"When writing My Friends--when I was really stuck and struggling with my confidence--I went with my 12-year-old daughter to The English Bookshop in Stockholm. It was a Saturday, it was freezing cold outside, and the place was absolutely PACKED with teenagers. They were all insanely passionate about books I'd never heard about. My daughter went on and on about book genres I didn't even know existed. Then all of a sudden, one young woman asked a staff member, 'Do you have White Nights by Dostoevsky?'

"I remember standing there in this small indie bookshop just thinking, 'Whoever is saying young people don't read anymore is out of their goddamn minds.' Whenever I feel lost in the industry part of the book industry, I think about that Saturday. The young people are taking everything over now, and it's going to be great."

The Globe Pequot Publishing Group is purchasing Square One Publishers, the Garden City, Long Island, N.Y., publisher that specializes in nonfiction books on health, cooking, parenting, business/personal finance, self-help, and history. Founded in 1999 by longtime publisher Rudy Shur, Square One has a backlist of 500 titles. Shur will continue in his role and acquire new books when Square One becomes a stand-alone imprint of Globe Pequot on May 1. Square One will be sold and distributed by Globe Pequot's sister company, NBN, until both move to Simon & Schuster on September 1. Effective immediately, all orders should be directed to NBN.

Square One's top titles have included Sodium Bicarbonate; Homeopathic Cell Salt Remedies; several titles from health author Pamela Wartian Smith, M.D., including What You Must Know About Women's Hormones; the American Sign Language reference title Talking with Your Hands, Listening with Your Eyes; and the Gentle Revolution parenting series published with the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential.

Globe Pequot CEO Jed Lyons said, "I have known and admired Rudy Shur for decades. He founded his first company, Avery Publishing, in 1976, a year after we started our business. He has a nose for what sells and a strong track record of creating deep backlist evergreen titles that sell year in and year out. We are excited to welcome some Rudy magic to our growing program."

Shur commented: "After my two partners forced me to sell my first house, Avery, in 1999, I found myself 'back at square one,' which is what inspired the name of my next publishing venture that same year. Now that I know Square One is going to be cared for and looked after by Globe Pequot, I can look forward to our next chapter. More than 50 years in books--not too bad a way to spend the day."

Malibu Village Books in Malibu, Calif., is turning to a crowdfunding campaign to help keep its doors open after a precipitous drop in sales following the Palisades fire and subsequent closures of the Pacific Coast Highway, KABC reported.

The Indiegogo campaign went live in late February and has so far raised just over $9,400. Money raised through the campaign will go toward rent, payroll, paying off loans, and other expenses. All donors will be featured on a "thank you" wall on the store's website and at the bookstore, while larger donations include rewards like 10% off all purchases for a year, VIP seating at author events, and more.

"Since the 2024 Franklin Fire & the 2025 Palisades fire, it has been very hard for small businesses in the Malibu area to survive," the team wrote on Indiegogo. "We've had to shut our doors twice, for weeks. We lost out on Holiday Business and now, with Pacific Coast Highway closed, we are unsure of when our community will be back. Without traffic, we are teetering on closure and we need your help!"

The campaign page read: "Malibu has undergone much change because of this, we are hurting, some are fleeing, and many are fighting--we are fighting."

Malibu Village Books staff told KABC that sales are down approximately 75% as a result of the PCH closures, which began on January 7 and are still in place for some stretches of the highway.

Michelle Pierce opened Malibu Village Books in 2023. She is also the owner of Lido Village Books in Newport Beach, Calif., which she purchased in 2020.

Bluebird Play, an "indoor play space and bookstore," opened earlier this year at 4993 Niagara Ave. #200, San Diego, Calif., the Peninsula Beacon reported, adding that the space "is something right out of Alice in Wonderland. In fact, one of the whimsical play structures in Bluebird is actually drawn from the famed children's book."

Amanda Klein, co-owner of Bluebird Play with her husband, Dan Klein, has a background in children's theater, with a degree in directing, and has taught elementary school theater in the Los Angeles area and Boston, where she went to grad school. 

"Inspired by literature and designed to stir the imagination, the new hybrid business is exactly that: A dream come true for owners and patrons alike," according to the company's website.

"These are sets all based on different classic works of children's literature," said Amanda Klein of her play structures. "Each one is inspired by a story. I designed them with a children's furniture designer who built them and shipped them out here."

Bluebird's bookstore is in front of its play space area. The store partners with a different local nonprofit every month, donating a portion of sales from featured books to that organization. 

