Beyond the Book, A Literary Experience, "with a focus on cultivating a literary community," hosted its grand opening recently at 18063 Dixie Highway in downtown Homewood, Ill. The Homewood-Flossmoor Chronicle reported that owner Tenia Davis's longtime dream was to have a bookstore, and the opportunity perfectly presented itself for her. 

"I think the world is in kind of a flux, and I think it's so important to have some sort of literacy awareness around books, so they don't go away," she said, adding that there is something special about connecting with a book and getting lost in it. 

Davis recalled that she grew up with safe spaces to read and connect with others, and feels those spaces are still needed now: "The aspect of sitting in a room with someone and learning a little about you and why you love this book." 

She worked as a corporate executive for the last two decades. Davis is an organizational behavior expert with a Ph.D. in her field, and the author of The Servant Leadership Advantage and The Feedback Blueprint: Unlocking the Power of Constructive Insights. She said she has a passion for learning and always has had a love for books: "I've always wanted to create a space intentionally for my community. I think this would be a great opportunity to do that." Beyond the Book will host workshops, networking events, a podcast room, and other literacy programs to cultivate a community. 

"Kids can come and have their book club, teenagers can come and have their space," she noted. "I think the first event I am doing is a murder mystery, and for the teenagers I am going to do a 'Who Done It?' type of thing." 

A longtime resident of Homewood, Davis said working with the village has been a great experience. People are coming by to congratulate her on the bookstore, which she began conceiving two years ago before realizing she should do it now: "I said I really want to do this and do it in a way where the community can engulf it and say yeah this is what we need, this is what we want."

Books & Cake will host its grand opening celebration on October 25 at 8 Anthony St. in Hillsdale, N.Y. The store will sell a wide selection of titles for kids and adults, as well as slices of cake along with coffee and tea. 

Co-owners Eve Yohalem and Julie Sternberg met in 2008 at a New York book conference and have been friends ever since. Between them they have published 12 books for children and young teens. For three years during the Covid pandemic they hosted Book Dreams, a literary podcast.

Sternberg and her family have been part-time residents of nearby Copake for 20 years, and Yohalem's family have resided in the Berkshires for decades. Opening a bookstore was their shared dream, and they thought that Hillsdale would be a perfect spot. 

"The response from everyone we've met in Hillsdale has been magical," said Yohalem. "Every door has been opened, everyone has been welcoming, helpful, and enthusiastic. We can't imagine a better place to open a bookstore."

Two flavors of cake will be served daily (one will always be chocolate or vanilla). Books are organized under three dozen different "Read if You Need" headings. As Sternberg explained: "Read if You Need... Something Short and Mighty, Something Long and Worth It, Hope, A Laugh, To Feel Immersed in Another Family's Dysfunction, To Consider the Highs and Lows of Friendship, and so on."

She added that the bookstore will have "a traditional section just for new fiction and nonfiction books, and another for kids and young adults. But we're excited about this new system because we want people to come in, linger in front of the shelves, and find the book they're in the mood for. Of course, they can always just run in and buy something quickly, if they want. All our booksellers are excited to help."

Yohalem added: "For a tiny town, Hillsdale has an impressive number of places where residents can get great books--from Rodgers Book Barn to the Roe Jan Library to the Friends of the Roe Jan Library bookstore. We're thrilled to be a new addition to that tradition." 

Vroman's Bookstore, Pasadena, Calif., "has secured its presence at the Colorado Boulevard location through a long-term lease signed in early October with the new property owner," Pasadena Now reported, adding that the lease "ensures Vroman's continued presence."

Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times reported that the property housing Vroman's had been sold for $15.5 million to GD Realty Group, an owner and operator of office and retail properties in Southern California.

"We did sign a long-term lease with Vroman's upon the closing of the transaction so [we] don't see them going anywhere anytime soon," said GD Realty founder Arash Danialifar.

Joel Sheldon, chairman of AC Vroman Inc., confirmed to Pasadena Now that the bookstore "is under a long-term lease" when asked about the arrangements with the new property owner. He added that customers likely won't experience any changes in operations: "Not that I can anticipate. The answer is basically no, but you'd never know.... But we hope operations continue as they have been going along now for a number of years."

