"Fifty years, blink of an eye. I'm here looking out to all of you wondering what's next. I saw the arrival of the fax machine, remember those? E-mail, personal computers, the internet, smartphones, OMG, social media. All of these transitions in novel, new modes of communication. After all of this, now comes the arrival of AI. OMG, well it's part of editorial and marketing already. However, just like the advent of all of these other technologies, AI is causing an uproar in the human psyche and all sorts of machination in the world of events. However, I have good news for all of you, with the advent of AI comes the advent of AS, Artificial Stupidity. This is where highly intelligent people say really stupid things.

Ehud Sperling (photo: Ben DeFlorio)

"For example, this notion of AGI, Artificial General Intelligence: it's the idea that machines will soon outperform humans. For one artifice or another, whether it is for greed, jealousy or competition, this idea of machines surpassing humans is a really stupid idea. Just on the basis of the science. For example, each one of you in this room has billions of cells in your body, each individual cell has more computing capacity than all the large language models put together. Further, this biological computing power uses very little energy, where large language models require greater and greater processors and more and more electricity.

"Right now large language models have absorbed about as much data as a child absorbs in their first four years of life. Unlike a child, they can only transact based on data that has already been structured and is available in digital format. But no worries, the triad is finished. You've got AI, AS, now you've got RI--Real Intelligence. That is what exists in this tent, that is what makes the publishing endeavor so exciting and that's what makes it so rewarding for me. Even after 50 years of diligently pursuing this vocation, it remains fresh, original and continually challenging and exciting. For this great gift, I wish to thank you all because you are what makes it possible."

Literally Books will have its grand opening July 25 in New Paltz, N.Y. The bookstore will be a "curated book nook" inside of New Paltz's Water Street Market and will sell "new titles, cult classics, children's books and activity books, and the occasional rare books," said co-owners Robin Minkoff and Jane Liddle.

Liddle and Minkoff will carry bestsellers and popular nonfiction, along with small-press titles and "an erudite backlist." In addition to books, shoppers will be able to find a variety of journals and gifts. 

Minkoff has a background in environmental and retail consulting, while Liddle has been in the book industry for 20 years, selling used and rare books online and at antique malls.

The store's grand opening celebration will run from 6 to 8 p.m. on July 25 and coincide with the Water St. Market's Fourth Friday event.

The Book Loft will open next month in Oak Park, Ill., in a storefront that previously housed the Book Table, the Wednesday Journal reported.

Co-owners Heather Nelson and Sophie Schauer Eldred have an opening date set for August 16. The 3,000-square-foot bookstore, at 1047 Lake St., will sell general-interest titles for all ages. It will have a special children's section called "the roost," related to the bookstore's owl mascot. The owners plan to do outreach with local teachers and librarians, and they've been talking to other local businesses about possible collaborations.

Schauer Eldred and Nelson have lived in Oak Park and been close friends for 20 years. The closure of the Book Table at the end of 2024, after more than two decades in business, inspired them to open a business and begin giving back to the community. 

"It was a little bit based on a dream of both of ours," Nelson, whose family owns a bookstore in Florida, told the Wednesday Journal. "When we started to really think about it, it was fulfilling something for both of us, and we both are really committed to the community." 

The owners noted that the Oak Park community has been very welcoming and helpful throughout the opening process.

"It's made us even more giddy and just thrilled to enter this community," Schauer Eldred added.

Today, Barnes & Noble's new bookstore in Rushmore Crossing at 1617 Eglin St., Rapid City, S.Dak., is hosting its grand opening. Children's author Sean Covel will be cutting the ribbon and signing copies of his books. The location also features a B&N Café.

"We are very pleased to open this beautiful new bookstore in Rapid City," B&N said. "It is a direct result of some of our booksellers and many residents of Rapid City e-mailing with a vigorous campaign to ask us to open here. We thank them for their persistence!"

Despite a challenging economy, the German book industry recorded positive results overall last year, with sales up 1.8% compared to 2023, the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (the German book trade association) reported. Total sales in 2024 were €9.88 billion (about $11.5 billion). 

