S. Within this historical context, Chua expertly draws in elements of classic noir fiction: a tough-guy detective with a soft spot for loved ones and beautiful women; a femme fatale (or in this case, three of them); and a conclusion that, while not neat or pat or even happy, is satisfying in its explanation of what had seemed inexplicable. Sullivan makes the perfect moody protagonist for this kind of whodunit mystery, set in the equally moody and appropriate setting of a stunning U.S. city known for its incredible fog: "I put my collar up, pulled my hat brim down, and set off through the drizzle, wondering how much I'd been played in the last seventy-two hours and by how many different women." Weaving elements of family drama and long-held secrets, political whims and machinations, international relations, race, class, and power with the history of San Francisco and well-loved noir tropes, The Golden Gate is a stunning debut novel. --Kerry McHugh, freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: A well-plotted and clever whodunit from the author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother pits a tough-guy murder detective against one of San Francisco's wealthiest families.

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

1. Twisted Love by Ana Huang
2. Twisted Games by Ana Huang
3. Notes for the Journey Within by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
4. Twisted Hate by Ana Huang
5. Twisted Lies by Ana Huang
6. The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose
7. The Stars are Dying by Chloe C. Peñaranda
8. Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
9. Hooked by Emily McIntire
10. Leigh Howard and the Ghosts of Simmons-Pierce Manor by Shawn M. Warner

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]