"I'm always happy to talk about independent bookstores! Indie bookstores play two roles in my life. As a reader and consumer of books, independent bookstores are my refuge. When I was a child, my reading material always came from the library. We didn't have money to buy books, but I've been more than making up for that as an adult! I'm very fortunate to live in a state with excellent bookstores. My local bookstore, Pass Christian Books, is the center of my community. The owners are my good friends. Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, is one of the best bookstores in the country, and their support of me and my work goes back to my first novel, Where the Line Bleeds. In Jackson, we have the great Lemuria Books.

"In indie bookstores around the country, I have always felt at home. I've always felt supported. I've always felt seen. This isn't something I take for granted, and I want all indie bookstores to know how meaningful it is to me. So, thank you, to all the indies over the course of my career."

Finch & Fern Book Co., an independent, woman-owned bookstore, opened last month with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 5641 Main St. in Sylvania, Ohio. Toledo City Paper reported that the bookstore, selling new and used books, is named after To Kill a Mockingbird's Atticus Finch. 

"I want to make sure that I'm available for people to come in after work and just chill for a little bit," said owner Katie Gilliland. "If somebody wants a quiet place to just hang out and surround themselves with good books, this is it, right here."

A long-time member of the Toledo bookstore community, Gilliland worked at Barnes & Noble for more than four years before leaving to work for the University of Toledo bookstore. She wanted to create a bookstore that is a reflection of the community and its needs, something her work experience provided insight into.

"I think what makes Finch & Fern different is the environment that I'm trying to cultivate here and the involvement with the community," she said. "I'm not just here to sell books; I want to cultivate relationships with the customers and the community as a whole." 

Gilliland plans to host local author signings and showcase local photographers, along with serving as a gathering spot for book clubs and kids' story times.

"I'm going to find as many ways to involve people in the community as I possibly can," she said. "Anybody who wants to promote local literary work or art, I want to be available to those people." 

The 1,500-square-foot space is designed to provide a "homey and cozy" place to read and has a "cool old vibe," Gilliland noted. "I want it to be warm and inviting. I strive to be that way as a person, and so I want the space I'm creating to feel that way too," 

She added: "It took me until like a year ago to realize that what I like doing is selling books--sharing my love of books with people. I love talking about books with people. I like seeing the world through all these different lenses and experiencing new cultures through reading and I feel like the world could use more of that.... The idea of being able to share this obsession with literature that I have makes me really excited."

Roundabout Books in progress.

Roundabout Books, a new and used bookstore in Greenfield, Mass., will hold a grand reopening celebration November 4 and 5 at 85 Pierce St., with music, food, magic and tens of thousands of books. The Recorder reported that owner Raymond Neal will be "opening the doors to the public to show off his new location, with at least 20,000 volumes on two floors of salvaged steel library shelves in a sprawling space that maintains its proud industrial aura."

"I mean, this is going to be one of the biggest bookstores in New England," Neal said. "I think people will be into it. And we have really good books."

Neal purchased the farmhouse-style building in July 2021. He started Roundabout Books on Kenwood Street in 2012 after years of working as a teacher. He has also owned Boswell's Books in Shelburne Falls since last year. The Recorder noted that the two-floor Pierce Street building "spans 10,000 square feet, with 6,000 square feet of browsing space. Neal said he carries every genre conceivable, and his employees are spending their days sorting enormous quantities of books." The new store will also have a dedicated children's section, which Neal said typically brings in about 50% of a bookstore's revenue.

He added that he hopes his customers become pleasantly overwhelmed, getting nearly lost in a large number of books that are well organized: "That's a big part of what a used-book person finds joyful, certainly for me. I've gotten that. That's been reinforced by our customers. I think the actual physical environment is actually appealing, too."

Barnes & Noble is opening a new store in Meriden, Conn., the Record-Journal reported.

Meriden officials have confirmed that B&N will be opening a new store in the Townline Square Shopping Center, in a space that previously housed a Pier 1 Imports. While an opening date has not been announced, the company has acquired building permits. B&N previously operated a bookstore in the Meriden Mall.

The Neverending Bookshop, Edmonds, Wash., will close December 17. Owner Annie Carl is currently running sales to reduce stock, and is planning a big party next month to celebrate the store. 

