The final day of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Fall Tradeshow in Spokane, Wash., included a presentation by ABA education specialist Emily Nason that aimed to support bookstores as they navigate the tumultuous economy. The session, titled "Measure What Matters: Five Key Numbers to Focus On During Turbulent Times," explained how to use dollars per transaction, dollars per linear feet, number of transactions, and inventory turn rate to inform store decisions and identify areas of growth to make meaningful changes.

Scholarship winner Crystal Whitcomb-Johnson from Jerrol’s with Brian Juenemann, executive and marketing director of PNBA.

Attendees also had the opportunity to attend a series of education sessions that covered topics such as supporting LGBTQIA+ employees, structuring store layouts to boost sales, and hosting successful author events.

The conference concluded with "Books Around the Bend," a celebration of 10 authors with books due out in late winter and spring, sponsored by Shelf Awareness. Ticketed attendees were eligible to win a $750 scholarship to next year's show in Portland, Ore. The lucky winner was Crystal Whitcomb-Johnson from Jerrol's in Ellensburg, Wash. --Madison Gaines

The Twisted Spine, a horror-focused bookstore and cafe, opened September 6 at 306 Grand St. in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. BK Reader reported that "the recent grand opening of the Twisted Spine... was met with a crowd, including a line outside the door."

Owners Lauren Komer and Jason Mellow had originally conceived the bookshop as a series of pop-ups, which eventually led to their bricks-and-mortar store.

"With so much real-life horror, we could use a place where we can combat those fears in a safe space," Komer told Shelf Awareness last spring when they announced their plans for a physical store. A $25,000 KickStarter campaign ultimately raised more tha $40,000 for the project. 

She added that the 1,200-square-foot space carries a wide range of horror titles for children, teens, and adults, working with a "very broad definition" of horror to include titles for diehard fans as well as people new to the genre.

Mellow told BK Reader that "oftentimes in bookstores, it's common to have one or two shelves devoted to horror, but not an entire store." Komer agreed, adding that she hoped the Twisted Spine would become "a place where people are looking forward to being able to hang out and enjoy the spooky side of life." He recommends people come in and look for something that they don't necessarily think of as horror. "I think come and take a look at our selection. You'll find something you'll like."

Horror fans will "find a cozy, inviting space, meant to complement the scary stories on the page. The Twisted Spine also has an in-house café during the day and a bar at night, There's even a children's corner, where the store will host a collaborative 'Scary Story Time' with the Brooklyn Public Library," People magazine reported. 

"NYC suffers from a lack of third spaces where people can come together," Mellow said. "We realized pretty quickly that the community aspect was something that people were really searching for."

After the opening, the bookstore posted on Instagram: "One year ago we held our first pop-up event, and today we've just finished our first full week at the Twisted Spine's permanent home--a truly wild 12 months.... We've always said NYC's Horror community is the best out there, and you keep proving us right! Your excitement and words of encouragement keep us going every day.... Opening a small business in NYC these days is the real horror, and a niche bookstore like ours would never exist without the support of the community."

Bookmiser New & Used Books, Marietta, Ga., suffered extensive smoke and soot damage early Sunday morning from a fire at Owl Repair, an electronics repair store next door at the Village East shopping center, East Cobb News reported. Although firefighters extinguished the flames quickly, smoke permeated every small business in the center

In a Facebook post, Bookmiser owner Annell Gerson noted: "As you can imagine, Bookmiser, both closest to the shop and filled with 35,000+ books, was severely damaged. Although we have begun steps to improve air quality and clean up, much more work remains to be done. Thus, until further notice, Bookmiser is closed to in-store shoppers."

Her goal is to reopen as quickly as possible: "As we celebrate our 27th year in Cobb County, we appreciate all the years our community has supported our indie efforts. We remain committed to you and as always... 'putting the right book in the right hands at the right time.' "

Barnes & Noble has reopened one of its bookstores in Baton Rouge, La., in a new location. WBRZ reported that B&N's Citiplace store, which closed on September 12, officially reopens today, October 1 in Town Center at Cedar Lodge at 7455 Corporate Blvd., Suite 430. The launch includes a ribbon-cutting and book signing by local author Rachel Schneider. 

"We are very pleased to be opening this brand-new Barnes & Noble in Baton Rouge," B&N said. "We have been a steadfast presence in this community for nearly 30 years. In the intervening decades, our old bookstore had begun to show its age. Our Baton Rouge booksellers are eager to show how much work they have done to bring this beautiful new Barnes & Noble to life."