Compared to 2023, revenue from physical stores rose 0.6%, to €4.08 billion (about $4.8 billion), giving the retail book trade (excluding e-commerce) a 41.3% share of total industry sales. The online book trade, around half of which is attributable to the online efforts of bricks-and-mortar bookshops, rose 4.4%, to €2.51 billion (about $2.9 billion). The online book trade accounted for 25.4% of sales in the overall market in 2024.

Among other 2024 highlights:

• 57% of books sold were backlist titles, a share has grown in recent years (in 2014 it was 48%).
• E-book sales were unchanged at 6.1% in the consumer market.
• Audiobook sales rose 2.2% over 2023, but were up 49.6% compared to 2019.
• The number of people buying books declined in 2024 by 2%, except for consumers in the 16-19 age group (up 9.6%) and the 20-29 age bracket (up 7.7%).

For the first six months of 2025, sales remain "subdued," according to the Börsenverein, which noted that turnover in the central sales channels is down by 3.3%, with the exception of fiction, "which continues to perform strongly" with a 0.9% increase thus far.

The Börsenverein also noted that the book trade remains concerned about the precarious situation regarding reading literacy, inadequate attempts at regulation in the field of generative AI, and needed measures to reduce bureaucracy. 

Börsenverein chairwoman Karin Schmidt-Friderichs said the book market "is holding its own in tough times. From novels and nonfiction to books for children and teens or textbooks, the book industry provides reliable content and compelling narratives that offer orientation, context and perspective in an increasingly challenging and complex world."

Peter Kraus vom Cleff, managing director of the Börsenverein, observed that "the economic impact of global turmoil, from wars to crises, is also being felt in the book industry. Consumer confidence remains low and the tendency to save money is high. This is also reflected in the subdued half-year results for 2025. However, the traditionally strong second half of the year is still ahead of us."

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Applications are now open for the RISE Booksellers Exchange Program, through which selected participants spend three days in a bookshop abroad, gaining first-hand insight into the daily realities of bookselling in another country. Interested booksellers should check the Frequently Asked Questions on the RISE website for details about the eligibility criteria, financial support and selection process. The deadline for applications is August 20. Apply here. 

The RISE Booksellers Exchange Program also offers the opportunity to welcome a visiting bookseller into your store for a few days, "helping to foster international collaboration, exchange valuable know-how, and strengthen the European bookselling community. Hosts offer their time, insight, and everyday expertise--while gaining fresh perspectives and building lasting connections in return." 

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Banned Books Week U.K., which ran for a couple of years prior to the Covid pandemic before going on hiatus, is returning this fall (October 5-11). The Bookseller reported that the project, coordinated by Index on Censorship in partnership with the International Publishers Association, encourages bookshops, libraries, writers and readers to plan activities "in celebration of our right to read freely."

Jemimah Steinfeld, CEO of Index on Censorship, said, "Book bans are not just on the rise in the U.S., which has been well-documented. We have research showing they're on the rise here too, and that librarians and booksellers in the U.K. are increasingly under pressure.... For Banned Books Week 2025 we will therefore be looking at what is happening in the U.K. But we will place conversations in a broader context. What can we learn from the experiences of authors who have had their books challenged or banned around the world? What other threats do writers and readers face? What can we do to support a vibrant publishing industry?" --Robert Gray

John Martin, "an adventurous independent publisher who brought out the raucous work of the poet Charles Bukowski, as well as the writing of other offbeat literary rebels like Paul Bowles, John Fante and Wyndham Lewis," died June 23, the New York Times reported. He was 94.

Martin founded Black Sparrow Press in 1966 as "a shoestring operation that he ran out of his home for years" with the help of part-time assistants and his wife, Barbara Martin, who designed the books. The company became well-known, as John Martin "promoted, encouraged and printed the vast, uncompromisingly demotic and self-reflexive work of Bukowski, a West Coast cult figure who drew hundreds to his readings and whose books were reportedly among the most stolen from bookstores," the Times noted.

Martin launched Black Sparrow to publish Bukowski's work. As the manager of a large office supply store in Los Angeles, Martin had access to a printing press and published some of Bukowski's poetry, which he distributed to friends. He guaranteed Bukowski $100 a month if the author would quit his post office job and write full time for Black Sparrow. 

