"These days, I've found power in bringing together people of all kinds in my bookstore. Democracy requires critical inquiry, which I now enable not through cable-news hits but by putting a copy of The Federalist Papers in the hands of a precocious middle-schooler or recommending Marcus Aurelius's Meditations to a neighbor trying to come to grips with the chaos of our political era.

"Being called Congressman remains the highest honor of my life. I still have deep admiration for members on both sides of the aisle. But the title 'bookshop owner' has unexpectedly brought a greater sense of purpose. The trappings of power are hard to beat, but they never gave me as much pleasure as putting a book in someone's hands and saying, 'Read this.' "

Shakespeare & Co.'s last store will become part of the Strand.

In New York City, the Strand Book Store is taking over the Lincoln Square Shakespeare & Co. store at 2020 Broadway, between 69th and 70th Streets, according to several news reports. The new outlet will be the Strand's second on the Upper West Side; besides its flagship store at Broadway and 12th St., it has a store at 450 Columbus Ave. between 81st and 82nd Streets. After several closings in the last year, this was the last Shakespeare & Co. store remaining open and perhaps marks the end of a bookstore whose roots go back to 1982, when Bill and Steve Kurland opened the store on Broadway at 81st St.

The Strand will assume Shakespeare & Co.'s lease for the 2,500-square-foot space, which includes a café, on June 1. The company will then make some changes and reopen in early July.

"Shakespeare & Co. has been an invaluable and treasured resource on the West Side since the 1980s and in 2018 opened a store near Lincoln Center to build on this tradition," Strand owner Nancy Bass Wyden said in a press release quoted by WestSideRag. "The Strand Book Store aims to honor and continue this legacy as we expand our presence on the Upper West Side with the addition of this new store." She added that the current Shakespeare & Co. staff and baristas will continue to be employed by the Strand.

In March, Shakespeare & Co. announced the closing of two of its three stores, at Broadway and 105th St. and on Lexington Ave. at 69th St. on the Upper East Side. At the time, Dane Neller, one of Shakespeare & Co.'s owners, said that the Lincoln Square store was thriving. Neller was a founder and CEO of On Demand Books, which made Espresso Book Machines, allowing bookstores to print on demand in their stores. In 2015, Neller bought Shakespeare & Co. and introduced Espresso Book Machines to the stores. Under his leadership, Shakespeare & Co. opened a store in Philadelphia in 2018--which closed in 2022--and had plans to expand elsewhere outside New York City.

Deadly storms and tornadoes that ripped through several Midwestern and Southern states over the weekend included a tornado that hit the central corridor of St. Louis, Mo., on Friday afternoon. Kris Kleindienst, owner of Left Bank Books, wrote that the bookstore, "which resides exactly in the central corridor, emerged relatively unscathed. If you don't count the vehicles of at least 3 of our staff. Feline staffer Orleans, who came on board just in time for our floods three years ago, took a dim view and went off to hide and pout. In other words, he is just fine." Euclid Hall, the more than 120-year old building where Left Bank Books is located, might have sprung a gas leak but that has been remedied.

Left Bank Books staff "were absolute heroes, and I couldn't be prouder of them than I am," Kleindienst noted. "The spirit of community in the immediate aftermath was testament to its inherent resilience, courage, and kindness."

In the store's End of Day Report, general manager Danielle King wrote, in part: "Well, you know, it was a pretty typical Friday: For the first few hours that we were open, anyways... (click the link for a view of today's surprise guest).

"If you haven't seen our Instagram post, the tornado came basically right down McPherson this afternoon. At last glance, it looks very much like the aftermath of a natural disaster, in large part because it is the aftermath of a natural disaster. All of our people are ok, and home, and I'm not sure I've even fully appreciated how remarkable that is.

"A thing that I noticed, though, is that a lot of the community power that we talk about all the time, about how in times of crisis the only real thing you have is the support of your community, and how we can and must hold tightly onto one another to survive, because that's the only ways humans have ever survived anything (including the ill will of other humans)... it is all true, and you notice it in particular when Something Happens.... I work with the greatest booksellers on earth, and it keeps being true." 