Carl opened the Neverending Bookshop in 2015 on Main Street in downtown Bothell before moving to the Perrinville Towncenter in Edmonds/Lynnwood in 2018. During the Covid pandemic shutdown, Carl rebranded the bookstore as a feminist, activist genre-specific bookstore to better reflect the community's, and her own, ethics and morals.

Annie Carl

"I'm closing the Neverending Bookshop for a number of reasons, chief among them is that I'm ready to move on in my life," she said. "This is a positive change for me. I'll be able to focus on my writing and other creative endeavors. I'm also still going to be around the bookselling industry in some capacity. Stay tuned, there's definitely more coming from me!"

Carl edited the book Soul Jar: Thirty-one Fantastical Tales by Disabled Authors (Forest Avenue Press), which was selected by attendees as the winning title in the BuzzBooks contest at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Tradeshow in Portland, Ore., in September.
 
She has been a bookseller for 25 years, starting in the industry at 15. This shift away from business ownership is the start of new opportunities, she said, including redoubling her efforts as a disability advocate and public speaker.

Yanna Demkiewicz (r.) with Bookshop.org's Steph Opitz

Joanna (Yanna) Demkiewicz will be stepping down from her position as marketing director at Milkweed Editions after eight years of leading publicity, marketing, and sales to explore a new career in massage therapy. 

Milkweed publisher & CEO Daniel Slager said: "When Yanna came to work with us as publicist less than a decade ago, our sales were roughly 25% of what they are today. In her subsequent role as marketing director, Yanna has had much to do with this growth. Her strategic approach to publishing literary books, her commitment to our authors, her willingness to do the hard work, and her ability to build strong relationships with partners across the industry--from PGW to indie booksellers to librarians and others--have been key ingredients in our success, and I am very grateful for her contribution. But above all, the simple truth is that Yanna has great energy. She has great integrity, she cares deeply, and she likes to have fun. We're all going to miss working with Yanna, and we wish her well as she goes down an entirely different path."

When Demkiewicz was promoted to marketing director in 2018, she expanded the press's legacy of collaborating with independent bookstores by fostering relationships with leaders at regional associations, attending bookseller conferences, and taking the time to get to know each bookseller's distinct taste. She coached authors on the value of the indie market and gave them tools to encourage their followers to pre-order and buy books from independent bookstores. 

"I grew up at Milkweed," said Demkiewicz. "I started working here when I was 25 and now I'm 33, and I'm excited to explore a new path. The longer I've worked in publishing, the more interested I have become in healing and community spaces. This interest has almost entirely been inspired by booksellers. I was a stranger to the industry when I joined, and booksellers were the most welcoming people, orienting me to the market and opening their hearts to me. I've been lucky enough to travel across the country and visit hundreds of stores, each with its own model for serving their singular neighborhood. Booksellers nurture readers, and readers make communities dynamic and powerful. Maybe it sounds crazy, or like a stretch, but I'm excited to integrate storytelling into healing massage therapy practice. Maybe one day I'll open a massage practice next to a bookstore."

Milkweed will be hiring a marketing director to replace Demkiewicz before year's end.

It was an evening in celebration of older women--writers, publishers, and bookstore owners, as Sausalito Books by the Bay, Sausalito, Calif., hosted Sibylline Press publisher Vicky DeArmon and two of her authors. The recently launched Sibylline Press is dedicated to publishing women writers over the age of 50.

Pictured: (l.-r.) authors Jann Eyrich (The Rotting Whale) and Julia Park Tracey (The Bereaved); Sausalito Books by the Bay owner Cheryl Popp; Vicky DeArmon; Books by the Bay director of events Barbara Lane.

" 'Tis the season to shop small" was the seasonally appropriate sidewalk chalkboard message in front of Our Town Books, Jacksonville, Ill.

Posted on Facebook yesterday by Pagination Bookshop, Springfield, Mo.: "It's officially November! We're staying cozy at the shop today, so stop by and say hi. Open til 6!"

The Twist-a-Roo by Kathleen Doherty, illus. by Kristyna Litten (Peachtree).

Matthew Wilder will write and direct an untitled film that chronicles the life and work of author Joan Didion. Deadline reported that the plan "is to paint a dreamlike day in the life of Didion and California in the late 1960s, when the brilliant young journalist is hurtled from encounters with jailed Manson girls to protesting Black Panthers, and from Nancy Reagan pausing in a photo op to Vietnam War POWs--climaxing with an epilogue in a near-future California where an AI Joan encounters a dystopia beyond her wildest anxiety dreams."

