Inklings' current location.

Inklings Book Shoppe, a used and new bookstore in Lakeland, Fla., is in the process of relocating to 818 E. Lemon St. downtown from its longtime space on South Combee Road. The Ledger reported that co-owners Finley and Carmen Walker said the move would be a dream come true, bringing Inklings "to a more centralized, pedestrian-friendly location after existing as a 'hidden gem' for over 40 years."

"We are the definition of a small business trying to make things work in the community they are in," Finley Walker said.

The owners are seeking permission from the city's Planning & Zoning Board to modify the historic building's designation to offer a small coffee bar and small pre-made pastries on site, the Ledger noted. A first hearing was held August 15 on the issue, with a second hearing and possible vote slated for September 19.

"Part of our responsibility as a bookstore in the community is to offer a space for people to have intellectual conversation," Walker noted.

The Walkers purchased the business--previously known as Book Bazaar--in January 2020, from Sharon and Bob Daley. During the Covid pandemic, Inklings launched its first website and Facebook page, along with changes in the inventory mix. These and other strategies have brought new customers into the shop, Walker said, adding that the business's mix is now 50% new customers and 50% returning. Overall profitability has been up by 10% to 15% per year for the last four years.

Walker said the move to Lemon Street will be the first time the bookshop has changed venues in more than 25 years. Though it is a smaller space, he believes he can use it more efficiently than the current layout.

"We are proud, happy and believe there's a lot more potential," he said.

Books-A-Million has opened a 2nd & Charles store in Orem, Utah.

Located at 140 East University Parkway in the Family Center shopping mall, the new store had a grand opening celebration this past Saturday, September 9, that included giveaways, face painting, and other activities.

The Orem location is the first 2nd & Charles to open in Utah and is the most western 2nd & Charles store to date. 2nd & Charles was founded in Birmingham, Ala., in 2010 and buys and sells books, comics, DVDs, video games, and more. There are now more than 40 2nd & Charles stores around the country.

Rita Dove

The National Book Foundation is awarding Rita Dove the 2023 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, which will be presented by poet Jericho Brown at the National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner on November 15.

The Foundation wrote, "Dove's sweeping body of work features 11 books of poetry, including Museum, Grace Notes, Selected Poems, Mother Love, On the Bus with Rosa Parks, American Smooth, Sonata Mulattica, Playlist for the Apocalypse, and her debut collection, The Yellow House on the Corner; a novel, Through the Ivory Gate; a collection of her Poet Laureate lectures titled The Poet's World; a short story collection, Fifth Sunday; and the play The Darker Face of the Earth. She won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Thomas and Beulah, her third collection of poetry, based loosely on the lives of her maternal grandparents. From 1993 to 1995, Dove served as the first Black Poet Laureate of the United States. [Dove's] career-spanning Collected Poems 1974-2004 was an NAACP Image Award winner and a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry."

Foundation director Ruth Dickey commented: "Rita Dove's oeuvre--from poetry, plays, and songs to essays and fiction--is a testament to her dazzling skill across genre and form. Dove's work transforms the everyday into the remarkable, brilliantly blending music, politics, and, let's not forget, pleasure."

In one of our favorite responses to receiving such an award, Dove told the AP, "I want it to be a milestone, not a tombstone. It may seem like a rather macabre metaphor, but I simply meant--knock on wood--that I haven't reached the end of my journey as an artist. I'm still observing, questioning, exploring." All the more reason to honor her.

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has launched the Kids' Right to Read Network (KRRN), a coalition of local groups that are fighting for the freedom to read for young people, a move NCAC called "in response to the rapid expansion of organized politically partisan efforts to remove books from school and public library shelves."

NCAC executive director Chris Finan said, "The goal of KRRN is to bring together the local groups that are fighting in school and library districts across the country. We are also urging everyone who cares about the freedom to read to start a Kids' Right to Read group in their community."

KRRN will host monthly meetings at which groups can share information and gain access to resources provided by NCAC and its participating organizations. It is currently working with groups in Florida, Texas, Iowa, Missouri, New Jersey, Louisiana, and South Carolina.