Other booksellers checking in with post storm updates: 

Subterranean Books, St. Louis: [Friday] "We will be closed the rest of the day today Friday, 5/16 due to a power outage from the storm. We hope all are okay and stay safe during the severe weather. We send our thoughts to those that have suffered damage and have been affected by the high winds, hail and tornados.... [Saturday] Our power is back on and we are open, but please be careful for fallen trees and debris out there. There are roads that are still closed. We feel very grateful to have made it without damage. We are sending our deepest condolences to those that lost loved ones and whose homes and businesses were destroyed. Thank you for our first responders and our community and neighbors that immediately are out helping each other."

Deadtime Stories, Lansing, Mich.: "I don't mean to alarm anyone, but what in the ever loving hell is this? (Watch with sound up.) I was flipping through cameras to check on the cats and the store during the storm when I saw this. I had the volume down the first few times I watched it and was creeped out enough, but uh... are ghosts afraid of tornadoes?"

Newnan Book Co. in Newnan, Ga., will temporarily close as it transitions to new ownership, the City Menus reported.

Founder Laura Meredith, who opened the bookstore in 2022 as Candle Wick Book Company, is officially handing over the store to Elizabeth Webber. During the transition the bookstore will close as it undergoes renovations. New books will be brought in, and the store will receive new shelving and a fresh coat of paint. Newnan Book Co. will then welcome customers again with a grand reopening celebration on June 7.

'The Webbers will welcome you with southern charm and literary expertise," Meredith wrote of the new owner and her family on Instagram. "Please support this amazing family as they take on a community building experience through the lens of an independent bookstore that loves Newnan and welcomes all."

Eight independent bookstores in Singapore have partnered to launch Bookshop.sg, "a one-stop online bookstore featuring more than 40,000 titles," the Straits Times reported. The online store, which opened for orders on May 14, is a joint effort by bookstores Epigram Books, Basheer Graphic Books, Wardah Books, Thryft, Sea Breeze Books, City Book Room, Union Book, and Nurul Anwar Bookstore.

Thryft's CEO Eddie Lim said Bookshop.sg provides free local shipping for purchases above SGD$150 (about US$115), with a SGD$5.90 fee (about US$4.55) for smaller purchases, while allowing readers to mix and match titles from the eight bookstores. 

"We are providing an alternative for people who are conscious about where their dollar is spent," added Ibrahim Tahir, founder of Wardah Books, who first gathered indie booksellers at his store last December to discuss ways to cooperate. He described the collective effort as an act of "radical cooperation."

"The dollar that you spend in a local bookshop stays within the community," he continued. "It drives things that we do such as book events, launches with local authors and book clubs. Amazon doesn't do that."

Epigram Books publisher Edmund Wee, who sells books through an online bookstore, observed: "The more outlets you have (to sell your books), the better it is for the bookseller. Every outlet extends your potential buyer, I don't see it as a competition."

Thryft's Lim said that Bookshop.sg will provide an "on par or better experience" than Amazon and hopes the online store will also drive new readers to physical stores: "For the ecosystem to survive, it needs to recognize that the keystone is the bookshop. The bookshop is what ties together publishers, writers and readers all in one space--and space is important because this is where human beings interact."

--- 

BookPeople, the Australian bookselling association, and Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand are partnering for an "industry-defining" Trans-Tasman Bookselling Survey, designed to provide data about booksellers in both countries and their impact on culture and the economy, Books+Publishing reported.

"We only have a vague understanding of bookselling as an industry," said BookPeople CEO Robbie Egan. "Politicians and publishers want to know our story. We have to be able to describe what booksellers do and what value they bring to their communities, towns and cities, and we need to articulate what our economic worth is to the country. We employ a lot of people, but we don't know anything about the demographics of our workforce or the state of our financial health."

The survey is open to all booksellers in all roles, with specific questions for senior staff with financial control and specific questions for more junior staff. Egan added that the hope is that "the survey will be longitudinal, and we tried to make it as accessible and painless as possible. This first survey will provide a baseline, and allow us to open up conversations, support lobbying efforts and increase representation of booksellers in discussions with and about the book industry." --Robert Gray

Act 4 Books in Perry, N.Y., found a special way to celebrate the recent release by the U.S. Post Office of stamps marking the 78th birthday of Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd.

