Poppy Alan Book Boutique, a mobile bookstore with titles for all ages, debuted earlier this summer in Owensboro, Ky., the Owensboro Times reported.

The bookmobile, which is built out of a renovated trailer, made its first appearance at the Owensboro Regional Farmers' Market Thursday Night Market. It sells general-interest titles including novels, board books, cookbooks, and more, along with Bibles and devotionals. The mobile bookstore also carries a selection of gifts. 

Owner Kayla Altman, who also teaches high school, noted that she is still adjusting the inventory based on feedback. The bookstore's name, she explained, combines her father's middle name, Alan, and the name her children use for her father-in-law, Poppy, and is meant to honor both of them.

Altman noted that she's always been a bookworm and dreamed of owning a bookstore, but did not think of the possibility of a mobile bookstore until relatively recently. "Then I had this Pinterest board full of ideas, and one day my husband said, 'why don't we just do it?' So we did."

Poppy Alan Book Boutique has continued to make weekly appearances at the Owensboro Regional Farmers' Market, and Altman has also set up shop at coffee shops and festivals in the area. The response, she said, has been excellent.

"It's been so heartwarming," she told the Owensboro Times. "People have been incredibly supportive. A lot of them have said it reminds them of the old bookmobiles, which I love--because one used to come to my town growing up. That sense of nostalgia has been really special."

Zora's Place, a Black-owned bookstore with an emphasis on Black women authors, artists, and entrepreneurs, will open in Evanston, Ill., in September, the Evanston Roundtable reported. The store has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help with the opening, which has so far raised more than $8,000.

L'Oreal Thompson Payton

The bookstore will open within Evanston's Aux Wellness Collective and sell titles for all ages. Self-help and wellness titles, along with books about race and social justice, will make up the nonfiction section, while adult fiction will include literary and speculative fiction, as well as a romance section. 

The store's children's section will feature space for kids to sit and read, and the shop's event offerings will include storytime sessions, author readings, workshops, and book clubs. Alongside books, customers will be able to find stationery, candles, and other sidelines.

Owner L'Oreal Thompson Payton, an author, journalist, and yoga teacher, told the Roundtable that owning a bookstore had always been her "retirement dream," but while on a bookstore crawl in 2019, she was inspired by Café con Libros in Brooklyn, N.Y. "Then when the Black woman-owned bookstore Call & Response opened in Hyde Park, I thought, 'Why can't we bring this to Evanston?' " she recalled.

The Aux Wellness Collective, located at 2223 Washington St., opened earlier this year and is also Black-owned; it runs a variety of community programming including yoga classes taught by Thompson Payton. She remarked: "Evanston is very diverse, and the Aux makes perfect sense. There's a cafe and laundromat, and it seems like a natural place where people might want to get a book."

"We're creating a warm, intentional space where Black women can feel seen, supported, and inspired," said Thompson Payton.

Isis Asare has been named executive director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. She is the fifth executive director and the first African-American executive director of the association, and will work with SFWA board president Kate Ristau and operations director Russell Davis (the previous interim executive director) to implement the strategic direction set by the SFWA board of directors.

Isis Asare (photo: Bryon Malik)

SFWA described Asare as "a queer Afrofuturist, technology entrepreneur, Stanford, Harvard, and Columbia alum, and the CEO/founder of Sistah Scifi, the first Black-owned bookstore focused on science fiction and fantasy in the U.S.," which is located in Oakland, Calif. She was honored as Norwescon 47's special guest of honor and served as executive director of Aunt Lute Books, the nonprofit press that has a history of championing underrepresented authors.

Asare aims, SFWA wrote, to "cultivate a space at SFWA where more conversation can happen, and where consensus on next steps can be achieved through a thoughtful inclusion of different points of view. SFWA is home to both traditional and transformative forms of SFF, and that wide array of approaches to the genre is not a source of schism. Rather, it is the rich foundation of creative practice on which the next phase of our advocacy journey--and our community uplift--will unfold."

Asare said, "Continuing the legacy of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association is a true honor. It was a privilege to present the Nebula Award for Best Novel to John Wiswell for Someone You Can Build a Nest In, and I cheered as A.W. Prihandita became the first Indonesian to win--or even be nominated for--the prestigious Nebula Award for Best Novelette, for 'Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being.' It is a joy to celebrate the work of speculative fiction writers that inspire all readers to imagine futures beyond our wildest dreams."

Historian Jean-Pierre Azéma, "who became a leading chronicler of France's dark days of wartime compromise, helping lead a generation's shift in attitude about that period though he himself was the son of a notorious collaborator with the Nazis," died July 14, the New York Times reported. He was 87. His death was announced by the the Institut d'Études Politiques, where he taught for more than 35 years.