Produced under David Michaels's Enfant Terrible Cinema, the film will shoot in Los Angeles in the first or second quarter of 2024. Financing is being discussed with potential partners this week at the American Film Market event.

"I read every published word Joan wrote, then put it all in a blender," Wilder said. "We took all the history and the culture of the period, and what was going on in Joan's head, and created something fast-moving, lyrical and strange. It moves fast, and it feels like the movie Didion might've made with Antonioni in L.A. at the end of the '60s." 

Producer David Michaels commented: "Of course, it's really about today. All of what Joan saw happening in 1968 birthed the world we live in now. So, every scene is a double: a beautiful distant past but absolutely today." 

Producer Reza Sixo Safai added: "The key to Untitled is the role of Joan, and this is really going to be a defining, iconic role for a young actress. Whoever winds up playing Joan.... This is something like Lydia Tár, a role that is going to resonate for years." 

Winners have been named for the Diverse Book Awards 2023, which celebrates "outstanding inclusive books by authors and publishers based in the U.K. and Ireland," the Bookseller reported. 

The YA category winner was When Our Worlds Collided by Danielle Jawando, with second place going to Love in Winter Wonderland by Abiola Bello, and third place to If You Still Recognize Me by Cynthia So.

In the adult category, One for Sorry, Two for Joy by Marie-Claire Amuah won, followed by Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn, and The Attic Child by Lola Jaye.

The picture books category was won by Rashmi Sirdeshpande's Dadaji's Paintbrush, illustrated by Ruchi Mhansane; with second place going to Nour's Secret Library by Wafa Tarnowska, illustrated by Vali Mintzi; and third to Our Tower by Joseph Coelho, illustrated by Richard Johnson.

J.T. Williams took the children's category with The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries: Drama and Danger, illustrated by Simone Douglas, with The Twig Man by Sana Rasoul coming in second, and A Flash of Fireflies by Aisha Bushby third.

Due to illness, Malorie Blackman was unable to accept the inaugural Malorie Blackman Impact Award in person, but said: "I want to say a huge thank you to Abiola Bello and Helen Lewis for creating the Diverse Book Awards which I believe is now in its fourth year. They wanted to shine a spotlight on marginalized voices in the publishing world and that is indeed what they have done. I'm so honored and humbled to launch the new Malorie Blackman Impact Award, to be given to those who have committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. I can think of no greater accolade than to have such an award named after me."

This year also saw a Readers' Choice Award for each of the four categories, which were won by Manjeet Mann's Small's Big Dream, illustrated by Amanda Quartey (picture books), Rasoul's The Twig Man (children's), Bello's Love in Winter Wonderland (YA), and Reshma Rui's Still Lives (adult).

Helen Lewis, co-founder of the DBAs, said: "As always, it was a great atmosphere... at the Diverse Book Awards party. We are grateful to everyone who made the effort to join us to celebrate the books that have been longlisted, shortlisted and of course the winners of the Diverse Book Awards 2023. What a privilege and honor to be in a room with so much incredible talent."

Ahmed Naji is a writer, journalist, documentary filmmaker, and criminal. His novel Using Life made him the only writer in Egyptian history to have been sent to prison for offending public morality. He is also the author of the novels Tigers, Uninvited, and Happy Endings. Naji has won several prizes, including a Dubai Press Club Award, a PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, and an Open Eye Award. He is a fellow at the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute. He lives in exile in Las Vegas, Nev., where his writing continues to delight and provoke. Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison (McSweeney's, October 17, 2023) is Naji's account of serving 10 months in a group cellblock in Cairo's Tora Prison.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less: 

How does one make sense of a senseless oppression: finding oneself in prison for the act of writing fiction?

On your nightstand now:  

Searchlight: The Camp that Didn't Fail by Harry Reid
Philosophy in the Bedroom by Marquis de Sade 
The Politics of Friendship by Jacques Derrida
Ibrahim Naji: A Late Visit by Samia Mehrez.

The last one has not yet been translated into English. In this book, Mehrez, who is a literature professor at the AUC [American University in Cairo], discovers a forgotten box that contains her grandfather's diaries. She remembers her grandfather through engaging with the famous Arabic poet Ibrahim Naji, who was the face of the Arabic romantic art movement.