Over the weekend, "a scene portraying the book was set up in the bookstore, allowing families to insert themselves right into the story upon entering the store. Celebrity readers will sit in bed to help lull listeners to sleep," the Daily News reported. 

"It's a classic story so many children have been read by their parents," said co-owner Meghan Hauser. "I really wanted to promote that idea of literacy and how fun it is to read to each other. I've read it to my three children, and it was a favorite. I think the pictures are very unique, and of course the rhyming parts."

Hauser noted that the festivities included prize-winning 4-H rabbits, the USPO selling Goodnight Moon stamps, a replica of the Goodnight Moon room, "and, of course, mush. We invited local celebrity readers (librarians, school superintendents, radio personalities, our Assemblywoman) as well as regular customers to snuggle into the bunny's bed or the sit in the old lady's rocking chair and read out loud. The community embraced the idea, and we read all weekend long."

Ingram's Two Rivers Distribution will become the North American print distributor for Storm Publishing, effective in June.

With headquarters in the U.K., Storm Publishing publishes adult commercial fiction in e-book, audio, and paperback formats, and pays an author royalty of 50% of net receipts on both e-book and audio sales. The company was founded by Oliver Rhodes, the founder and former CEO of Bookouture and digital publishing director of Hachette UK.

Rhodes said, "What author wouldn't want to see their books on the tables of U.S. bookstores? This strategic partnership to add North American print distribution is a monumental leap forward for Storm. Our vision is to significantly expand the reach of our authors to millions of new readers. With Two Rivers' extensive network and the team's expertise, they are the perfect partner to turn this vision into reality."

Nick Parker, v-p of Ingram Publisher Services, called Storm Publishing's program "fresh, commercial and timely, and we are thrilled to significantly increase their profile in North America. It's exciting to welcome another passionate and creative independent publisher."

Anthony Pomes has been named senior marketing & publicity manager at Globe Pequot. He was formerly v-p, marketing, public relations, and rights at Square One Publishers, which Globe Pequot recently bought.

---

At Dutton:

Sarah Thegeby is promoted to senior publicity manager.

Lauren Morrow is promoted to publicity manager.

Gaia Wakes: Earth's Emergent Consciousness in an Age of Environmental Devastation by Topher McDougal (Agenda Publishing).

Today:
Today: Jonathan Capehart, author of Yet Here I Am: Lessons from a Black Man's Search for Home (Grand Central, $30, 9781538767061).

Jimmy Kimmel Live: Jake Tapper, co-author of Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again (Penguin Press, $32, 9798217060672). He will also appear tomorrow on CBS Mornings.

Deadline: White House with Nicole Wallace: Chasten Buttigieg, author of Papa's Coming Home (Philomel, $19.99,9780593693988). He will also appear on ABC News Live Prime with Linsey Davis.

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Dawn Staley, author of Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned from All Three (Atria/Black Privilege Publishing, $28.99, 9781668023365). She will also appear on the View.

Late Show with Stephen Colbert: James Comey, author of FDR Drive (Mysterious Press, $30, 9781613166444).

Tilda Swinton will star in a film adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh's 2020 novel, Death in Her Hands, IndieWire reported. The project is directed by David Lowery, who will adapt the novel, with See-Saw Films producing. Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, and Jeanie Igoe are producing, with executive producers to include Simon Gillis and Ann Phillips. 

"I am a devoted fan of Ottessa Moshfegh, and the opportunity to translate Death in Her Hands to the big screen has been, in some ways, a subterfuge for getting to spend a great deal of time obsessing over her prose. But now the ruse is up!" Lowery said. "The script begot by the novel will soon become a film, and I am suddenly aware more than ever that adapting this particular work represents a devious challenge (anyone who's read the novel will understand why)! But I'm ready for it, and am emboldened to have such wonderful collaborators at my side: the whole team at See-Saw, Jeanie, and of course, the incredible Tilda Swinton, who I know will illuminate Ottessa's story in ways I could only dream of."

Producers Canning and Sherman added, "David Lowery is a master of crafting striking, atmospheric stories, and there's no one better to bring Ottessa Moshfegh's haunting and brilliant novel to the screen. We can't wait for audiences to step into the world he creates and be swept away by Vesta's story, played by the incomparable, magnetic, and endlessly compelling Tilda Swinton."