Since the beginning of the current wave of book bannings two years ago, NCAC's Youth Free Expression Program (YFEP) has protested book removals in letters sent to more than 100 school districts.

YFEP director Christine Emeran said, "While a parent can ask for an alternate assignment if they object to their child reading a particular book, no parent has a right to decide what someone else's kid can read."

Robert Sindelar, managing partner of Third Place Books, Seattle, Wash., and Dan Christiaens, West Coast sales rep for W.W. Norton, teamed up to produce, direct, and star in a production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. The show opened on Friday and will run on weekends through September 24.

On Saturday night, bookselling friends gathered on Whidbey Island near Seattle to see Christiaens (as Estragon) and Sindelar (Vladimir) in OutCast Productions' Waiting for Godot. Pictured: (l.-r.) Patti Pattee (formerly of Watermark Books in Anacortes, Wash.), Katie Mehan (Penguin Random House), Tracy Taylor (Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle), Dan Christiaens, Anne Holman (The King's English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, Utah), Robert Sindelar, Pamela Lehman Meyer, Laura Sager (Third Place Books, Ravenna)

Congratulations to Carmichael's Bookstore, Louisville, Ky., which is celebrating its 45th anniversary for a week, starting Saturday, September 30, when Carmichael's 45th anniversary sale begins at all three locations with 20% off on select items, an unveiling of the new anniversary T-shirt, and other fun surprises.

On Sunday, October 1, at 3 p.m. at the Crescent Hill store., author Kristen Gentry will be in conversation with former Kentucky Poet Laureate Crystal Wilkinson about her collection of Louisville short stories, Mama Said (West Virginia University Press).

On Wednesday, October 4, starting at 6 p.m. at the Crescent Hill store, Carmichael's will observe Banned Books Week (October 1-7) and host Banned Book trivia with prizes for the winning team and action items for all.

On Thursday, October 5, at 7 p.m. at the Crescent Hill store, Louisville native Alix Harrow will sign copies of her new fantasy novel, Starling House (Tor Books).

And on Saturday, October 7, at 6:30 p.m. at the Kentucky Country Day Theater, children's authors Mac Barnett and Shawn Harris will kick off their First Cat in Space and the Soup of Doom (Katherine Tegen Books) tour with an interactive theatrical extravaganza.

Carol Besse and Michael Boggs (the store name is a combination of their first names) opened Carmichael's Bookstore in 1978. In 2019, the founders retired, and Carmichael's was taken over by their daughter, Miranda Blankenship, and niece, Kelly Estep. The original store opened in the Highlands. The Crescent Hill location opened in 2000, followed by Carmichael's Kids, near the Highlands store.

Phaidon is celebrating its centennial with an exhibition "100 Years of Creativity: A Century of Bookmaking at Phaidon" at Christie's in Rockefeller Center in Manhattan through September 18. The exhibition, which highlights more than 250 of the most influential Phaidon books published from the 1920s to present day, will travel to London October 15-19.

Among the books on display are a first edition of E.H. Gombrich's The Story of Art (1950), which has sold more than eight million copies; some of the Contemporary Artist series; surveys and monographs on the Italian Renaissance, Velazquez, and Michelangelo from the 1930s; and The Silver Spoon (2005), the Italian cookbook that has sold more than 1.5 million copies.

Phaidon was founded in Vienna by Dr. Béla Horovitz, Frederick "Fritz" Ungar, and Ludwig Goldscheider, who named the company after Phaedo of Elis, a pupil of Socrates. Their vision was to create elegantly produced, accessibly priced art books.

Diamond Book Distributors is exclusively distributing Roll for Combat products to the North American and international book markets. Diamond Comic Distributors will also distribute Roll for Combat exclusively to the comic book specialty market.

Roll for Combat publishes tabletop RPG products for 5e and Pathfinder Second Edition, written by veteran authors and overseen by director of game design Mark Seifter, co-creator of Pathfinder Second Edition. Along with publisher Stephen Glicker, Seifter and a rotating cast of industry guests deliver tips, inside scoops, and analysis on the tabletop RPG scene on the YouTube show Roll for Combat Live. Additionally, Roll for Combat licenses with Paizo Inc. to run the RPG Superstar contest, which allows aspiring authors to submit monsters for professional judge feedback and potential publication.

