Total net book sales in April in the U.S. fell 4.0%, to $931.7 million, compared to April 2024, representing sales of 1,325 publishers and distributed clients as reported to the Association of American Publishers. For the year to date, net book sales were down 0.2%, to $4.1 billion.

There were several unusual changes in April results. Adult mass market, which has trended downward for years, had the highest sales growth in April, at 31.9%, while digital audio, the fastest-growing category most months for the past years, saw sales drop 12.5%. Special bindings sales have also dropped significantly, by 14.5% in April.

Overall trade net revenue in April dropped 2.7%, and net sales of adult books were down 4.7% while net sales of children's/YA titles rose 5.7%. For the year to date, adult fiction net sales are down 4% while adult nonfiction has slipped 0.4%. For the year to date, children's/YA fiction net sales are flat while children's/YA nonfiction net sales have risen 6%.

In April, trade hardcover revenues rose 2.6%, to $273.5 million, and trade paperbacks were down 3.8%, to $251.9 million.

Sales by category for April 2025:

BookWoman, a feminist bookstore in Austin, Tex., was vandalized earlier this month, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

On June 15, assistant manager Sarah Schoonhoven arrived at the bookstore to find that someone had thrown a piece of concrete through the store's front window overnight. A Pride flag was hanging in the window and the piece of concrete knocked over a rack of greeting cards inside the store. There were no signs that anyone had entered the store or stolen anything, and the vandalism occurred the night after a No Kings protest was held in downtown Austin.

"As an openly feminist and queer space, we are no strangers to pushback and attempts at silencing the voices of women, LGBTQA+ people and POC. This isn't new, and it isn't going to stop us from living out our values," store owner Susan Post, Schoonhoven, and the BookWoman team wrote on Facebook.

"We don't think it's a coincidence that a piece of concrete was thrown directly at our rainbow Pride flag, underneath the feminine symbol. We don't think it's a coincidence that this happened the night after Austin's No Kings rally, and recently following our stop on the Austin Against Apartheid bike ride.

"We will always continue to be a bookstore and community space that promotes feminism, LGBTQA+ rights, antiracism, anticapitalism, anti-apartheid, and the rights and freedoms of immigrants. In short, we will continue to be BookWoman."

Schoonhoven told the Austin American-Statesman that the store has "gotten a tremendous amount of response," with community members offering to donate and help repaint the window. "People have been really, really kind."

The Rogue Bookshop will open next month at 321 State St. in Beloit, Wis. Owner Jamie Anderson has planned a pre-opening party for July 10, with the grand opening slated for July 12, the Beloit Daily News reported. 

Jamie Anderson

"I started really looking for a place to open a bookstore about a year ago," she said. "We have these younger generations who are not into buying from Amazon. They're supporting local stores, and putting their money in meaningful places, and picking up books again to get away from the screen. It felt like a really good time to take advantage of that and bring an independent bookstore to an area that didn't have one."

While her children were growing up, Anderson worked as a legal assistant for the public defender’s office in Madison. After they reached high school age, she decided to go back to school, earning a degree in communications and media studies from the University of Wisconsin in 2022. Although she briefly considered going into publishing, in 2024 she noticed a job advertisement for a part-time bookseller at Lake City Books in Madison.

"I thought it was going to just be a fun gig while I kept trying to figure out what to do," she recalled. But the store owner got Covid and Anderson found herself running the store temporarily. "And I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I love this. This is what I want to do.' "

She began looking for a city that would welcome a bookstore. "I wasn't originally looking at Beloit, but Beloit has this charm, so I reached out to some city officials and the Downtown Beloit Association," Anderson said. "They gave me the name and number to the owner of this building... and everything just worked out."

Noting that she spent enough time at Lake City Books and other indies in Madison to know that having books for sale is only part of the equation, Anderson said, "You have to make connections with the community and think outside the box.... I want it to be more than a retail store. I want it to be a place where we can have events and build a sense of community."

Meg LaBorde Kuehn

Meg LaBorde Kuehn, publisher and CEO of Kirkus Reviews, is leaving the company, effective July 11.

Judy Hottensen, who stepped down as v-p and associate publisher of Grove/Atlantic on January 1 after more than 30 years at the company, will serve as interim CEO at Kirkus and assume all of the duties performed by Kuehn.