Robert Barnett, "a giant in the publishing world who negotiated book deals for presidents, royalty and bestselling novelists while acting as a kind of consigliere for many of his political clients," died September 26, the New York Times reported. He was 79. Barnett "wielded enormous influence in the market for political memoirs and helped to usher in the era of megadeals. He got eye-popping advances for his clients, in the seven- and eight-figure range."

Barnett helped negotiate Hillary Clinton's $8 million advance for her memoir, Living History (2003), and landed a reported $10 million deal for Bill Clinton's memoir, My Life (2004) memoir. In 2017, he helped Barack and Michelle Obama negotiate a joint book deal with Penguin Random House for a reported advance of about $65 million.

With some of his high-profile clients, however, Barnett "did more than just negotiate deals; he acted as a political consultant and sounding board," the Times noted. In Living History, Hillary Clinton described how, when she was in denial about her husband's affair with the White House intern Monica Lewinsky. It was Barnett who gently suggested that they might be true.

"Bob was a dear friend, a brilliant lawyer, and an indispensable political adviser," Hillary Clinton said.

Noting that Barnett carved out an unusual role for himself in publishing, The Times wrote while the major publishing houses are largely based in New York City, Barnett worked in Washington, D.C. In addition, he was a lawyer, not an agent, and rather than taking a commission he charged an hourly fee, reported to be in the $750 to $1,000 range, "a relative bargain when a book deal reached into the millions."

Barnett also represented George W. and Laura Bush, Senator Mitch McConnell, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Republican strategist Karl Rove, and political consultants James Carville and Mary Matalin. He worked with business leaders such as former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, as well as the Prince of Wales, Queen Noor of Jordan, and Barbra Streisand.

Bob Woodward was a client, as were journalists Brian Williams, Lesley Stahl, and Brit Hume. In addition, Barnett represented bestselling novelists, including James Patterson, Mary Higgins Clark, and Khaled Hosseini.

Barnett urged Bill Clinton to write a thriller and introduced him to Patterson, which led them to co-write three bestselling novels. Barnett also sold to publishers a thriller written by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny, as well as a novel by Patterson and Dolly Parton. This year, Barnett helped negotiate a deal for a novel co-written jointly by Patterson and Jimmy Donaldson, the YouTube star known as MrBeast.

"He was the man to see," said Jonathan Karp, the CEO of Simon & Schuster. "When you negotiated with Bob Barnett, you always knew he was being transparent, that he was telling you the truth, and that he was doing the best for his clients."

Asked about his ability to remain above political rancor in a 2004 interview with the Times, Barnett replied, "In law school, I majored in tightrope-walking."

HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray observed: "He was a classic of that generation where your humanity came first and politics was not even second."

This past week, Shelf Awareness sent our monthly pre-order e-blast to more than 970,000 of the country's best book readers. The e-blast went to 970,160 customers of 273 participating independent bookstores.

The mailing features 11 upcoming titles selected by Shelf Awareness editors and a sponsored title. Customers can buy these books via "pre-order" buttons that lead directly to the purchase page for the title on each sending store's website. A key feature is that bookstore partners can easily change title selections to best reflect the tastes of their customers and can customize the mailing with links, images and promotional copy of their own.

The pre-order e-blasts are sent the last Wednesday of each month; the next will go out on Wednesday, October 29. Stores interested in learning more can visit our program registration page or contact our partner program team via e-mail.

For a sample of the September pre-order e-blast, see this one from the Bookies, Denver, Colo.

The titles highlighted in the pre-order e-blast were:

Queen Esther by John Irving (Simon & Schuster)
Palaver by Bryan Washington (FSG)
Son of the Morning by Akwaeke Emezi (Avon)
Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Doubleday)
Lucky Seed by Justinian Huang (Mira)
Terry Dactyl by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (Coffee House)
Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood (Doubleday)
Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree (Tor Books)
Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They're Too Much by Cynthia Erivo (Flatiron)
Facing Feelings: Inside the World of Raina Telgemeier by Raina Telgemeier (Graphix)
The House Saphir by Marissa Meyer (Feiwel & Friends)

The Well-Read Moose bookstore in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, hosted Chris Whitaker (l.) for the paperback release of his thriller All the Colors of the Dark (Crown). The event took place at the Vantage Point Brewing Co. and had more than 125 attendees. The bookstore's Liz Burkwist reported, "The audience listened raptly as Chris shared stories of trauma and explained how those experiences influenced his writing and how his writing helped him heal. This event can only be described as lightning in a bottle; it was the perfect author, the perfect venue, the perfect emcee (Mike Kennedy, beloved local business leader and gifted conversationalist), and most importantly, the perfect guests. The atmosphere was charged with enthusiasm and the audience was absolutely charmed by Chris."