Favorite book when you were a child: 

One Thousand and One Nights. I discovered an uncensored copy of it at the age of 13 in my grandfather's library. I devoured it in the summer before going to high school. The book played a vital part in my transformation from cocoon to butterfly.

Your top five authors: 

Julio Florencio Cortázar, Joyce Mansour, Badar El-Deeb, Susan Lee Sontag, Al-Jahiz.

Book you've faked reading: 

The Bible. I believe I am not the only one who has faked reading it.

Book you're an evangelist for: 

Currently, all David Graeber books, especially his last one, published with David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. Discovering his works four years ago was a turning point. Reading Graeber makes the world look different. His historical research changed the way I understand our current moment, and led to a profound shift in my perspective.

Book You've bought for the cover:

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Filipe Andrade and Ram V. It's a graphic novel, the cover haunted me when I first saw it. It turned out to be the perfect introduction to Indian comics and graphic novels. 

Book you hid from your parents: 

When my Mom was alive, I tried to hide my books from her.

Book that changed your life: 

It's very hard to pick one! So I will be cheeky and highlight two. First, Hopscotch (the original Spanish title is Rayuela) by Julio Cortázar. I was a young poet when I read it for the first time. It was the book that made me want to write novels, and after reading it, I decided to become novelist. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Reading and discovering this in 2013 saved me from depression and losing interest in life, it formatted my mind again.

Favorite line from a book: 

"I only know two things: first, the world has been taken over by a bunch of bastards and murderers, and second, we shouldn't take it seriously because that's what they want." --La Violence et la Dérision by Albert Cossery (the English translation is titled The Jokers)

Five books you'll never part with: 

Sargon Boulus, complete works of poetry
I, Etcetera by Susan Sontag
A marvelous and brave memoir by the Egyptian poet Fatma Kandil, which is not translated into English but should be. I read it two years ago, but scenes and lines from it still pop into my head. 
The Threshold: Poems by Iman Mersal
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt

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

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. I was lucky to discover this book at a young age; I think I was 18 years old. The book and Pessoa's writing in general helped me several times in my life. When I first read it, it became one of my meditation books. I developed this theory of book meditation after reading this book for the first time. It's a book that you can read from any page, and forget yourself while reading, so it helps me if I am sad or in grief or even depressed.

Several years after her 2006 debut, Secondhand World, earned Katherine Min praise and applause, she shared snippets from her next book with her daughter, Kayla Min Andrews: "Lots of shit is going to happen--suicide, kidnapping, attempted murder. It'll be arch and clever but also heartfelt." Min finished a draft of The Fetishist in 2013 but deemed it "abandoned" when she was diagnosed with cancer in 2014; she died in 2019. Andrews rescued--and edited--the novel and sought publishing assistance from Pulitzer Prize finalist Cathy Park Hong (Minor Feelings), who provides the incisive introduction. Indeed, it took a village to create this literary marvel exactly as Min described.

"This is a story, a fairy tale of sorts," Min mischievously promises in her author's note. "And because it is a fairy tale, it has a happy ending... depending on where you put THE END." Min opens with Japanese American punk musician Kyoko, who's planning to avenge her mother Emi's suicide by punishing the fickle (white) Lothario who discarded her. She's "more Hello Kitty than killer," but murdering Daniel is the only way to alleviate the anger, hate, and grief that's "deformed" her young life.

Since that brief affair with Emi, Daniel's devolved from a violinist of some renown to performing private concerts for the "dying and newly dead"; in middle age, though, he's still seducing young (Asian) women. On the other side of the country, Korean American cellist Alma, Daniel's vibrant, singular soulmate who he irrevocably lost 20 years ago because of his careless liaison with Emi, is painfully succumbing to the MS that's already robbed her of her precious music.

Wending back and forth over decades, Min reveals these intertwined lives: desperate Emi killed by love, frenzied Kyoko trapped in the past, fading Alma isolated by regret and illness. What binds them together is Daniel, who is, of course, the titular fetishist. "Once Asian, never again Caucasian," Alma quipped after their first night spent together. "She had meant it as a joke, but... it had turned out to be true." Min's focus is magnificently aimed at dissecting, confronting, and exposing the fetishization of Asian women, but she never loses sight of engaging, inventive, playful storytelling, as she transforms Florence's Ponte Vecchio (where lovers fasten locks in a sign of commitment) into a site of betrayal, Yukio Mishima's fatal self-mutilation into a viral rock performance, and stolen fugu into a murder weapon. Balancing biting humor, wrenching despair, and unexpected redemption, Min radiantly succeeds in delivering that promised (mostly, cautiously) happy ending. --Terry Hong, BookDragon

Shelf Talker: Katherine Min's posthumous The Fetishist is an impeccable, surprisingly humorous, utterly poignant novel about an Asiaphilic Lothario and the women who love (and hate) him.

