While you're sinking your toes in the sand, or trying to stay cool in the heat, the Shelf will move our Seattle office tomorrow. We are happily returning to the beloved Pike Place Market.
Please note our new address and forward it to others in your store or company who need it, especially those in publicity and accounts payable:
Shelf Awareness
2107 Elliott Ave., Suite 205
Seattle, WA 98121
Our phone number remains the same: 206-274-8144.
Barnes & Noble, the Freedom to Read Foundation, the Association of University Presses, the American Association of School Librarians, and Freedom to Learn Advocates have filed an amici curiae brief in support of a motion for a preliminary injunction against Texas's HB 900 "sexual rating" law, also known as the READER Act, which is scheduled to go into effect September 1. A group consisting of BookPeople, Austin, Tex.; the Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston, Tex.; the American Booksellers Association; the Association of American Publishers; the Authors Guild; and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund filed suit last month, asking for preliminary and permanent injunctions against the law, which they call "the Book Ban."
Under the law, all companies selling to school libraries, librarians, and teachers in Texas have to assign ratings to books concerning their sexual content. (Titles for required curricula are exempted from the law.) A book deemed "sexually explicit" will be banned, and a book deemed "sexually relevant" will have restricted access. The "sexually relevant" rating covers, plaintiffs said, all non-explicit references, in any context, to sexual relations, and therefore "could apply broadly to health-related works, religious texts, historical works, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and many other works."
The law also has a retroactive feature: by next April, all booksellers and other book vendors must submit to the Texas Education Agency a list of every book they've ever sold to a teacher, librarian, or school that qualifies for a sexual rating and is in active use. The stores also are required to issue recalls for any sexually explicit books. If the Agency finds that a bookstore has been incorrectly rating books, it can be banned from doing business with charter schools or school districts. The Agency can also override booksellers' ratings.
The "friends of the court" brief concentrates on two aspects of the law's unconstitutionality. "First," the brief says, "the Book Ban is a content-based regulation of speech and cannot survive strict scrutiny. Any broad speech restriction aiming at protecting children that does not assess a literary work 'as a whole' and that is not circumscribed to works without redeeming social or literary, scientific or artistic value for minors is unconstitutional. Second, the burdensome and coercive requirements on publishers, booksellers and distributors to rate and label literary works as 'sexually relevant' or 'sexually explicit' constitute unconstitutional compelled speech."
See the full brief here and the original complaint here.
AUPresses executive director Peter Berkery commented: "We are dismayed by the layers of unconstitutionality in this book-banning law as well as the draconian nature of its implementation. We have received reports from our members that distributors are overwhelmed by the law's requirements and are asking for publishers' rating assistance so they can continue to serve school libraries in Texas.
"The coercive nature of this ban is simply breathtaking. Failure to comply has significant financial and reputational consequences."
First Light Books, a bookstore and cafe with a general-interest, all-ages inventory, is opening August 19 in Austin, Tex., Eater Austin reported.
Located at 4300 Speedway, in a building that formerly housed a post office, First Light has a wide-ranging inventory featuring fiction, nonfiction, poetry, art books, and cookbooks. There is a children's section with classic and contemporary titles, as well as a newsstand with journals, magazines, and other periodicals.
First Light's event plans include happy hours, book clubs, author readings, culinary events, children's storytime sessions, and more. The bookstore is also offering an annual membership program that includes a free daily coffee, discounts on books, free delivery, and other perks.
The cafe, meanwhile, will serve food and drinks all day. First Light's coffee window will open at 7 a.m., with the rest of the store opening at 9 a.m. In the morning there will be pastries from local bakery Texas French Bread, and in the afternoon and evening there will be sandwiches, cereal, cheese boards, and more. Local beer and cider will also be available.
Co-founders Taylor and Robin Bruce have been working on opening First Light Books for more than a year, and they've brought in Breezy Mayo, who has ample experience in the hospitality industry, as a business partner. Robin Bruce noted that she and her husband always sought out independent bookstores when they traveled, and opening a community bookstore of their own was a long-held dream.