Regarding the genesis of the business, she noted that there wasn't "a lot in Ocean Beach that was kid-centric. There aren't a ton of playgrounds right here. So, I just wanted a small, indoor space. When we got here, we thought we wanted to do something fun, creative, and inspiring for kids that nurtures their imagination and love of literature."

She also told the Peninsula Beacon that they wanted the new facility to be easily accessible for parents, so right now they are offering day passes. While parents need to be with their children in Bluebird's space most of the time, drop-off events are being added, including a date night event for parents later this April, where they can drop their children off to play.

"The community reaction has been pretty positive. A lot of people don't know we're here yet," she said. "It's been a fun family venture, and it's a positive environment. The most fun is just being able to be here every day and seeing the kids' faces when they walk in. Their jaws drop, their eyes light up seeing all these beautiful murals we have. We want to be able to stay and provide services to local families."

Valentin-Yves Mudimbe, a Congolese-American philosopher, cultural historian, and novelist "who questioned the West's intellectual tools for appraising Africa, identifying them as part of what he deemed a colonizing apparatus," died April 22, the New York Times reported. He was 83. 

An emeritus professor of literature at Duke University, Mudimbe's landmark book, The Invention of Africa (1988), became a standard text in African studies courses, deconstructing "what he called 'the colonial library': the 19th- and 20th-century accounts of Africa by European anthropologists, explorers and missionaries whose aim, in Mr. Mudimbe's view, was to further colonialism. His ambition was to call into question the basis for European understanding of Africa," the Times wrote.

Mudimbe left Congo more than four decades ago after Mobutu Sese Seko, dictator of what was then called Zaire, asked him to join his Central Committee. Mudimbe, who was teaching literature at the National University of Zaire in Lubumbashi, instead moved to the U.S. on a Fulbright fellowship. He stayed there for the rest of his life, teaching at Haverford College, Duke, and Stanford before returning to Duke.

His first book was followed by The Idea of Africa (1994), and Mudimbe spent much of his subsequent career expounding on those two works, the Times noted. Other works include three novels, all translated into English: Entre les Eaux (Between the Waters, 1973), Le Bel Immonde (Before the Birth of the Moon, 1976), and L'Écart (The Rift, 1979). After establishing himself in the U.S., he focused on essays and philosophy with books like L'Odeur du Père (1982), Parables and Fables (1991), and Tales of Faith (1997).

His analysis was shaped by "an extraordinary mastery of the European intellectual world," said Mamadou Diouf, director of Columbia University's Institute for African Studies, who added that Mudimbe could "engage in the epistemological discussion from several different angles: He reflected on Africa from an African angle, and he reflected on the way in which Africa was conceived from Europe."

Diouf also observed: "He said that the tragedy of African thinkers was not to be able to get out of the colonial library. He was looking for ways to think about Africa outside of the colonial library." But perhaps, he added, "he didn't take into enough account other libraries."

Morgenstern Books, Bloomington, Ind., shared a video, "Matching books to Gilmore Girls transition songs," on Instagram to promote the shop's Gilmore Girls Trivia event, an idea that proved so popular the shop soon added a note: "*We had such an amazing response that sign-ups are closed but stay tuned for more themed trivia nights!"

Jaleesa Davis has been promoted to associate publicist from publicity assistant in the Penguin Young Readers publicity department.

Intuitive Eating for Diabetes: The No Shame, No Blame, Non-Diet Approach to Managing Your Blood Sugar by Janice Dada (New Harbinger).

Today:
Here & Now: Isabelle Allende, author of My Name Is Emilia del Valle, translated by Frances Riddle (Ballantine, $30, 9780593975091).

Fresh Air: David A. Graham, author of The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America (Random House Trade Paperbacks, $16, 9798217153725).

Democracy Now!: Sarah Aziza, author of The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders (Catapult, $29, 9781646222438).

Tomorrow:
CBS Mornings: Geena Davis, author of The Girl Who Was Too Big for the Page (Philomel, $18.99, 9780593463963). She will also appear on the View.

Sherri Shepherd Show: Christie Brinkley, author of Uptown Girl: A Memoir (Harper Influence, $34, 9780063385757).

Oscar-nominated actor Jesse Plemons has been cast as Plutarch Heavensbee in Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, based on the prequel novel by Suzanne Collins. IndieWire reported that Plemons will play the younger version of the character the late Philip Seymour Hoffman first brought to the screen in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, with Part 2 being his final film role. 