Beginning in the 1970s, Azéma was part of a group of younger historians "who helped destroy the postwar myths that France had comforted itself with: that the collaborationist wartime Vichy regime had done what it could to resist the occupying Germans and to protect the French, and that its leader, Marshal Philippe Pétain, was essentially benevolent," the Times wrote. 

Rachida Dati, France's minister of culture, paid tribute to Azéma, saying he "leaves behind him the work of a great historian and the memory of a great professor." 

In his best-known work, De Munich à la Libération, 1938-1944 (1979; translated in 1984 as From Munich to the Liberation), Azéma condemned the government for its "sententious moralism and anti-democratic élitism" and its "defensive and inward-looking nationalism." The book "quickly became the standard reference on the subject," historian Henry Rousso wrote in Le Syndrome de Vichy: De 1944 à nos jours (1987, translated in 1991 as The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944).

Azéma's other books include Jean Moulin: le politique, le rebelle, le résistant (2003); Vichy: 1940–1944 (2000, with Olivier Wieviorka); 1938–1948: les années de tourmente: de Munich à Prague: dictionnaire critique (1995, with François Bédarida); Les libérations de la France (1993, with Olivier Wieviorka); La France des années noires (1993, with François Bédarida); and Le régime de Vichy et les Français (1992, with François Bédarida).

Azéma was also the historical consultant for the popular French television series Un Village Français (A French Village), set during the German occupation.

The historian's stance as a critic of Vichy was notable given that his father, poet and journalist Jean-Henri Azéma, "had been a leading light of the Paris collaborators during the war," the Times noted. In the family's grand Left Bank apartment, his parents "had a lot of parties. I saw the whole cream of the collaborationist crop on parade," Jean-Pierre Azéma recalled in an interview with the newspaper La Croix in 2012.

His father fled to Argentina after Germany's defeat, and Azéma did not see him for more than 20 years after the war before finally visiting him in Buenos Aires in 1968. Ultimately, "the father became a precious witness for the son, helping him understand more deeply the period that he had become obsessed with," the Times wrote.

"I didn't choose this period to untangle my complicated family history," he told La Croix about the focus of his work. "But a certain Sigmund might certainly say that it counted for a lot."

In his book La Collaboration (1975), Azéma wrote: "It seems to us evident that, globally, the Collaboration was a failure, that the Collaborationists were losers. Above all because they piled up mistake upon mistake."

Boulder Bookstore, Boulder, Colo., hosted Stephen Graham Jones in conversation with Lorin Dearing for the release of his dual novels, The Killer on the Road/The Babysitter Lives (Saga Doubles/S&S). The store reported: "This was a super fun event with a great turnout. We are Stephen's local bookstore and always enjoy events with him!"

"Happy National Tattoo Day to all the book tattoos out there! Here are ours! Do you have one???" Morgenstern Books, Bloomington, Ind., posted on Instagram, adding: "Books in order: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Dune by Frank Herbert, and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher."

At Sourcebooks:

Alex Walton has joined the company as marketing assistant for Casablanca & Bloom Books.

Sophie Rounds has joined the company as sales assistant.

Grass Roots Books & Music, Corvallis, Ore., recently hosted its first Midsummer Read-In event at the bookstore. Jay Enghauser, event & promotion coordinator at Grass Roots, noted that every summer, the town features a "Crazy Days" sidewalk sale, but this year it was rebranded to "Midsummer Market." This also coincides with Oregon State University's summer Shakespeare program, Bard in the Quad, which was about to show A Midsummer Night's Dream. 

"I had seen read-ins done at other bookstores, like Daffodil in Eugene, Ore., and decided to run one for Grass Roots," Enghauser said. "This turned into a Midsummer Read-In, featuring three bookish mocktails that my spouse made. We also had comfy seating, a sale on all sci-fi and fantasy books for the day, and hosted a tarot reader in our mezzanine." The mocktails served were Star-Crossed Lovers, from Romeo & Juliet; Tamlin's Tears, from A Court of Thorns and Roses; and Lavender Haze from Fourth Wing.

"It was a huge hit for all involved," Enghauser added "We had about 50 people in the store at one time. Many folks came up asking for when the next one was scheduled and requesting that we make this a regular event. This was our first read-in, but we know now that it will be far from our last. We were really happily surprised with how many people took their own photos and shared on social media. A local author, Kate Hope Day, even came by and expressed her excitement for the event as well."

Tomorrow:
Watch What Happens Live: Tommy Dorfman, author of Maybe This Will Save Me: A Memoir of Art, Addiction and Transformation (Hanover Square Press, $29.99, 9781335498564).