This Is a Bookstore & Bookbug, Kalamazoo, Mich., is making a change in the operation of its in-store cafe, Table of Contents. In a recent Instagram post, the bookseller announced "our longtime supplier, kindred community builder, and dear friends @FactoryCoffee will now become the full time operator of the bookstore's cafe space--bringing Factory Coffee's high standard of service and extraordinary care for their product into the bookstore's space previously known as Table of Contents."
The reboot, under the new name FC Bookstore Cafe, will feature "seamless improvements to its menu, buoyed efficiencies to its service, and a sincere commitment to complement and enhance all bookstore events, customer needs, and gatherings.... It is an amazing joy to welcome Factory's leaders, whom many of you know as the kind-spirited Dan Kastner with over 20 years experience in coffee and the indisputably talented and generous artist, writer, and children's book author, Emmy Kastner, to now be even closer partners in our joint missions to serve and lift Kalamazoo. Welcome, friends. Welcome to the FC Bookstore Cafe."
Factory Coffee noted on Instagram that "coffee and books have forever been a passion of our co-owners, Dan and Emmy, so to be serving our coffee surrounded by books is a dream--truly a full circle moment for us. @bookbugkzoo has been a kindred small business, intentional in their effort to reach, support, and build community in Kalamazoo. We are honored at the opportunity to complement our friends' work with Factory Coffee's commitment to service, quality, and care."
The Book Burrow in Pflugerville, Tex., opened last weekend in its new home, Community Impact reported.
Now located at 401 W. Pecan St., Suite G, the bookstore sells books for all ages across many genres and features a game room and snack bar. Previously, the bookstore resided inside of a wine bar called the Three Legged Goat, which was closing down this summer for extensive renovations.
Facing possible closure, bookstore owner Kelsey Black turned to her community for support, and in less than two weeks sold nearly 2,000 books. She also launched a GoFundMe campaign that has raised close to $1,700. And when it came time to move the store from the Three Legged Goat to its new home, the community helped with that, too.
"We had a whole lot of people in our community reach out and ask how they could help,” Black told Community Impact. “We have a list of about 45 people that stepped up and helped us out. It absolutely blew me away.”
Black has a grand opening celebration planned for August 26.
The Book Industry Charitable Foundation has announced this year's winners of two scholarships managed by the foundation. The Macmillan Booksellers Professional Development Scholarship allows eight booksellers from underrepresented groups to attend their region's independent book association trade show. Each scholarship covers the cost of travel, lodging, and meals up to $500. This year's winners are:
Nikki Hig from Octavia's Bookshelf, Pasadena, Calif. (CALIBA)
Shelby Dragone from Schuler Books, which operates four stores in Mich. (GLIBA)
Nell Gehrke from Country Bookshelf, Bozeman, Mont. (MPIBA)
Jordan April from Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C. (SIBA)
Frederick Rossero from Oblong Books and Music, Millerton & Rhinebeck, N.Y. (NEIBA)
Frances Metzger from Country Bookshelf, Bozeman, Mont. (PNBA)
Nikita Imafidon from the Raven Book Store, Lawrence, Kan. (MIBA)
Amani Jackson from the Ivy Bookshop, Baltimore, Md. (NAIBA)
The George Keating Memorial Scholarship provides $500 to a bookseller in the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association, Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, and New England Independent Booksellers Association, for the purpose of professional development. The winners are chosen by each regional association.
"Binc is honored to help book people expand their knowledge and grow in their roles," said Binc executive director Pam French. "Partnering with Macmillan Publishers, the friends of publishing sales rep George Keating and regional executive directors whose values align with the foundation allows us to support booksellers across the country. Thanks to these two scholarships as well as an additional scholarship for each region, Binc will distribute approximately $11,000 to ensure access to professional development for everyone."
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East City Bookshop, Washington, D.C., hosted Lena Andrews (l.) for a discussion of her book Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II (Mariner Books). Joining her in conversation was White House correspondent April Ryan.
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Congratulations to Googey, bookseller cat at BookMarx in Springfield, Mo., who recently "earned the role of Captain Springfield not by being a cat, but by being GOOGEY."
BookMarx noted that Googey "is humbled and overwhelmed by the outpouring of support he has received this week. It was an honor for him to be included in a field of such wonderful members of our community. A sincere thank you to all of the people who shared, voted, and advocated for Googey's candidacy.... We look forward to having the privilege to use Googey's platform to highlight causes (both human and animal) close to his furry heart. Googey looks forward to spending the next year making you proud to have elected him. Does anyone know if John's Suit Shop does fittings for tiny capes?"