Roll for Combat is best-known for the Battlezoo line of products for 5e and Pathfinder 2e. These include Battlezoo Ancestries Dragons, which allows players to play as dragons; Battlezoo Eldamon, which introduces 162 elemental creatures to befriend and 13 different elements to master; the Battlezoo Bestiary, which features hundreds of monsters to add to any TTRPG game; and the epic adventure Jewel of the Indigo Isles created collaboratively among five veteran adventure authors.

Spencer Simpson has joined Oni Press as v-p of sales. Simpson began his publishing career as the graphic novel buyer for Books-A-Million. In 2018, he joined BOOM! Studios as the company's first head of sales, beginning as sales manager before being appointed director of sales in 2020. In 2021, he moved to DC Comics as director of marketing & sales.

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At Abrams:

Joseph Montagne has joined Abrams ComicArts as associate publisher. Previously he was general manager of MDS-Benelux (Belgium).

Mary Marolla has been promoted to associate director, children's publicity.

Anneliese Merz has been promoted to publicist, children's publicity.

Snow! by Leslie Patricelli (Candlewick), a trailer whose music was created by the author's son, Beck Vontver, a composer.

Today:
CBS Mornings: Cedric the Entertainer, author of Flipping Boxcars: A Novel (Amistad, $30, 9780063258990). He will also appear tomorrow on the Today Show.

Also on CBS Mornings: Meg Kissinger, author of While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence (Celadon, $30, 9781250793775).

Today Show: Walter Isaacson, author of Elon Musk (Simon & Schuster, $35, 9781982181284).

Also on Today: Anita Phillips, author of The Garden Within: Where the War with Your Emotions Ends and Your Most Powerful Life Begins (Thomas Nelson, $28.99, 9781400232987).

Tamron Hall: Yvonne Orji, author of Bamboozled by Jesus: How God Tricked Me into the Life of My Dreams (Worthy Books, $17.99, 9781546012689).

Tomorrow:
CBS Mornings: Oprah Winfrey and Arthur C. Brooks, authors of Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier (Portfolio, $30, 9780593545409).

Also on CBS Mornings: Neil deGrasse Tyson, co-author of To Infinity and Beyond: A Journey of Cosmic Discovery (National Geographic, $30, 9781426223303).

Good Morning America: Michael Symon, co-author of Simply Symon Suppers: Recipes and Menus for Every Week of the Year (Clarkson Potter, $35, 9780593579688).

Today Show: Matthew McConaughey, author of Just Because (Viking Books for Young Readers, $19.99, 9780593622032).

Live with Kelly and Mark: Matt Gutman, author of No Time to Panic: How I Curbed My Anxiety and Conquered a Lifetime of Panic Attacks (Doubleday, $28, 9780385549059).

AMC Networks has released a first-look teaser trailer for its upcoming, six-episode crime drama, Monsieur Spade, premiering on AMC and AMC+ in early 2024. Starring Clive Owen (Closer, Children of Men, The Knick) as hard-boiled private detective Sam Spade, the limited series is co-created, written and executive produced by Scott Frank (The Queen's Gambit, Logan, Minority Report), who also serves as director, and Tom Fontana (City on a Hill, Borgia, Oz). 
 
Monsieur Spade, featuring the legendary character from Dashiell Hammett's novel The Maltese Falcon, is set in 1963, with the detective enjoying a peaceful, quiet retirement in the South of France until the rumored return of his old adversary and brutal murders lure him back to his profession. 
 
Shot on location in France, the project's cast also features Cara Bossom (Radioactive), Denis Ménochet (Inglorious Basterds), Louise Bourgoin (The Romanoffs), Chiara Mastroianni (On a Magical Night), Stanley Weber (Outlander), Matthew Beard (The Imitation Game), Jonathan Zaccaï (Robin Hood), and Rebecca Root (The Queen's Gambit). 
 