Plans to sell the bookstore business continue. Sheldon said the ideal buyer for the bookstore "would appreciate Vroman's unique legacy and its role as a central community resource in Pasadena. They would share the bookstore's core values, including a commitment to the community, respect for employees, and a passion for books," Pasadena Now wrote.

GD Realty's Danialifar noted: "Our vision is to hopefully keep the theater and Vroman's there for the foreseeable future.... Vroman's is a staple of the community… has been there for more than a 100 years! The name Vroman's has become synonymous with great customer service, cleanliness, the Vroman's Give Back program and an overall positive shopping experience.... We wish them success for another 100 years to come! Plus, I am an avid book reader and this is by far my favorite book store!"

Dennis Eulau (photo: Melissa Alper)

Dennis Eulau, Simon & Schuster's COO, will retire at the end of November after a 30-year career with the publisher. Eulau has overseen the company's book production, distribution and supply chain, sales, distribution client services, and information systems and technology. He helped lead S&S's transition to digital publishing, the growth of its audio publishing program, and the growth of its client distribution business, especially through the establishment of the S&S distribution warehouses in New Jersey and Tennessee, the company said.

"Throughout my years here, Dennis has personified the spirit and values of Simon & Schuster," said CEO Jonathan Karp. "During my time as CEO, Dennis has been a wise and trusted partner in leading the company, just as he was for my predecessor Carolyn Reidy. Although I cannot imagine Simon & Schuster without Dennis, I know that everyone who has worked closely with him will maintain his high standards, his positive energy, and his integrity."
 
Eulau commented: "It has been a wonderful 30 years at Simon & Schuster. Publishing has gone through many sea changes over the decades, and it has been an honor for me to lead the company through them all, setting Simon & Schuster up for continued growth. I have had the pleasure of working alongside a stellar team of colleagues over the years and I am grateful to them for continually making Simon & Schuster a first-class publishing company and home for so many distinguished authors."
 
Eulau joined S&S in 1995 as business manager for the trade division and was named senior v-p and general manager of the adult publishing division in 2001. He subsequently served as the company's executive v-p of operations, CFO, and for 12 years he held the position of executive v-p, COO, and CFO. Prior to joining S&S, he worked at Random House, Weight Watchers, and J. Walter Thompson.

Alison Rose, "a beguiling, if inept, receptionist at the New Yorker who found her way into the magazine's pages with her idiosyncratic essays and profiles--including one particular article about her time there and the men who were her mentors and lovers that landed like a grenade and became the basis of a memoir," died in late September, the New York Times reported. She was 81.

Rose was 41 when she took the receptionist's job on the writers' floor of the New Yorker, which was still in its longtime home on West 43rd St. Although her job was a coup, she was aided by Brendan Gill, a family friend.

Harold Brodkey, one of the many New Yorker writers "who scooped her up, told her, 'Build a life out of bad judgment.' He added, 'I have,' " the Times wrote, adding that "she wrote that down and taped it to her refrigerator. And as admirers collected in her glass cubicle, opining on this or that but mostly on Ms. Rose's many charms, she wrote down their aperçus, too."

Her "epigrammatic" mentors also included George W.S. Trow, the cultural critic best known for his essay "Within the Context of No-Context." He told her, "Darling, we're almost like other people." Brodkey wrote on one of her message pads: "What an admirably dark person you are." The two men argued about Rose's place in the world, with Brodkey contending she was "the princess of the 20th century," and Trow countering: "No, Alison is the duchess." 

Rose called the New Yorker "school," studying hard, reading back issues, and writing notes to her boyfriends, a trio of married writers she nicknamed Europe, Mr. Normalcy and Personality Plus, who all wrote back to her. "This made her a less-than-attentive receptionist. She was an erratic message-taker, and her cubicle was often so full of her coterie that she failed to notice when a visitor needed to be buzzed through," the Times wrote, adding: "Inevitably, she was fired."

She began to write, and work as a literary assistant to Trow, a pairing that was encouraged by Charles McGrath, then an editor at the New Yorker and later the editor of the New York Times Book Review. Together, she and Trow produced Talk of the Town pieces. By the time he dropped her as his project and friend, she was writing on her own and back in the New Yorker's building, with her own office.