LionWing Publishing will be exclusively delivered to North American and international book markets by Diamond Book Distributors and to the comic book specialty market exclusively by Diamond Comic Distributors.
Founded in 2018, LionWing publishes translations of Japanese tabletop roleplaying games for the English-language market.
Tony Lutkus, president of Diamond Book Distributors, said, "Manga and role-playing games have established, dedicated, and energized fan bases. LionWing unites these audiences perfectly with their standout, high-quality tabletop games that combine manga-style artwork, unique storylines, and solid, stand-alone game systems. Their localized, anime-themed are perfect for fans of manga, light novels, and role-playing games. We're thrilled to bring these engaging tabletop games to new audiences everywhere!"
Peter Turner has been named v-p, associate publisher, of Hierophant Publishing. He was previously associate publisher at Red Wheel/Weiser Books and earlier was president/publisher at Shambhala Publications and head of InBooks.
I've Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton by Lynn Melnick (Spiegel & Grau).
The first official trailer has been released for The Other Black Girl, the Hulu Original series from Onyx Collective, based on the 2021 novel by Zakiya Dalila Harris, Deadline reported. The 10-episode series premieres on September 13. Sinclair Daniel and Ashleigh Murray lead a cast that includes Brittany Adebumola, Hunter Parrish, Bellamy Young, Eric McCormack, and Garcelle Beauvais.
Rashida Jones executive produces alongside Adam Fishbach, Zakiya Dalila Harris, Jordan Reddout, Gus Hickey, Tara Duncan, and Temple Hill's Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey. Author Harris and Jones co-wrote the pilot. Jordan Reddout and Gus Hickey also serve as co-showrunners.
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman has won the £2,023 (about $2,575) Arthur C. Clarke Award for the best science fiction novel published in the U.K. last year. According to the Guardian, the winning novel "is set in the 2030s and follows the search for a surviving colony of a hyper-intelligent species of fish."
Chair of the judges Andrew M. Butler called Venomous Lumpsucker a "biting satire, twisted, dark and radical, but remarkably accessible, endlessly inventive and hilarious."
The award's director, Tom Hunter, added that the novel "takes science fiction's knack for future extrapolation and aggressively applies it to humanity's shortsighted self-interest and consumptive urges in the face of planetary eco-crisis. The result is a bleakly funny novel where the only hope for our species is working out the final punchline before it's delivered."
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Ben Purkert is the author of a poetry collection, For the Love of Endings, which came out in 2018 and was named one of Adroit's Best Poetry Books of the Year. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Slate, the Nation, Kenyon Review, and Tin House, among others, and he is the editor of Back Draft, a Guernica interview series. He teaches creative writing at Rutgers University. Purkert's debut novel, The Men Can't Be Saved (Overlook/Abrams), is an exploration of self-image against the backdrop of toxic masculinity, set in the advertising world, and is partially inspired by Purkert's time working as a copywriter.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
Wannabe Don Draper loses his job, then loses his mind along with it. A novel about what work does to our souls. Plus sex! Religion!
On your nightstand now:
I'm finishing up Desperate Characters by Paula Fox. Jonathan Franzen described it as better than any novel John Updike or Philip Roth ever wrote, and you know what? I think I agree. I'm also in the middle of Menachem Kaiser's nonfiction book Plunder, about his quest to reclaim his family's apartment building in Poland after it was seized by the Nazis. It's an incredibly compelling read.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Tuck Everlasting. I can't even remember all that much about it; I just remember being obsessed with it, carrying it with me in the school cafeteria like the true nerd I was and still am. If I recall, the book is about how immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be. As I get older, and terrifyingly more mortal, I'll have to pick it up again.
Your top five authors:
I love the wondrously strange novels of Andrés Barba. Ben Lerner's mind is maybe my favorite thing to encounter on the page. I admire the heck out of Heather Christle's poems, and her unique blend of comedy and surrealism. There is no one who captures what it means to care for the world quite like Hanif Abdurraqib. I'll close out with Inger Christensen. Have you read Alphabet? It's an extraordinary account of everything that exists on the planet, and thus everything we risk losing.