Monsieur Spade is co-created, written and executive produced by Frank and Fontana. Barry Levinson, Teddy Schwarzman, Michael Heimler, Owen, Caroline Benjo, Barbara Letellier, Simon Arnal, Carole Scotta, Carlo Martinelli, and David Helpern also serve as executive producers. In conjunction with the Dashiell Hammett Estate, the series is produced by Black Bear and co-produced by Haut et Court TV (The Returned, No Man's Land) who also handled local production services in France and Canal+. FilmNation Entertainment (I Know This Much Is True) handles international distribution outside of North America.

Alba Gil Celdran was named this year's winner of the Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize by Hachette Aotearoa NZ and the Margaret Mahy Estate for her illustrations of Mahy's children's book Seventeen Kings and Forty-Two Elephants. The winner receives A$2,000 (about US$1,275) and a collection of books worth A$500 (about US$320). 

The judging panel said Celdran's illustrations were mesmerizing and full of humor, and that they had a fantastic sense of movement, adding: "Her clever use of the kings and the animals led us on a very exciting, very humorous and very vibrant adventure."

The runners-up, Grant MacDonald and Matthew Hock, each receive a collection of books worth $A250 (about US$160) and a 30-minute individual mentoring session with the Hachette representative on the judging panel.

In Mother, Nature: A 5,000-Mile Journey to Discover if a Mother and Son Can Survive Their Differences, Jedidiah Jenkins (Like Streams to the Ocean) presents both a literal and psychological voyage--and an investigation into family and tolerance.

Jenkins, nearing his 40th year, is troubled by his relationship with his mother: loving but fractured by her inability to accept his identity as a gay man. In November 2021, following the Covid lockdown, he undertakes a trip with her that he hopes will help them address their disagreements. The same journey will allow reconsideration of an aspect of her life that Jenkins paid little attention to. In the 1970s, his parents, Peter and Barbara Jenkins, walked across the United States, as famously documented in a series of books (including A Walk Across America and The Walk West) and National Geographic articles. As mother and son retrace those steps by car, Jedidiah wishes to learn more about his mother and her worldview; see the countryside and strengthen their relationship; and perhaps, finally, bring her to terms with his identity.

In driving from Tennessee to New Orleans and cross-country to the Oregon coast, Jedidiah (who lives in Los Angeles) and Barbara (whose best friends come from her Nashville Bible study group) struggle with what to listen to in the car--she likes Glenn Beck, and he likes NPR--what to eat, how to pray. Eventually, they will discuss the question that's been weighing on the son's mind: "Would you come to my wedding if I married a man?" Barbara's conservative political and religious beliefs pose an obstacle to the love and acceptance that he craves from her. Their attempt to bridge such a divide feels relevant in polarizing times; the challenges faced by this loving but fundamentally diverging mother and son may resonate with many families.

Jenkins's prose is unadorned, but his reflections are elemental ones about family and the static and changing aspects of relationships: "a mother's influence is difficult to excise. It is not like the scorching sun. You cannot shade yourself from it. It is more enveloping and inescapable, like the air you need to survive." By the memoir's end, much is unresolved about the lives still in motion, but Jenkins has found his own peace, and learned a bit about the landscapes of his home country and his family background. Mother, Nature, a loving ode, suggests that the questions will continue to present themselves and that the journey toward discovery is worthwhile. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: A loving but troubled mother-son relationship takes center stage during a great American road trip in this reflective memoir about family.

The following were the most popular book club books during August based on votes from book club readers in more than 83,500 book clubs registered at Bookmovement.com:

1. Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel by Bonnie Garmus (Doubleday)
2. Demon Copperhead: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper)
3. Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano (Dial Press)
4. The Measure: A Novel by Nikki Erlick (Morrow)
5. Horse: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks (Viking)
6. Mad Honey: A Novel by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan (Ballantine Books)
7. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (Grove Press)
8. Verity by Colleen Hoover (Grand Central)
9. The Maid: A Novel by Nita Prose (Ballantine Books)
10. The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray (Berkley)

Rising Stars:
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Harper)
The St. Ambrose School for Girls by Jessica Ward (Gallery Books)

[Many thanks to Bookmovement.com!]