Kuehn joined Kirkus as v-p of business development in 2011 and was named COO in 2012, CEO in 2015, and publisher in 2023. Kirkus credited her "for leading the company's turnaround and unprecedented growth after it was acquired from Nielsen in 2010." Among other accomplishments, she increased revenue 400% in 14 years; led two website redesigns and a print magazine redesign; and developed and implemented the Kirkus Prize.

Kirkus co-chairman Herb Simon said, "After years of visionary leadership and unwavering dedication, our beloved CEO is stepping down, leaving behind a legacy that will inspire us for years to come."

Kuehn said, "It has been one of the greatest honors of my life to lead this extraordinary company through change and growth. I'm most grateful for the opportunity to have worked with and encountered so many exceptional people through Kirkus. Their talent, integrity and dedication to books and the power of reading have been a constant source of inspiration and have made this journey profoundly meaningful." After July 11, she may be reached at Meg.Kuehn@gmail.com.

Today, June 25, Barnes & Noble is opening a store in Phoenix, Ariz., in the Biltmore community within the Shops at Town & Country, and is celebrating with a ribbon cutting and book signing featuring Kathleen Glasgow, whose books include Girl in Pieces and her latest, The Glass Girl (Delacorte Press).

"It has been 20 years since we last opened a Barnes & Noble in Phoenix and are very pleased to do so now in the Shops at Town & Country," said B&N CEO James Daunt. "Our booksellers are eager to open the doors to this beautiful new Barnes & Noble and our baristas look forward to welcoming patrons into their brand-new B&N Café."

James Lloydovich Patterson, the son of an African American father and a Russian mother who became a celebrated child actor of the Stalinist era for his supporting role in Circus, a 1936 propaganda film mythologizing Soviet racial harmony, died May 22, the Washington Post reported. Patterson, who was born in Moscow and spent most of his life in Russia, came to Washington, D.C., after the collapse of the Soviet Union to live closer to his father's relatives.

"Throughout the Cold War, the Communist press documented his rise from Soviet military academies into the Black Sea submarine fleet," the Post wrote. "He later joked that he might have been appointed admiral had Stalin not died in 1953 and his own aspirations not led him to follow in Pushkin's footsteps as a poet."

After being demobilized, Patterson published books of poetry extolling the Soviet Union--where he felt his Black heritage was valued--and took a caustic view of American race relations. "Sometimes I try to imagine what my fate would have been had I been born in America," he told the Daily World, a Communist Party newspaper, in 1970. "I grab my coat and walk out into Kutuzovsky Prospekt, [an avenue] in the Soviet capital. I stride along and inhale deeply the air of freedom. I smile at people I meet, and they smile back at me. And then I walk through the fields of Georgia and Mississippi, smelling of blood and smoke."

Denise J. Youngblood, a professor emerita of Russian history at the University of Vermont specializing in Russian and Soviet cinema, said Circus ranks among the most significant films of its time and place: "It was canonical propaganda. Musicals were sensational hits in the Soviet Union of the 1930s, and this film was one of the most enduringly popular of that era. It promoted the so-called anti-racism in the Soviet Union, which was very far from the truth."

She added that Patterson "was trotted out for propaganda appearances as a teenager, but there were no other roles for Black or mixed-race children. The Soviet Union really was a very racist society, so there would not have been a place for him as an actor in Soviet cinema."

A member of the Soviet Writers' Union, Patterson wrote lyric poems that appeared in Soviet newspapers and magazines. His nine books include Russia-Africa (1963), a collection of poetry, and Chronicle of the Left Hand (1964), which he described as a "poetic biography" about his father's sharecropper ancestors (an English-language edition was released in 2022).

Books Are Magic, Brooklyn, N.Y., posted a photo on Instagram yesterday "reminding you TODAY IS ELECTION DAY IN NYC!!!!! VOTING POLLS CLOSE AT 9 PM TODAY SO YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO GO VOTE."

"More pride, less prejudice!" That was the Pride Month message on the sidewalk chalkboard in front of Broadside Bookshop in Northampton, Mass., which noted: "Perfect sign art by broadside bookseller & artist extraordinaire @brennalane.art! Jane Austen would love Broadside and we like to think she would be particularly impressed by our air conditioning! Come escape the heat and talk about books with us."

Wild Geese Bookshop, Franklin, Ind., posted some sound heat wave advice on Instagram yesterday: "Cool off with us and browse some new books."

Today:
The World: Emily Kasriel, author of Deep Listening: Transform Your Relationships with Family, Friends, and Foes--Transformational Communication, Listening, and Empathy Through an 8-Step Method (Morrow, $30, 9780063352988).