Book you've faked reading:
Ulysses by James Joyce. I can't count how many times I've found myself in a room in which someone mentions this book, and I nod heartily, as if I have not only read the thing, but have authored a decorated Ph.D. dissertation on its contents. It's probably my favorite book I haven't read.
Book you're an evangelist for:
A Luminous Republic by Andrés Barba (translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman). After I finished reading it, I raced to check the reviews, and it turned out that the New York Times utterly hated it! Well, that just about set me on fire. It is now my life's mission to right this egregious wrong.
Book you've bought for the cover:
I love the cover of Kaveh Akbar's Pilgrim Bell. I would've bought it anyway, of course, but the colors immediately drew me in. I love a cover that brings in a little abstraction, that allows room for interpretation.
Book you hid from your parents:
I was an excellent rule-abiding child. I never did anything wrong in any way, shape, or form, nor did I occasionally sneak out at night during that summer before my freshman year of college. Anyway, hi Mom, hi Dad!
Book that changed your life:
Every book changes you in some way, I think. It's not always easy--or productive--to trace that change. But that's why books remain so vital and intoxicating and mysterious. They do their work on us in the dark.
Favorite line from a book:
"The longing/ is to be pure. What you get is to be changed." That's from the poet Jorie Graham.
Five books you'll never part with:
It's really special when a dear friend publishes a book. I will always have these on my shelf, no matter where I go: Stop Wanting by Lizzie Harris, Eye Level by Jenny Xie, Love the Stranger by Jay Deshpande, All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky, So Long by Jen Levitt, and many more.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante. Remember that summer when it felt like everyone was reading them at the same time? You'd step on the train, and you'd see two other people with the same book? I wouldn't mind doing that again.
Your novel is titled The Men Can't Be Saved. Do you really believe that? Can men not be saved?
I guess you'll need to read the book to find out!
The Goth House Experiment by SJ Sindu (Soho Press, $19.95 hardcover, 208p., 9781641295192, October 17, 2023)
Creepy, vibrant, dark, and even funny, The Goth House Experiment spotlights Lambda Literary finalist SJ Sindu's skill with the short story form. These half dozen stories are rich with social commentary, layered and keenly observed.
The character Amit's story, "Patriots' Day," isn't solely about anti-Asian violence. It's also about the slow decay of a marriage, and the pressures of changing circumstances on a formerly illicit relationship. And it's about gendered and age-based workplace discrimination, and the multitude of smaller ways in which people hurt each other.
Many entries are set firmly in time or place, but Sindu turns them timeless with a focus on the characters' complicated internal lives. The couple in "Wild Ale" grapples with the Covid-19 pandemic as everyone goes slightly mad, including the main character, who obsesses over home-brewing projects and strains on their finances and relationships: "Maybe this pandemic has made us all into assholes. At the very least, it's made us into cornered animals, hissing and spitting at the faintest shadows."
Sindu's artistic range is also on display in the titular "Goth House Experiment," in which three creative people share a home, and one spins into madness fueled by grief, the specter of Oscar Wilde, and fentanyl.
Like Sindu (Blue-Skinned Gods), many of the central characters are South Asian or queer, and the author portrays them with the complexity and diversity of human experience. The bisexual femme professor in "Dark Academia and the Lesbian Masterdoc" is subject not only to biphobia online, but also to racism. One of the two central characters in "Patriots' Day" is an almost-divorced Indian man in a relationship with a white woman; the other is that woman's estranged, bigoted mother. Amit's imminent death is mentioned at the beginning of the story, ratcheting up the tension. When it's revealed that this Boston Marathon day is the year terrorists set off bombs at the finish line, but Amit isn't there, his death is once again a mystery. His journey home is perilous, but the ending is ambiguous. Amit will die, but how?
Sindu invites readers to examine and ultimately accept these characters as they are: narcissistic, loving, unfaithful, righteous, greedy, kind, bigoted. There are no convenient endings here, but readers won't need them. Sindu's characters are terrible, wonderful, and, most of all, human. --Suzanne Krohn, librarian and freelance reviewer
Shelf Talker: Wide-ranging and incisive, this dark and moody collection of six short stories will thrill fans of Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties.