When Tina Brown became the magazine's editor, she encouraged Rose to write about her romantic life. "How I Became a Single Woman," which appeared in 1996, "caused a minor ruckus at School. Despite their nicknames, the married men were easily identifiable, and that meant upsets at home and the snubbing of Ms. Rose at the office. It also earned her a book deal, a sizable advance and a terrible case of writer's block," the Times noted.

"She felt she got paid for losing the pleasures of her life," said author and friend Honor Moore. "She was very neurotic, which both blocked and helped her; it made her writing singular, and also kept her from more achievement."

It took Rose eight years to finish Better than Sane: Tales from a Dangling Girl, which was published in 2004 to good reviews but not wide acclaim. By then, she was one of the writers cut from the New Yorker when the magazine moved into Condé Nast headquarters in 1999.

"She was so clever," said editor Sarah Crichton, who worked on Rose's memoir for a time. "So gimlet-eyed. So in-her-own-musical-in-her-head. Most of the time, you couldn't figure out what the musical was, and sometimes she couldn't.... I was thinking how great it was she finished the book. She really wanted to have written a book." In 2023, Godine brought Better Than Sane back into print at the suggestion of author Porochista Khakpour. 

"I think she's the last of the great New Yorker eccentrics," McGrath said. "She was an original."

Mam's Books, Seattle's Asian American bookstore, in partnership with Asian-owned snack food shop Mixed Pantry, hosted the launch for Michelle Jing Chan's debut picture book, Weiwei's Winter Solstice (Bloomsbury). The book celebrates the Chinese winter solstice festival of Dōngzhì, and the author served black sesame tang yuan, a holiday treat, to guests at the event (the recipe is in the back of the book) while Mixed Pantry provided black sesame snacks. Pictured: Michelle Jing Chan (center) with Sokha Danh, owner of Mam's Books (left) and Takeshi Kunimune, owner of Mixed Pantry (right).

Oprah Winfrey chose Megha Majumdar's National Book Award fiction finalist A Guardian and a Thief as the October Oprah's Book Club Pick, Oprah Daily reported, noting: "Megha Majumdar is one of those exquisitely skilled authors that takes us into the story of characters and cultural conflicts and leaves us spellbound until the last word and beyond."  

"My heart is beating so fast," Majumdar told Oprah over the phone when she got the surprise call. "Right now, every word feels too modest and too rigid, and too inflexible to capture this expansion that you've just brought into my day and into my life."

Winfrey interviewed the author for the most recent Oprah's Book Club: Presented by Starbucks podcast, available here.

Chapters Books & Gifts, Seward, Neb., shared a photo on Instagram of the shop's spooky storefront window art, noting: "Hannah waved her paintbrush and poof! Halloween arrived at Chapters. Swing by for a peek (and a photo) before it disappears."

"We're batty about books." That was the Halloween-themed message on the sidewalk chalkboard in front of Columbus Bound Bookshop in Columbus, Ga., which noted: "The sign says it all, and the shelves are packed. Stop by today."
 

At Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing: 

Cassandra Fernandez has been promoted to senior marketing manager for Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, Atheneum, and Beach Lane Books. She was most recently a marketing manager.

Amy Lavigne has been promoted to marketing manager in the digital marketing team. She was most recently an assistant marketing manager, digital marketing.

Amaris Mang has been promoted to marketing manager for Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, Atheneum, and Beach Lane Books. She was most recently an assistant marketing manager.

Remi Moon has been promoted to marketing associate. She was most recently a marketing coordinator.

Tomorrow:
CBS Mornings: Tom Colicchio, author of Think Like a Chef, 25th Anniversary Edition (Clarkson Potter, $38, 9798217034888).

Drew Barrymore Show: Malala Yousafzai, author of Finding My Way: A Memoir (Atria, $30, 9781668054277).

Universal released the trailer for Reminders of Him, based on the bestselling book by Colleen Hoover. Deadline reported that the film, which hits theaters March 13, 2026, will be the third to adapt one of Hoover's novels, following It Ends with Us and Regretting You.

The film's cast includes Maika Monroe, Rudy Pankow, Lauren Graham, Bradley Whitford, Tyriq Withers, Lainey Wilson, Jennifer Robertson, Zoe Kosovic, Hilary Jardine, Nicholas Duvernay, and Monika Myers. 