Tomorrow:
CBS Mornings: Anne Marie Chaker, author of Lift: How Women Can Reclaim Their Physical Power and Transform Their Lives (Avery, $28, 9780593541111).

Late Night with Seth Meyers: Mike Drucker, author of Good Game, No Rematch: A Life Made of Video Games (Hanover Square Press, $28, 9781335012692).

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired North American and worldwide airline rights to James Vanderbilt's Nuremberg, based on the book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of World War II by Jack El-Hai, from Walden Media and Bluestone Entertainment. The film will be released in theaters nationwide on November 7, ahead of the 80th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials.   

Written and directed by Vanderbilt, Nuremberg stars Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, and Michael Shannon. The cast also includes Richard E. Grant, Leo Woodall, John Slattery, Mark O'Brien, Colin Hanks, Lydia Peckham, Wrenn Schmidt, Lotte Verbeek, and Andreas Pietschmann. 

"I am beyond thrilled to be reuniting with Michael and Tom and the whole Sony Pictures Classics team, who 10 years ago took a chance on me as a first-time director, and whose legacy of championing great films makes them an incredible partner," said Vanderbilt.  "Nuremberg explores the fragile boundary between justice and vengeance in the aftermath of unimaginable atrocity. As we approach the 80th anniversary of this unprecedented moment in history, this story feels more urgent than ever, and I can't wait for audiences to see it on the big screen."   

Sony Pictures Classics praised the film as "a major work, a riveting subject, even more relevant today, that will speak to audiences of all ages. Russell Crowe, Michael Shannon, Rami Malek, and Leo Woodall are all at their career best here. Nuremberg will be a standout in theaters this Fall."  

Winners and honor books have been named in three categories for the 2025 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards, which celebrate excellence in children's and YA literature.

Horn Book editor in chief Elissa Gershowitz said, "This year's winners and honorees represent such a wide range of what books for young people can be and say. Especially at a time when creative voices are being threatened and silenced, we are proud to recognize children's book creators whose work is so uniquely their own. As always, we are thrilled to partner with the Boston Globe in celebration of excellence in literature for young people."

Picture Book Winner:
I Know How to Draw an Owl by Hilary Horder Hippely; illustrated by Matt James (Neal Porter Books/Holiday House)

Picture Book Honor Books:
Nose to Nose by Thyra Heder (Abrams Books for Young Readers)
My Daddy Is a Cowboy by Stephanie Seales; illustrated by C. G. Esperanza (Abrams Books for Young Readers)

Fiction Award Winner:
Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay (Kokila)

Fiction Honor Books:
Oasis by Guojing (Godwin Books)
Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White (Peachtree Teen)

Nonfiction Award Winner:
Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown by Candace Fleming (Anne Schwartz Books)

Nonfiction Honor Books:
Uprooted: A Memoir About What Happens When Your Family Moves Back by Ruth Chan (Roaring Brook Press)
Up, Up, Ever Up!: Junko Tabei: A Life in the Mountains by Anita Yasuda; illustrated by Yuko Shimizu (Clarion Books)

photo: Nicholas Sabin

John Wiswell is a disabled author who lives where New York keeps all its trees. He won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story and the Locus Award for Best Novelette, and has been a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and British Fantasy Awards. He is the author of the fantasy novels Someone You Can Build a Nest In and Wearing the Lion (DAW Books, June 17, 2025), which brings a humanizing and humorous touch to the Hercules story.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

Ever wanted to break mythology by adopting every monster you met? Ever wanted to see a goddess outgrow her own legends and flourish?

On your nightstand now:

The Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson. This is actually the translation's third time on my nightstand. The introduction into Wilson's process of evaluating and bringing honesty to the epic enriches me every time I visit it.

Favorite book when you were a child:

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. And it remains a favorite book of mine for three reasons: its amazing adventures, those adventures centering on a humble and overwhelmed figure, and its unparalleled understanding that slaying the dragon is only the start of our problems.

Five of your top authors:

The first five who come to mind, whom I will trust implicitly and read anything from without so much as checking the synopsis: Mark Twain, Alix E. Harrow, Kai Ashante Wilson, Martha Wells, and John Steinbeck.

Book you've faked reading:

I can't remember faking reading a book before, so I've just taken the Wilson translation of The Iliad off my nightstand. It will look like I'm reading it for the rest of the interview, but trust me, I'm being duplicitous.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Witchmark by C.L. Polk. Not nearly enough fantasy novels center on healing, much less on how the veterans of fantasy warfare would need to be treated. This is a book equal in its boldness and its gentleness. Polk gets more humanity out of a simple shave than most can wring out of an entire war campaign.