Carys Davies has won the £10,000 (about $13,280) RSL Ondaatje Prize, which recognizes a distinguished work of fiction, nonfiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place, for her novel Clear, published in the U.S. by Scribner.

Chair of judges Ruth Gilligan said: "Clear is a genuine masterpiece. The sense of place is sublime, island life rendered in exquisite, craggy detail, yet somehow it also manages to be a universal reflection on the meaning of home, of belonging, of family. Davies packs so much into so few pages, but the writing never feels cold or spars--rather there is a real generosity of spirit here which, by the end, leaves you utterly changed."

Another judge, Charlie Craggs, said: "Clear is beautifully written, with an even more beautiful message, about human connection that's so needed in the world right now."

---

Finalists have been unveiled for the £3,000 (about $3,985) Orwell Prize for Political Fiction as well as the Orwell Prize for Political Writing (nonfiction), both of which recognize works that strive to meet Orwell's own ambition "to make political writing into an art." The winners will be named June 25. Finalists for all four Orwell Prize categories are available here. The book finalists are:

Political Writing 
Looking at Women, Looking at War by Victoria Amelina 
Autocracy Inc. by Anne Applebaum 
The Baton and the Cross by Lucy Ash 
The Coming Storm by Gabriel Gatehouse 
Broken Threads by Mishal Husain 
The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad by Simon Parkin
At the Edge of Empire by Edward Wong 
The World of the Cold War: 1945-1991 by Vladislav Zubok 

Political Fiction 
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 
Universality by Natasha Brown 
The Harrow by Noah Eaton 
Precipice by Robert Harris 
The Accidental Immigrants by Jo McMillan 
Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan 
There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak 
Parallel Lines by Edward St Aubyn

Anna Fitzgerald Healy's debut novel, Etiquette for Lovers and Killers, is a darkly humorous, lighthearted romp of a mystery set in mid-1960s Down East Maine with an unusual heroine. Billie McCadie is a townie in Eastport, on Passamaquoddy Bay, where "fishermen squatting in trailers" abut "Vanderbilts languishing in mansions." She's never felt at home with the other locals, who fail to appreciate her sarcasm or her ambition to study linguistics and work in a museum. "I've grown up listening to their sock-hop hopes and Tupperware-party dreams, but my aspirations don't fit in a casserole dish." Since the tragic death of her parents, Billie, a "twenty-six-year-old virgin," lives with her grandparents and works as a seamstress at Primp and Ribbon Alterations. Her great thrill, aside from the novels, dictionaries, and etiquette manuals she loves, is checking her post office box for rejection letters responding to her many employment applications to museums around the country.

But then comes the fateful summer when Avery Webster notices her. Billie receives an envelope containing a love letter to an unknown Gertrude, along with an engagement ring. She is invited to a solstice party at the fabulously wealthy Webster family's estate, where she discovers a freshly murdered corpse--Gertrude. Avery has the potential to be Billie's first taste of romance, but the strange communications pile up, along with the bodies, in sleepy, previously crime-free Eastport. And Billie leaps into all of it, because "Who needs a life when you're busy investigating a murder?"

Billie's wry narration of these events is peppered with wordplay and the occasional footnote commenting (still in Billie's voice) upon the etymology of "home," "love," and "tuxedo." Chapters are prefaced with relevant quotations from the book of etiquette that belonged to Billie's mother, which emphasize that even amid a murder case, a sex scandal, and a budding romance, in 1960s Eastport, one must be mindful of appearances and manners. Billie's never been in such danger, but she's also never had as much fun, finally coming into herself, gaining confidence, and learning what she might want from life aside from a museum job: "So what if I've ended up in a Highsmith rather than an Austen? I'm the main character, and I need to start acting like it."

Stylish, playful, and more than a little tongue-in-cheek, Etiquette for Lovers and Killers blends intrigue and romance into a perfect cocktail. Billie herself offers a delightful combination of bookishness, wit, and questionable decision-making that will keep readers on edge until the final pages. Healy's debut is good, not-so-clean fun. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: A bored townie in 1960s Down East Maine comes into her own when both romance and a series of murders enter her orbit.