Leading an all-female filmmaking team, Vanessa Caswill (Love at First Sight, Little Women miniseries) directs from a screenplay by Hoover and Lauren Levine. The film is produced by Hoover, Lauren Levine, and Gina Matthews; Robin Mulcahy Fisichella executive produces. 

The Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation has named Vajra Chandrasekera's Rakesfall (Tordotcom Publishing) this year's winner of the $25,000 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, presented to a writer for a single work of imaginative fiction. The award is intended to recognize those writers Le Guin spoke of in her 2014 National Book Awards speech--realists of a larger reality, who can imagine real grounds for hope and see alternatives to how we live now.

The selection panel said: "As fluid and changing as water, Rakesfall funnels genre, narrative structures, characters, and our conception of time into a spiritual kaleidoscope. Rakesfall trusts us to follow, across the literary equivalent of light years, a deeply felt and moving story of grief, loss, and ultimately hope to savor in dark times. Like Le Guin, Vajra Chandrasekera writes about colonialism and power with a kind of moral clarity and strength that speaks to the heart as well as the mind. He has created a masterclass of the possibilities inherent in fiction. Rakesfall is an extraordinary achievement in science fiction, and a titanic work of art."

In his acceptance speech, Chandrasekera observed: "Le Guin is special to us all, especially to writers in her tradition--because she's one of those few rare writers that I think all of us love and would claim for our own, as influence, as elder, as northern star. So I will say again how honored I am and how moved I am that my very strange book has a place in the history of this wonderful award in her name."
 
Chandrasekera's full speech and the prize announcement, hosted by actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach, can be viewed here.

photo: Wes Ellis

Elyse Myers is a writer, comedian, and content creator who's known to her 12 million followers as "The Internet's Best Friend," sharing stories and comedic sketches and serving as an advocate for topics such as neurodivergence, imposter syndrome, body image, and more. Her debut book, That's a Great Question, I'd Love to Tell You (Morrow, October 28, 2025), is a collection of deeply personal stories and hand-drawn illustrations.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

A really bizarre kaleidoscope of information you didn't ask me to tell you about myself, that is--somehow--very specific and also oddly universal.

On your nightstand now:

Two glasses half filled with stale water.
An empty wine glass. 
An empty plastic bowl with crumbs that used to be Cheez-It crackers.
A fan because I can't sleep without it.
The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren.
Nipple covers.
My Oura Ring charger.
A 7mm crochet hook.
A bottle of Unisom.
A galaxy light.
My journal and pen.
The charging case to my vibrator (just the case because I lost the actual vibrator which is... deeply concerning when I stop to think about it so I try not to).
Reading glasses.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Your top five authors:

Agatha Christie: Mystery without being too scary (I love a good whodunnit).

Raphael Bob-Waksberg: Incredible at writing very ordinary moments in a way that sound like art and also feel like he's reading your mind.

B.K. Borison: My romance novel queeeeeen. She writes the sweetest love scenes and the sweetest romances! Really features lots of neurodivergent themes in her stories, which I always connect with deeply.

Ana Huang: Her book King of Wrath was the first super spicy romance novel I read that made me fall in love with reading spice. I used to skip the sex scenes in books and just read the romance novels for the love story, and the way Ana Huang writes spice converted me forever.

Abby Jimenez: Also love her for her sweet romances. She writes a lot of forced proximity, fake dating, and enemies-to-lovers stories which are some of my favorite tropes!

Book you've faked reading:

1. Every
2. Book
3. Assigned
4. To
5. Me
6. In
7. High school

Book you're an evangelist for:

I wouldn't be able to sleep if I didn't put all three of these books in my answer:

Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg--highly influential book for my own writing style and always inspires me.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang--helped me understand sex and my sexuality as an autistic woman in a very profound way.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.

Book you hid from your parents:

The entire Harry Potter series.

Book that changed your life:

Same answer as the one above for the prompt "Book you're an evangelist for."