Drew Barrymore Show repeat: Tess Sanchez, author of We've Decided to Go in a Different Direction: Essays (Gallery Books, $28.99, 9781668060858).

The new film adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility has added Caitríona Balfe (Outlander), Frank Dillane, George MacKay, Herbert Nordrum, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, and Fiona Shaw to the cast, Deadline reported. They join Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esme Creed-Miles, who will play Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Production has begun in the U.K. 

Directed by Georgia Oakley from an adaptation by Diana Reid, the project will be produced by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title Films, alongside India Flint of November Pictures and Jo Wallett.

Abir Mukherjee's Hunted won the £3,000 (about $4,050) Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, which "celebrates crime fiction at its very best" by U.K. and Irish authors. The judges described Hunted as "a thought-provoking, intriguingly taut, propulsive and highly original thriller."

The £500 (about $675) McDermid Debut Award went to David Goodman for A Reluctant Spy. Chair of judges McDermid called the winning title "a sparkling new entry in the canon, with a vivid and unfamiliar setting as well as a gripping cast of characters."

The prize is run by Harrogate International Festivals and sponsored by T&R Theakston. Both winners also receive an engraved oak beer cask, hand-carved by one of Britain's last coopers from Theakston's Brewery.

As previously announced, bestselling novelist Elly Griffiths received this year's Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award in recognition of her remarkable crime fiction writing career and "unwavering commitment to the genre."

Simon Theakston, chairman of T&R Theakston, said: "It is fantastic to have two highly original thrillers winning top honors at the Theakston Old Peculier Awards tonight. Our Novel of the Year winner, Hunted by Abir Mukherjee is a high-octane masterpiece with a rollercoaster plot that will stay with me for a long time, while the McDermid Debut Award winner A Reluctant Spy by David Goodman is an engrossing and highly entertaining novel that had me hooked right from the start. We are delighted that Elly Griffiths has been awarded the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution award in recognition of her exceptional contribution to crime fiction and unwavering commitment to the genre over a remarkable career."

The Wasp Trap is an absolutely thrilling, tautly plotted puzzle of a novel by Mark Edwards. This double-locked-room mystery, with all the tension that that implies, presents a cast of well-developed characters facing various hidden challenges.

The first timeline, introduced in the novel's prologue, takes place in July 1999. A group of recent college graduates are gathered at a country estate outside London by a charismatic psychology professor to work around the clock on a dating website meant to achieve maximum dotcom-era profits. In truth, they also work at developing a test to identify psychopaths (their mentor's first interest). The estate is well outfitted with "fruit-colored iMacs" and age-appropriate entertainment. For a few months, in these pleasant confines, the group becomes very close. "The lothario. The salesman. The affluent couple, the joker and the local girl. Finally, me, the wordsmith, whose role was to write it all down. If any of us were a psychopath, I already had a good idea who it would be." The bulk of the novel is narrated by Will, an aspiring writer who often feels trapped on the outside, thwarted in his attempts to connect. He is well-suited to observe the character of his counterparts, but not unbiased.

Twenty-five years later, they gather again, to commemorate the death of their former employer. Two members of the original project have married--they are the only two to have kept in touch, after what seems to have been a rocky and abrupt ending. Now "the affluent couple" hosts their old friends for a lavish dinner party in their high-security Notting Hill townhouse. But immediately the evening shifts from awkward to nightmarish, part home invasion and part sinister game. The group is commanded to reveal a secret from the storied summer of '99. Each dinner guest denies knowing what information is sought, but each, of course, does harbor secrets. The key to The Wasp Trap's deliciously frightening uncertainty lies in the pain and horror of not knowing whom, in a closed environment, one can trust. The once-tight-knit group fractures amid secret and not-so-secret sexual tensions, financial pressures, and old jealousies, especially with a suspected psychopath or two in their midst.

Offering twists and turns and surprises through his novel's final pages, Edwards executes a highly satisfying thriller with this intriguing blend of terror and nostalgia for youth and freer, more hopeful times. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: Six estranged friends and colleagues gather at a sumptuous dinner party to find themselves terrorized by old secrets in this gratifying tale of suspense and psychopaths.

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

1. The Happiness Experiment by Carl B. Barney
2. Terror at the Gates by Scarlett St. Clair
3. Wealthy and Well-Known by Rory Vaden and AJ Vaden
4. Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
5. Overexposed by Heather Long and Tate James
6. Binding 13 by Chloe Walsh
7. Hunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
8. Insatiable by Leigh Rivers
9. Don't Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen
10. Till Summer Do Us Part by Meghan Quinn

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]