Barnes & Noble has chosen Heart the Lover by Lily King (‎Grove Press) as its October national book club pick. In a live virtual event on Tuesday, November 4, at 3 p.m. Eastern, King will be in conversation with Lexie Smyth, fiction campaign manager at B&N, and Brenda Allison, frontlist buyer at B&N.

B&N described the book this way: "Heart the Lover follows a college trio--our unnamed narrator and her two classmates--who develop a close yet complicated bond over the duration of their senior year. King captures not only the thrills and terrors of first love, but the dysfunction, zeal, grief, regret, and confusion of adolescence--and the consequences that inevitably accompany it. Readers will find themselves eager to flip the pages between the alternating timelines that weave together to create a bittersweet portrait of the past. This beautiful masterpiece of the messiness of life will resonate deeply with all those who have already come to adore Lily King's work, and those now fortunate enough to experience it for the first time."

Click here to join the November 4 event.

Blue Cypress Books, New Orleans. La., noted that "a lot of stuff is bad, but snoozy cats and good books are still here too. we can't always transform the world, but we can each make things a little better and then a little better and then a little better for each other every day. love y'all forever."

In the Knopf publicity department:

Micah Kelsey is promoted to associate publicist. She joined Knopf publicity as a temp in 2023.

Kayla Miller-Sissoko has joined the Knopf publicity department as a publicity assistant. She has interned at Morrow, HG Literary, and the National Book Foundation and has a master's degree in publishing from New York University.

The Betrayal: The Lies We Fear by Heather Ogden (Morgan James YA).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Nicholas Sparks, co-author of Remain: A Supernatural Love Story (Random House, $30, 9798217154043).

Today: Henry Winkler, author of Detective Duck: The Mystery at Emerald Pond (Amulet Books, $14.99, 9781419780486).

The View: Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka, author of Both Sides of the Glass: Paired Cocktails and Mocktails to Toast Any Taste (Plume, $35, 9780593719862).

Drew Barrymore Show: Matthew McConaughey, author of Poems & Prayers (Crown, $29, 9781984862105).

Kelly Clarkson Show: Lionel Richie, author of Truly (HarperOne, $36, 9780063253643).

After a nearly 20-year absence, Reading Rainbow will return with a new series on the YouTube channel KidZuko in October, according to TheWrap. Hosted by Mychal Threets (Mychal the Librarian on TikTok), the show will continue the premise of the original PBS series, which was hosted by LeVar Burton from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Check out the official trailer here.

The show's official Instagram account released a first look at the series this week, noting: "Reading Rainbow is returning to motivate, help, and encourage kids to become avid readers with new episodes, new friends, new projects, and of course... new books! Make sure to follow the rainbow."

A range of celebrities have already been announced for the rebooted show, both as readers and on-camera cameos. Rylee Arnold and Ezra Sosa of Dancing with the Stars will be guests, as will Bellen Woodard, 14-year-old author of More Than Peach. Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear) is seen in the trailer reading to cats, TheWrap noted. Jamie Chung, Gabrielle Union, Adam DeVine, John Legend, and Chrissy Teigen also appear in the trailer as book narrators.

"Threets has long been an advocate of local libraries and children's education, spreading his love for literature on various social media platforms," TheWrap wrote. "The influencer and former librarian has gained traction in recent years as a positive influence both on--and offline. On his arm, followers can see a tattoo of a library card owned by the famed cartoon character Arthur Read." He has also served as PBS' resident librarian for more than a year. 

Reading Rainbow will launch with a four-episode short-form run every Saturday from October 4 to October 25. Episodes will also be embedded on ReadingRainbow.org.

Writing Australia has named the recipients of the 2025 Prime Minister's Literary Awards, which celebrate "the exceptional talents of emerging and established Australian writers, illustrators, poets, and historians." Each shortlisted author receives A$5,000 (about US$3,290), with the category winners getting A$80,000 (US$52,600) each. This year's winners are: 

Australian History: Critical Care: Nurses on the Frontline of Australia's AIDS Crisis by Geraldine Fela 
Children's Literature: Leo and Ralph by Peter Carnavas 
Fiction: Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser 
Nonfiction: Mean Streak by Rick Morton 
YA literature: The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland
Poetry: The Other Side of Daylight: New and Selected Poems by David Brooks 

Minister for the Arts Tony Burke said: "This year's Prime Minister's Literary Awards highlight the remarkable breadth of talent in Australian writing. From deeply researched histories to works of poetry and fiction that challenge and inspire."