Book you've bought for the cover:

There is an elegance to the omnibus of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy. A simple orange line clashing with a green fern, making the vague sense of an "X" and nothing more to signify what is contained. But if you know the wild things that live in that series, and the bizarre government existence it clashes with, it's the perfect cover. I had to have it.

Book you hid from your parents:

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell. My nightmares were my own fault.

Book that changed your life:

Waiting: The True Confessions of Being a Waitress by Debra Ginsberg. It was the kickstart I needed to be more conscientious of the hard work of people around me. It's too easy to take wait staff or bus drivers or janitors for granted. Some of us pretend they've never taken anyone for granted, but society incentivizes us to tune each other out. Books like Ginsberg's remind me to stay tuned in.

A favorite line from a book:

"The ships hung in the sky much in the same way that bricks don't." --Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Five books you'll never part with:

The books that matter the most to me are those that were vital to the careers of friends. I have ARCs of Fonda Lee's Jade City and Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire that I will never let go of. Guy Gavriel Kay's River of Stars was special in revitalizing my love of fantasy tomes and is the only book I've gone out of my way to get signed, so that copy will also live with me to the end. I also have The Riverside Chaucer, with his complete works in Middle English, which I'd have a hard time parting with. And just in case the Internet ever goes down, I have the Oxford English Dictionary that my aunt once gave me.

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

Reading my own for the first time would be pretty novel, and possibly groundbreaking for neuroscience. If you figure out how to do it, let's hook me up to electrodes first.

Books that would be friends with Wearing the Lion:

I have to imagine Wearing the Lion shows up to the playground and immediately starts playing tag with Madeline Miller's Circe and John Gardner's Grendel. Something about alleviating the ache of being misunderstood by folklore for so long. At some point they all annoy Martha Wells's Murderbot into joining them for ice cream. A fine day is had by all.

In the captivating and unconventional Legendary Frybread Drive-In, 17 Indigenous writers collaborate to explore and celebrate a range of Native experiences. Through "winks, nods, and overlaps in their writing," the authors create a naturally interconnected anthology of stories centering on a fantastical setting.

Sandy June's Legendary Frybread Drive-In is a lively but humble-looking gathering place that appears when people from countless tribes, locations, and even times most need it. They go to the drive-in for the intertribal community, the live music, the romance and friendship, the healing, and the warm, down-to-earth support of the "legendary grandparents" with beaded name tags. And of course they go for the ever-changing traditional fare: elk soup, Navajo tacos, Coke or Pepsi (choose your counter line based on your preference!), and frybread. Visitors call the restaurant "good medicine," a "haven," and a "utopia," thinking it's possibly magical, probably breaking the laws of space and time.

Readers will find both commonalities and variations every time they "enter" the drive-in through a story. The neon sign is always yellow and green, and Elders are always cooking and offering guidance. How characters get there, though, is always different. Whichever way they make it to Sandy June's--via a fridge portal in Arizona, as the protagonist does in "I Love You, Grandson" by Brian Young; while lost in a Hawaiian rainstorm ("Braving the Storm" by Kaua Māhoe Adams); or during an online DnD game with players from different states ("Game Night" by Darcie Little Badger)--young people from the Cherokee, Muscogee, Ojibwe, Blackfeet, and other Nations come together, again and again.

Stories in this noteworthy and absorbing compilation work as stand-alones, but to get the full benefit and sense of intertribal community, read them together. Editor (and contributor) Cynthia Leitich Smith has demonstrated her prowess at designing entrancing story webs in her anthology for younger readers, Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids. In voices, styles, and scenarios as varied as the tribes and locations represented, the stories and poems in Legendary Frybread Drive-In capture often-pivotal moments in young people's lives. Glossary and notes sections are packed with useful, interesting information, and are well worth sticking around to read. Themes of displacement and loneliness, as well as the importance of connection to family, friends, and tribe, permeate the entries, making the collection relevant and accessible for teen readers of any background. As Cheryl Isaacs says in "Heart Berry," "One way or another, Sandy June's never fail[s]." --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor

Shelf Talker: 17 Indigenous writers create a web of entertaining, intertwined stories in this uplifting and unusual anthology, ideal for the YA reader who longs for connection and authenticity.