Among the books that followed were the novels Women (1978) and Pulp (1994), the story collection Hot Water Music (1983), and the poetry volume The Roominghouse Madrigals (1988). "The flood continued long after his death in 1994 at 73, guaranteed by the large volume of his unpublished work," the Times noted.

In the documentary film Bukowski: Born into This (2003), Martin said the legendary poet would be "as well thought of in 50 years as Walt Whitman is now.... He's the butt of every joke. He doesn't turn on people and make them look stupid. Bukowski is neither wise, smart nor cool. He's us."

While still working as an office supply store manager, Martin began collecting first editions of work by writers he admired. The collection helped launch Black Sparrow when he sold the books in 1965 to the University of California at Santa Barbara for $50,000. By 1969, he had quit his job, enlisted Bukowski as well as poets like Robert Creeley, and was working 80 hours a week out of his small Los Angeles apartment.

"He read a lot of different people in the beginning, and then it just grew," Barbara Martin said. "I sat at the dining room table and designed the books."

Black Sparrow also published early works by Joyce Carol Oates (nine novels by 1980), John Ashbery, and Ron Loewinsohn. Other books on Black Sparrow's list included Paul Bowles's Things Gone and Things Still Here (1977) and Collected Stories (1979). Martin republished the British writer and artist Wyndham Lewis's The Complete Wild Body (1982) and The Apes of God (1981). He also "revived the fortunes" of the 1930s Los Angeles novelist and screenwriter John Fante with the republication of his 1939 classic, Ask the Dust (1980), featuring a foreword by Bukowski.

When writer Richard Kostelanetz visited Martin in 1980 for an article for the New York Times Book Review, the publisher was living in a spacious villa in Santa Barbara. Black Sparrow, operating out of the pool house, was grossing $500,000 annually and releasing 15 new titles a year.

Martin sold Black Sparrow to HarperCollins in 2002. He also sold his backlist, his inventory of 96,000 books, and his contracts with living authors to Boston publisher David R. Godine for $1.

"He never published anyone because they would sell," Barbara Martin said. "He published them because he liked their work."

More than 100 people came to New York City's The Strand for an event featuring Claire Jia (r.), author of the debut novel Wanting (Tin House/Zando), in conversation with writer Jenevieve Ting.

"This blind date is kinda awkward," Talking Animals Books, Grapevine, Tex., noted in sharing a video on Instagram: "They're both a little shy but ended up really hitting it off after this. I guess this is a sign to get a Blind Date With A Book from us, who knows, maybe it'll be your soulmate!"

"Fact: Books make you 20 degrees cooler. Yes, this is your sign to come buy a new book or... 5." That was the sidewalk chalkboard message in front of Flint Hills Books, Council Grove, Kan., which noted: "So lucky to have a talented young artist join the bookstore’s team! Stop in and see our new releases! Summertime is reading season!"

Simon & Schuster will handle sales and distribution for Penzler Publishers in the U.S. and Canada, effective February 1, 2026.

Penzler Publishers was founded in 2018 by two-time Edgar Award-winner Otto Penzler,  founder of New York City's Mysterious Bookshop. Penzler Publishers includes four mystery imprints: the Mysterious Press (which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year), Scarlet (featuring domestic suspense), American Mystery Classics (reissuing Golden Age detective fiction), and Crime Ink (true crime).

Current Penzler Publishers authors include Lee Child, Charles Todd, Amy Bloom, Andrew Klavan, Joyce Carol Oates, Nicholas Meyer, Thomas Perry, and Charles Cumming.

Shina Patel has been promoted to senior marketing manager at Putnam Books.

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Kayah Hodge has joined Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing as digital marketing associate. She was most recently a marketing assistant at Macmillan.

Tomorrow:
The View: Zarna Garg, author of This American Woman: A One-in-a-Billion Memoir (Ballantine, $30, 9780593975022).

Ariana Grande (Wicked) and Josh Gad (Spaceballs sequel) have been cast in voice roles for the new animated feature Oh, the Places You'll Go!, based on Dr. Seuss's classic children's book, Deadline reported. The project is from Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, and Bad Robot.