Manhattan's Kitchen Arts & Letters bookstore was featured recently in Forbes magazine as a business that "has a strong, devoted group of regulars, many of whom work in the food business," but managing partner Matt Sartwell "and his team take the time to speak to every new customer, whether by phone or in person."

"We are a full-price bookstore, but you can call and speak to a human being," he said. Forbes added: "Not just a human being, it turns out but one with an opinion, a point of view and an extensive knowledge of the field of food and drink. A stroll through the website starts like a simple search, but with each book comes a keen, almost passionate description, and by the time you've read a few you're either really hungry or have already ordered more books than you have space for on your shelf."

In the ongoing debate over AI's conquest of our lives, one front in the battle seems to be holding steady: engaged customer experience still matters. Having been connected to the world of indie bookselling for more than three decades, I was taught from the start--and went on to teach others--that the "total experience" a customer has interacting with a bookshop is as important as the purchases they may or may not make; that the subtle theater of handselling is more complicated than just running "product" out the front door. Books have to be sold to stay in business, but a total bookshop experience was what we offered.

The digital revolution has provided an opportunity to enhance this relationship. The customer experience of the future "isn't physical and it's not purely digital either; it's phygital," Forbes noted. "Modern customers crave the convenience of digital solutions but don't want to miss out on the in-person connection of physical experiences. Phygital experiences bring together the best of both worlds to blur the line between technology and in-person.... Phygital experiences allow brands to personalize customer interactions, provide relevant service, and solidify more sales."

Expanding genuine human experience possibilities is crucial as AI increases its retail foothold. I received an e-mail just yesterday from a company offering a seminar called "How to Build AI-Powered Customer Experiences with Trusted Data." They promised to show me better ways to "collect customer data and integrate your data stack in minutes"; to "enrich the Segment 'golden profile' to build high quality, bespoke end-user experiences at scale"; and to "turn predictive insights into personalized experiences optimized for growth."

This is important stuff, no doubt. Few businesses (probably no businesses) can survive without employing some measure of customer data collection. That's been true for a long time. But on a parallel track, and with increasing speed, another trend has been gaining momentum, a trend that feels pretty familiar to those of us who've toiled in the indie bookshop field for a while: the bookstore as an experience.

That can take many forms. For example, Theodore's Books, a small indie in Oyster Bay, N.Y., is planning an event later this month called "Steve in the Store: A Bookstore Experience with Rep. Steve Israel," in which the owner "answers your questions, gives recommendations, and browses for books with you."

In a world of "machine-generated abundance, human-centered services and experiences will become increasingly rare, valuable, and therefore desirable," Business Insider reported.

At the height of the Covid pandemic in the fall of 2020, Dr. Matt Johnson wrote presciently in Psychology Today: "The bookstores that have survived, and thrived, have gone beyond the book. If you had to distill their product down, it would be this: an experience which exudes a love of books.... [I]f the last 20 years of upheaval has taught us anything, it's this: People love the bookstore experience. And already, creative bookstores have moved to creative ways of delivering this: from author readings, to virtual bookstore tours, to offering a socially distanced book browsing experience outdoors. And with more people turning to reading while at home, bookstores that have been allowed to open have seen a surge in traffic."

In a recent interview with Fast Company, Abraham Burickson, author of Experience Design: A Participatory Manifesto, was asked how far back in history the concept went as a discipline. "The practices in experience design are not essentially new," he replied. "And what I'll suggest is that on the one hand, these practices go all the way back. They are the practices of telling a story around the campfire. In fact, if you look at the way what we now call 'design' happened for millennia, it was in a much more experiential way."

Experiences, community, relationships; these still transcend AI. A couple of days ago, I was at my local drugstore and was using the self-checkout system, which I hate. At the station next to me, a woman was scanning items until a disembodied, AI-ish voice scolded her to stop and wait for an associate to come and assist her. The woman glanced up at me and laughed, saying: "And I work here!" It might have been the best human-based customer experience I'd ever had in that store.