Almost everyone who opens a new bookstore talks about realizing a lifelong dream. But what if the dream of opening a bookshop actually was a dream? I thought about this while watching The Last Bookshop of the World (La Última Librería del Mundo). Written and directed by Finnish filmmaker Rax Rinnekangas, the film chronicles a literary odyssey by four European friends (three men, one woman), each speaking a different language (French, Finnish, German, Spanish). They are packed into a book-filled van, traversing a barren landscape (the Basque desert region) to an isolated destination where they plan to fulfill their bookshop dream.
Is it a documentary? A work of fiction? In an interview last year, Rinnekangas, who is also a novelist and photographer, observed that we now live in a world where fiction and reality have become so indistinguishable he calls his work "fictionmentaries."
The Last Bookshop of the World found me as if it had emerged from the mists of a dream, too, since it seems to be available only through Kanopy, a digital film service for libraries and public universities, or Tubi.
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But it found me nevertheless, and I accepted the invitation to join this seemingly crazy desert quest (the film references Mad Max as well as Don Quixote). As they travel, the four book pilgrims discuss, at length, the state of the world (endangered) and literature (also endangered). Theirs is not so much a conversation as a kind of voice-over quartet performance. They rarely address one another--they're speaking four different languages, after all--but they do create a literary soundtrack of words and ideas, connected by musical interludes. As a viewer, I was invited along for the ride, the bookish introspection, and the dream of a last bookshop by these contemplative voices:
We were four people from four different cultures and a selection of quality books from my bookseller friend's collection. My friend said to me: Bookshops are facing huge problems in all countries--as the entertainment industry displaces quality literature. Some universities are even planning to do away with printed books. My friend also said: Take some remaining quality books and invite some of your literary friends take the books into a desert, out of the reach if industrial termites. This was my friend's wish.
Our job was to design a shop floor plan in a place where quality books would be safer than in cities where horrible termites gnawed away their space.
We drove nights and days. The sun shaped us like Homer's texts and read us. The night caressed us like Amin Maalouf's sentences. We began to recall other texts too...
This was our conversation on the way to the unknown where we were to find a location for our bookshop.
My bookseller friend loved classic literature: Pushkin, Gogol, Balzac. He loved the WORD, which those ever-shifting, wonderful, mystical living beings called Letters form. Like Italo Calvino, my friends believed that the WORD only knows itself, and no other way of knowing the world is possible for it. With this power the WORD joins the visible to the invisible, the absent to the desired, like a fragile temporary bridge stretched across the void.
Every word written from the heart holds a Mystery. The reader reveals it by building a whole from the sentences recognized by the consciousness. A book is a Family of mysteries. Booksellers are grandparents who love all their family members. That is why they can tell customers about the contents of the books. Booksellers who can't do this are not grandparents. They are just traders.
The journey had proved the value of the book. And that we were like fictional characters from books. This knowledge alone placed us close to our destination.
Coordinates, direction of light source, and relation to landscape. This was our destination. The foundation of Culture--the last bookshop in the world would be safe in just this kind of place. But what is Culture in the end? Is it educational wisdom. Or spiritual wisdom? Who was the sage who wrote that to arrive is just the beginning. Is this where we must now design a bookshop?
When they at last find their mysterious destination, the four friends each drive a stake into the sand and begin stringing a ribbon to form the outline of their dream bookshop.
We wanted a traditional shop with a single counter, shelves for different languages, two reading areas, and a chapel-like atmosphere.
If only customers would find the shop, they would also remember the book's original identity. A book is a printed product, but above all else, it is a Family of Ideas and Mysteries.
Five "customers" do suddenly appear (as if dropped off by a passing Fellini movie cast bus) and ask whether the shop is finished. They are invited to enter the new sacred space and begin talking with the nascent booksellers, who present some of the books they've carried across the desert. The camera slowly pans up and away from the gathering. The film's last lines are a found poem:
My friend the bookseller had said that if this was true,
the building materials would arrive within a month.
The stock--about 7,000 volumes--would come before that.
We would have time to study new thinkers
before the building work began.
There would be much more understanding in the world,
at least in this shop and with regards to literature,
if this was indeed true.
A sweet dream, is it not?