Directed by Jon M. Chu and co-director Jill Culton, the movie is scheduled for release in IMAX on March 17, 2028. Rob Lieber adapted the book, with Bad Robot's J.J. Abrams and Gregg Taylor producing. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land) are creating original songs.

Semifinalists have been selected for the $10,000 Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award, which honors "excellence in thoroughbred sports literature published in 2024." Three finalists will be named this summer, and the winner announced this fall. The semifinalists:

A Beggar's Ride by John Perrotta
Dark Horses: A Memoir of Redemption by Arthur B. Hancock III
The History of the Kentucky Derby in 75 Objects by the Kentucky Derby Museum and Jessica K. Whitehead 
Jockey Queen: Lillian Jenkinson Holder, Horse Racing's Fearless Lady by Roger Peach
Letters From Country Life: Adolphe Pons, Man o' War, and the Founding of Maryland's Oldest Thoroughbred Farm by Josh Pons
What Horses Do After Racing: The Story of Good Carma by Jay Privman

photo: Jen Daywalt

Drew Daywalt was amazed at the age of seven, while sitting in the movie theatre watching the credits roll on the original Star Wars, to see that people actually made movies--they weren't just found items like mountains or rivers or clouds. That night, at story time with his mom, he noticed there were names of people on the front of books, too. That's when he learned about authors and writers. And he never looked back. Daywalt is the author of the Crayons picture book series, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers, including The Day the Crayons Made Friends (Philomel Books); other books include The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Little Freddie Two Pants, and the middle-grade novel They Call Me No Sam!, illustrated by Mike Lowery. Daywalt lives in California with his wife, two kids, two dogs, two goldfish, a cat, and some local raccoons who like pizza crusts.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

We don't just color with our crayons. They're also toys, tools, and friends.

On your nightstand now:

Diavola by Jennifer Thorne. I love a good ghost story, and boy is this one spooky! It also tackles complicated big-family dynamics. And since I grew up in a haunted house, the youngest of six kids, this one hits home like crazy.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Rutgers and the Water-Snouts. It's long out of print now, but it's by a brilliant writer named Barbara Dana. Imagine if Monty Python wrote Winnie-the-Pooh. You can find a cheap used copy if you look around. It's worth the hunt, trust me. It was the book that really jumpstarted my love of reading.

Favorite book to read to a child:

Anything by Dostoevsky. HA! No. I don't have a favorite book to read to kids, but I do have one rule: Never bother with a book that talks down to children. It's dishonest. Kids are smart. They know rubbish when they hear it and so do you, so don't do it.

Your top five authors:

Kurt Vonnegut, J.R.R. Tolkien, Maya Angelou, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde.

Book you've faked reading:

Moby-Dick. I mean, c'mon. Seriously.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut--greatest book I've ever read. He seemed to be writing about the meaning of life here, and I was all in.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook, first edition. The promise of adventure and danger on that cover completely captivated me when I was 11. And it absolutely delivered. I've been playing D&D ever since. It gave birth to my life of storytelling and now I even play it with my kids.

Book you hid from your parents:

I was blessed with super-cool parents. I never had to hide a book from them. There were no banned books in the Daywalt house.

Book that changed your life:

I'd have to say the collected gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It changed my life because when I finally read about Jesus from the guys who knew him, I realized what a cool guy he was. When you read about him from his friends, and not through the filter of some gate keeper who claims to "interpret it for you," you skip the stupid game of telephone and get to the person he really was. He was a rebel, a fringe thinker, and a kind-hearted social liberal who called out a broken and corrupt conservative church. He stood by the marginalized and the downtrodden. He held up a mirror to hypocrites in power and showed them how ugly their judgment and selfishness was. He professed kindness, empathy, and compassion for everyone--no exceptions--and ironically, he turned me into a liberal and an ally to people who are being persecuted and marginalized by the powers that be. I'm not as nice as him though. 

Favorite line from a book:

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." --from Oscar Wilde's play The Duchess of Padua. Oscar Wilde's wit makes me simultaneously want to sit down and write and never write again.