Writing Australia director Wenona Byrne commented: "The 2025 winners reflect the richness and diversity of Australian storytelling. Each of these works brings a unique perspective, whether it is giving voice to critical moments in our history, sparking imagination in young readers, or offering new ways to think about the world around us. Writing Australia is proud to support these writers and to celebrate their outstanding achievements." 

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The shortlist has been selected for the Center for Fiction 2025 First Novel Prize. The winner will be announced December 9 at the Center's annual awards benefit. The winner receives $15,000, and each shortlisted author receives $1,000. 

The shortlist:
We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown (Holt)
The Devil Three Times by Rickey Fayne (Little, Brown)
Ibis by Justin Haynes (The Overlook Press)
Loca by Alejandro Heredia (Simon & Schuster)
Natch by Darrell Kinsey (University of Iowa Press)
Liquid by Mariam Rahmani (Algonquin Books)
Optional Practical Training by Shubha Sunder (Graywolf Press)

(photo: H. Lan Thao Lam)

Lana Lin is a writer, artist, and filmmaker living in New York and Connecticut. The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam (Dorothy, a publishing project, September 30, 2025) is her literary debut and is longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Nonfiction. She is the author of Freud's Jaw and Other Lost Objects: Fractured Subjectivity in the Face of Cancer (Fordham, 2017), an outgrowth of her Ph.D. and four years of psychoanalytic training. Her films include The Cancer Journals Revisited (2018), a recitation of Audre Lorde's memoir/manifesto, and Stranger Baby (1995), an experimental work that explores "the alien" in its terrestrial and extraterrestrial senses. Her collaborative mixed media projects (with Lan Thao Lam as "Lin + Lam") have been exhibited in art and educational spaces around the world. She has been awarded fellowships from New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and four residencies at MacDowell since 1996.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

Combining memoir, social criticism, and conceptual art, The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam responds to a modernist classic with its own queer love story.

On your nightstand now:

In the nightstand of my mind: Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife, Francesca Wade's magisterial account of Gertrude Stein's and Alice B. Toklas's intertwined lives and the legacy of Stein's work. I am especially moved by the depiction of Toklas's almost obsessional devotion to her life (and afterlife) partner.

The Book of Salt and Bitter in the Mouth by Monique Truong. I've read The Book of Salt before, but in preparing for a conversation with her at my book launch, I re-read it. It's an inspired approach, to get inside historical figures and invent their inner lives. It hews pretty closely to what I know about Gertrude Stein's and Alice B. Toklas's lives, so closely that I'm still trying to figure out what bits are made up. Bitter in the Mouth is such a delightful discovery. Another incredibly original premise drives the narrative with its main character gifted with synesthesia. An Asian American character who is not primarily defined as such and whose racial heritage is not immediately apparent is an unusual find and so welcome.

Danielle Dutton's Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other was part of my summer reading and it continues to bubble up in my mind. Its collage-like, anecdotal, whimsical, and experimental nature is right up my alley. It's everything I want my writing to be: uncanny bricolage, blurring fiction and nonfiction, defying expectations, and inventing its own new forms. I am incredibly fortunate to have had such a brilliant writer as an editor.

Favorite book when you were a child:

I identified with Ludwig Bemelmans's Madeline and Beverly Cleary's Ramona the Pest. I pored through every Peanuts book I could find and Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are haunted my imagination. I adored A Wrinkle in Time and wrote to Madeleine L'Engle for a school assignment, but she never wrote back.

Your top five authors:

I'm going to interpret this impossible question as five authors who have had an enduring impact upon me:

Toni Morrison because who can beat the perfection of Beloved? I read it now with students in a course on the uncanny; Lydia Davis's precise concision and deadpan humor is unmatched; the immense beauty and pain of Christina Sharpe's prose leaves me breathless; Octavia Butler's world-building capacity is awe inspiring; Jane Bowles's quirky, inimitable blend of pathos and humor captivates me.

Book you've faked reading:

I got an A on an essay exam on Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce but never finished it.

Book you're an evangelist for:

The closest I come to being an evangelist is as a professor. I teach Freud and try to convince students he's fun. People who haven't read Freud don't know how compellingly strange he/his writing/his ideas are. Beyond the Pleasure Principle and The Uncanny are kind of mind-bogglingly weird. I admire authors who think aloud on the page, especially those willing to expose all their contradictions and uncertainties, as Freud does.

Book you've bought for the cover:

I picked up a 1984 Penguin edition of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle because the face on the cover had been sliced out with an X-Acto knife. The cover blurb from the New York Times reads: "A witch's brew of eerie power and startling novelty." It was as if the previous book owner and reader had acted out a visceral response to the text.