"Jesse is one of the most talented actors of his generation, with a proven record of picking his roles selectively," said Erin Westerman, co-president, Lionsgate Motion Picture Group. "We are honored that he has chosen to bring his own take to one of the most fascinating figures in Panem, and feel that his previous collaboration with Philip Seymour Hoffman makes it all the more special. His Plutarch will be both a tribute to the character fans have already come to know and a portrayal he makes his own. We can't wait for audiences to see it."

Lionsgate has also cast three other main roles in the movie: Joseph Zada (Haymitch Abernathy), Whitney Peak (Lenore Dove Baird), and McKenna Grace (Maysilee Donner).

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping will be released in theaters on November 20, 2026. Francis Lawrence is directing from a script adaptation by Billy Ray. Color Force's Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson will produce, with Cameron MacConomy executive producing. 

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (Knopf) has won the $35,000 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize, which is sponsored by Aspen Words, a program of the Aspen Institute, and honors "a work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture."

The jury stated: "Every tribal nation has its own story that deserves fierce emotional and intellectual telling. Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange, Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, takes us from the Sand Creek Massacre to Oakland, California. On the way there, his characters become the bearers of America's history of violence, the vessels of trauma and spirituality, and the wandering stars of addiction and redemption. Wandering Stars serves to deepen and inform Orange's fine debut novel There, There, but it also stands on its own as a mesmerizing epic drama."

---

The Writers' Trust of Canada has named nine finalists for the 2025 RBC Bronwen Wallace Awards for Emerging Writers, which is presented to a Canadian citizen or permanent resident who has published poetry or prose in a literary magazine or anthology, but has not yet been published in book form and is without a book contract. 

Winners in three categories--poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction--will each receive C$10,000 (about US$7,220) at an event in Toronto on June 2. Finalists get C$2,500 (about US$1,805). This year's finalists can be found here.

Acclaimed children's author/illustrator Mike Curato (Little Elliot, Big City; Flamer) delivers his first book for adults: Gaysians, a poignant graphic novel about a young East Coast transplant to Seattle in 2003, where he finds a welcoming community of gay Asians. Curato opens with introductions to his primary players--newly out AJ at his first gay bar; Korean adoptee and gamer John; lothario Steven; and activist, seamstress, drag queen K.

For AJ, spilling his drink on K turns into a fortuitous entry to gay Seattle life, which is like "nothing I've ever experienced before." Biracial Filipino AJ left upstate New York to escape his violent, unaccepting father; he's still unemployed and is hoping to "find something that looks a little less like a crime scene" to call home. His plight triggers K's maternal instincts--"I just wanna scoop him up, little lost lamb"--and she connects him to both work and subsidized housing in Seattle's Capitol Hill "gayborhood." Most importantly, she invites him out for dim sum, where he's warmly welcomed into the "Boy Luck Club." Its members prove eager to educate the "sweet little baby gay" about dating, yes, but also offer lessons (and warnings) about Seattle's "white-centric" gay community and the need for a space of their own.

While revealing AJ's coming-of-age, Curato also provides intimate windows into the lives of AJ's found family: Steven's tortuous childhood escape from Vietnam, his countless hook-ups, his surprisingly symbiotic bond with an elderly patient at the care home where he works; the constant microaggressions John endures, his warm but culturally disconnected relationship with his Black mother and white father, his overwhelming loneliness and longing; and Japanese American K's boundless giving of time and self that turns debilitating as she struggles to live authentically.

Curato writes with open empathy, developing each of his characters with nuance and complexity. He draws mostly in bordered panels, occasionally adding scenes that bleed beyond boundaries and pages. He favors mostly monotone (blues) and duotone (blues and magentas) washes, with glimpses of the past muted in black, white, and grey; full-color is reserved for spectacles and the spectacular, including AJ's first Pride parade and the Lunar New Queer Festival. "We are not a monolith," Curato writes in his afterword, "and it would be impossible for me to write a story that captures the essence of every queer Asian person." His notable gift here is to discover a myriad of gay Asian stories, with the heartfelt invitation to "add to the story [and] create volumes together." --Terry Hong

Shelf Talker: Children's author/illustrator Mike Curato's adult debut is a gorgeously vulnerable graphic novel about the joys and challenges of finding family among Seattle's gay Asians.

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

1. How to Work with Complicated People by Ryan Leak
2. Kiss of the Basilisk by Lindsay Straube
3. Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
4. Phantom by H.D. Carlton
5. Story of My Life by Lucy Score
6. Den of Vipers by K.A. Knight
7. On Being Jewish Now by Zibby Owens
8. The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden
9. Fairydale by Veronica Lancet
10. Beneath the Surface by Emily McIntire

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]