Five books you'll never part with:

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut because it contains the meaning of life and beautifully articulates the concept of time not being linear. As I was reading it, I felt like I had read it before even though I knew I hadn't--and now that actually makes sense. 

The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R Tolkien because fantastical worlds are often better at explaining this one than real ones. Also, I gotta say, at this point in American history, I'd gladly drag my butt across Mordor and throw a ring in a volcano if I thought it would end the tyranny. 

The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss because my mom read it to me every night when I was little. And the copy I have contains the only sample I have of her handwriting, where she signed it to me before she passed away.  

Rutgers and the Water-Snouts by Barbara Dana because it was like Winnie-the-Pooh, only funnier. Much funnier. Also, it was filled with loving, loyal friendships.

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson because it was my introduction to philosophy as a kid. Also, Bill lived near me in Ohio and he'd go into my local bookstore, The Learned Owl, and secretly sign copies of the book. I ended up getting a copy that he'd ninja-signed. And as an author myself now, I do that too. I'll sign books in the bookstore without telling anyone. I like the idea of a child opening the book and getting a surprise signed copy. 

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

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I read it when I was 10 and I'd never dreamed of a world like that--filled with elves and dwarves and orcs and dragons. I'd experienced something similar when I saw Star Wars at age seveb, and I'd been hungering for a world as fantastical and dangerous as that. So, when I sat down and read The Hobbit, I burned through it in two days, which is saying a lot because I'm such a slow reader. Thank you, dyslexia. I also marveled at the heroism of the diminutive protagonist, Bilbo Baggins. And I was deeply touched by how much Gandalf believed in him. As a child at the time, and the youngest of six siblings, I deeply empathized with Bilbo, who was also the smallest, meekest, and least qualified in his adventuring party. And when he was the only person at the end, in the battle of five armies, to recognize the senselessness of violence and the myth of vilifying "the other." I saw who I wanted to be when I grew up. Only maybe a little taller.

Delightful and visually inventive, Emmie Builds Something New by Marjorie Crosby-Fairall (illustrator, The Boy in the Big Blue Glasses) is set in a dusty attic brimming with "things no-one wanted." Though Emmie the mouse is small, she is an inventor, engineer, and dreamer, transforming cast-offs into fantastical contraptions. In one intricate spread, she's cobbled together a machine from an old dollhouse, toy parts, and tiny tools that turns one sunflower into a consistent source of "breakfast, lunch & dinner." Crosby-Fairall fills the scene with delightful detail, including what appear to be handwritten notes and arrows labeling parts of the invention. These annotated diagrams add an extra layer of realism, inviting close inspection. The attic itself is packed with visual treasures, and Emmie's many "clever creations" are as much a joy to study as they are to imagine in motion.  

Emmie's imaginative world is upended when a "huge problem" appears, its presence announced by a looming feline shadow. With her trademark ingenuity, Emmie leaps into action. "She built something new," the text repeats, a refrain that pulses with momentum. Each solution grows more elaborate: a lion-shaped machine, a bat-winged gadget, and, finally, an elephant outfitted with a discarded watering can that sprays water.

But when the water-spewing elephant robot succeeds, Emmie notices something unexpected: the cat isn't menacing; it's frightened. Emmie responds with compassion, offering an apology--a final invention that is not a weapon but a welcome. This offbeat resolution turns predator-prey logic on its head, embracing the possibility that understanding can replace fear. It's a moment of heart as well as humor, underscoring a message about empathy, flexibility, and creative problem-solving.

Crosby-Fairall's text is driven by action verbs (Emmie sketches, scavenges, paces, and ponders) and uses a satisfying structure to build tension before gently dissolving it. The cool-toned palette--full of teals, coppers, and dusty greens--adds to the atmosphere, giving the attic world a muted glow that feels both forgotten and full of potential. The perspective shifts and textured lines bring Emmie's world to life with energy and wit. The illustrations brim with mechanical marvels and visual riddles, and the story hints at broader ideas: that even long-held assumptions, like cats and mice being enemies, can be reimagined through curiosity, creativity, and a little kindness. --Julie Danielson

Shelf Talker: Inventive, detailed, and unexpectedly tender, Emmie Builds Something New celebrates the power of imagination and the surprising places it can lead.