Book you hid from your parents:

None. They don't care what I read.

Book that changed your life:

Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior was especially meaningful to me. It was the first book I read by an Asian American author about Asian girls and women. It modeled the possibility not only of writing and making art, but also of dreaming and something beyond surviving. I felt I had literally no examples of this growing up as Asian American in a Midwestern suburb in the 1970s and early '80s. I probably read it in when I was in high school, but it wasn't assigned in class. My experience with it felt very private.

Favorite line from a book:

I'm going to interpret this as the favorite line from a book I have recently encountered:

"One enters a room and history follows; one enters a room and history precedes. History is already seated in the chair in the empty room when one arrives. Where one stands in a society seems always related to this historical experience. Where one can be observed is relative to that history. All human effort seems to emanate from this door. How do I know this? Only by self-observation, only by looking. Only by feeling. Only by being a part, sitting in the room with history." --Dionne Brand, A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging

Okay, it's more than one line. My favorite is probably the first, but the power of the first line derives from the rest of the paragraph.

Five books you'll never part with:

The Weather in Proust by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick because it was given to me by Hal Sedgwick and I will treasure it as one treasures a gift from someone one loves but whom one has never known.

The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde because it came to me when I needed it and continues to come to me, to return, and to return again. I have the 1982 second edition and the 2006 special edition.

Even though we shared one bookcase for over a decade, my partner and I both would not part with our copies of Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha; one was more faded than the other. It has been interesting to see how they both age.

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein. The cover of my 1960 Vintage edition has detached from the spine. I have to carry it in a bag to keep its pieces together.

My Sister's Hand in Mine: The Collected Works of Jane Bowles, gifted to me in 1990, is precious to me. There's something poignant in 476 pages containing a person's life's work, yet those 476 pages are worth aspiring toward.

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

It would be a thrill to read Virginia Woolf's Orlando again, to encounter that astonishing gender transition before the movie, before the Internet, as I did, for the first time.

Writer, critic, blogger Maria Popova (Figuring), perhaps best known for  the website The Marginalian, partners with author/illustrator Sarah Jacoby (Doris) to create The Coziest Place on the Moon, a soothing, enlightening picture book that celebrates the rewards of solitude.

Re, who resembles an adorable porcupine with a golden-tinted, sky-blue dye job, wakes up one Tuesday in July "feeling like the loneliest creature on Earth." Not one to wallow, Re resolves "to go live in the coziest place on the Moon." At 7:26--"a pretty number, a pretty hour"--Re sails 1.255 seconds ("because light travels at the speed of dreams") into space and lands "on the edge of the Sea of Tranquility." Reaching their destination could take "a whole lunar day, or 15 Earth-days." Re walks and walks--"making little puff-clouds of powdery dust with each step"--until arriving at "a perfect nook pitted deep into the Sea of Tranquility." There Re experiences "what it feels like to be happy-alone instead of lonely... that feeling which feels like hearing your own voice singing you back to yourself." Re settles into "a secret underground cave... and everybody knows that there is no better place to feel happy-alone." Then Re hears "a huff, then a gurgle," which belong to Mi, a flaxen marsupial-like voyager who also fled Earth after "feeling like the loneliest creature." The coziest nook seems to have plenty of space to create "two parallel tranquilities"--ideal for solitude, but also to share company whenever they need a bit of synchronous harmony.

Popova's concluding author's note discusses the scientific reality of the eponymous "coziest place[s]"--indicating NASA's July 2022 announcement of the existence of "cylindrical pits on the Moon." Learning about the possibility of "inhabit[ing] caves on another celestial body" provided Popova with personal comfort during "a period of acute loneliness." Artist Jacoby harmoniously matches Popova's introspective verses with welcoming, ethereal whimsy, garbing Re in a yellow-polka-dotted orange hat and scarf for their lunar journey and packing Re's suitcase with bright balls of fuzzy yarn. Later, Re will cleverly transform those woolly bundles into an on-the-spot ladder to descend into the beckoning nook. Re, Jacoby shows, is a prolific knitter while Mi plays a cerulean cello while surrounded by otherworldly sculptures. Lightness abounds, from flashlights, rainbows, and, of course, starlight. This exploration of that uniquely individualized, soul-nurturing balance of time alone and time with others is an aspirational odyssey suitable for all ages.  --Terry Hong

Shelf Talker: In The Coziest Place on the Moon, Maria Popova and Sarah Jacoby synergistically create enchanting lunar adventures escaping loneliness, embracing solitude.