Favorite line from a book:

"If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with 'creative temperament'--it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness, such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again." --from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Five books you'll never part with:

From above:

Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

And:
Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn--This is special to me for a few reasons, the first being that it takes place in New York City. I always wanted to live in New York as a kid, and I felt like I got to live through Dash and Lily and the way that they wrote about their experiences as teenagers in one of the greatest cities in the world. The second reason was that the entire book is focused around journal entries. They are strangers that have never met and write back and forth to each other in a journal, daring each other to do things that they otherwise wouldn't be brave enough to do. I have read this book in so many different seasons of my life, and each time, I see so much of myself in Lily. Even when she's afraid, she still somehow moves forward as if she is fearless and lets her brain catch up. I love how vulnerable and honest Dash and Lily are with each other due to the anonymity of their situation. It feels like they both know each other better than anyone else in their real lives, and in writing to each other, I love how they learn more about themselves in the process. It's such a sweet book, and even writing all of this out now, it makes me want to pick it up and read it all over again.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein--it's beautiful in a very melancholy way. All of Shel Silverstein's stories, poems, and illustrations feel like real life because real life doesn't always have a happy ending, or an ending at all. Sometimes situations just... exist. And learning how to find beauty and meaning within those are what I think Shel Silverstein does best in Where the Sidewalk Ends. I became inspired at a really young age to doodle in my journal the way that he draws in his books, and to make my writing interact with my drawings instead of living and existing separately. So much of what I write today was inspired by his storytelling and his poems.

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

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough. I will never forget the shock I felt in the last few pages. I have never in my life gasped so loud and stood frozen for so long as I did after finishing that book. I remember finishing it standing over the kitchen counter and involuntarily throwing it at the wall because I was so surprised that my body just naturally flung the book across the room, and then I stared into space for a solid two to three minutes. The entire book sucks you in and is thrilling without being so scary that you can't get up and pee at night while reading it before bed, which is the perfect level of scariness for me when picking a thriller. But the ending really made it the best thriller I've ever read in my life (and probably will ever read, if I'm being honest).

Yxavel Magno Diño (The Serpent Rider) artfully entwines enchanting magic, a resilient young sorcerer, and high-stakes action in her Filipino mythology-inspired middle-grade fantasy The Firefly Crown.

Mayumi, or "Yumi," is a 12-year-old sorcerer who can communicate with and control crickets. "Cricket mambabarangs" are born with the ability to understand crickets and have certain cricket-like abilities, such as jumping large distances. Except Yumi's talents haven't shown up yet, meaning she is useless in her family's pest removal trade, compelling crickets to leave farmers' fields. Yumi is tired of embarrassing herself and her family with her lacking abilities and would much rather do something she is good at: metalsmithing. If she can just get to Tinanglawan, the empire's capital, she can find a master to apprentice under. But, as Yumi's mother tells her, "the imperial city is no place for Crickets like us. Tinanglawan is filled with other mambabarang who outrank us by far. They'd only look down on you."

Then all the magicians are summoned to Tinanglawan to attend the imperial heir's coronation, where First Daughter Eyrin will receive the "Firefly Crown." This crown amplifies Firefly magic and helps stave off the "Ghost Swarm," a threatening "entity of dark energy" made up of "the ghosts of all the insects that had ever lived." The "Crowning" has barely begun when the crown disappears and Yumi is blamed for stealing it. To prove herself innocent, Yumi decides to find the real culprit, hopefully before the Ghost Swarm destroys the empire.

Diño's delightful fantasy is packed with action and threaded with themes of self-worth, self-acceptance, and economic disparity. The imaginative magic system rooted in insect hierarchies masterfully provides sharp social commentary on class and privilege. As a Cricket, Yumi is in the lowest class of mambabarangs and has powers that are insignificant when compared to other mambabarangs: Dragonflies move quickly and fly; Fireflies have the "near-mythical" power to manipulate light.

The insect-based magic also offers rich visuals to accompany Yumi's adventure, such as wolf spiders running up walls or "the decay of a hundred years setting in within the space of heartbeats" in the wake of an army of ghost insects. These images sit alongside thrilling close calls, nail-biting action scenes, and a rollicking quest to find a royal traitor. A thrilling adventure with an important message: never doubt yourself. --Lana Barnes, freelance reviewer and proofreader

Shelf Talker: In this delightful, imaginative, Filipino mythology-inspired middle-grade fantasy, a lower-class sorcerer must prove her innocence when a magical artifact goes missing.