Scholastic is combining its Trade Publishing, Book Fairs and Book Clubs into a new Children's Book Group, effective June 1. Sasha Quinton, who has been president, school reading events, becomes executive v-p and president of the Children's Book Group, adding Trade Publishing to her portfolio. The company said that she has led substantial gains in profitability across Book Clubs and Book Fairs, including record revenue per fair through a strong focus on kid-first marketing and merchandising.

In addition, Jackie De Leo is joining Scholastic Children's Book Group as publisher and chief merchant, a new position at the company. De Leo has more than 25 years of experience in the industry, most recently as chief merchandising officer at Barnes & Noble. She earlier held senior roles at Disney Book Group and Readerlink, among others.

Sasha Quinton

Scholastic president and CEO Peter Warwick said, "Scholastic's ability to work seamlessly across media, publishing and distribution has never been more important to maximizing the value of our IP and ensuring that the work of our authors and illustrators connects to readers. It's an exciting time for the company and we're eager for this next advancement of our content strategy, solidifying that Scholastic-published and produced stories and characters are part of children's lives generation after generation."

Quinton stated, "I am excited and honored to lead Scholastic's talented children's book publishing and distribution teams. Each of these groups is dedicated to reaching every child, as well as listening to what they want to read--an area in which Scholastic has unrivaled insight. Our new collaborative structure unlocks our potential to meet kids where they are--whether through book retailers, school-based fairs and clubs or on screens with our media peers. This will strengthen and maintain our leading position in children's publishing with an iconic backlist, while creating beloved new stories and characters the world has yet to meet."

"Especially in this climate, in this time, bookstores are very hopeful," said Toni Chappell, owner of Fiction: A Novel Bookshop in Wiscasset, Maine. "People opening bookstores and people coming to bookshops are such important, hopeful things to be happening. I feel like it's a really positive thing I can do out in the world."

Chappell opened Fiction in late March. Despite the name, it is a general-interest bookstore, with more than just fiction represented. In addition to fiction and nonfiction, Chappell said the store offers a "healthy poetry selection," cookbooks, a small children's section, and titles pertaining to nature and the environment.

Fiction's gift and nonbook options include greeting cards, candles, laser-cut puzzles, and a smattering of home goods, but Chappell noted that it's "not a place you'd walk into and think it's anything other than a bookstore."

When it comes to events, Chappell said her goal is to "bring writers and readers together." Since opening on March 29, the store has hosted one book club, which featured a local author's book and was done in partnership with a local soup shop. The store's first author event is planned for the end of June and will coincide with the Wiscasset Art Walk. Looking ahead, Chappell intends to host more local author events and readings and "support anybody in the community that wants to do book clubs."

Toni Chappell

The bookstore spans about 1,000 square feet, including a small office area in the back, at 49 Water St., in a building overlooking the Sheepscot River that dates back to 1797. She noted that the building was originally a ship's chandlery, and at that time Wiscasset was one of the largest ports north of Boston.

The building remained in use in various ways well after Wiscasset's fortunes changed, and was a hardware store at one time. The building has a "great historic energy," Chappell said, and she is pleased that it's a place "people have always come to."

Prior to opening Fiction, Chappell had no experience in bookselling. She was a journalist in the late '80s and '90s before homeschooling her kids "and doing other things here and there." Recently she completed an MA and PhD in creative writing in England. Ultimately, the "biggest hit on my résumé for being a bookseller is being a book lover," Chappell said.

As for how long she's wanted to open a bookstore, Chappell remarked that "all writers, somewhere in the back of their mind, think it would be great to have a bookstore," though she never thought of it as "something that will really happen." Studying in England provided ample opportunity to attend book festivals like the Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, and Chappell often thought, "wouldn't it be cool to have a boutique bookshop?"

During the pandemic Chappell was "stuck over in England," and after completing her PhD decided to relocate back to the U.S. to live closer to family. She moved to Maine "because it's kind of catnip for writers," and primarily she wanted to write.

Fiction went from idea to opening very quickly, and stemmed from a conversation Chappell had with a friend. Chappell mentioned how much she loved English bookshops, and her friend told not only that she should do it but that she also had an ideal spot in mind. Chappell's friend contacted the building's landlord, and the landlord called Chappell. Fiction was open five months later.

"As soon as it was an idea voiced out loud, things started rolling," Chappell recalled. "Every door opened that needed to open. I like to say that the bookstore opened me."

Chappell called Fiction "a bookshop that the community built." In addition to her friend who got the ball rolling, other friends helped her paint furniture, build shelves, and alphabetize stacks, while her daughters, whom she referred to as her "not so silent partners," helped unpack and shelve books.

Having no prior experience in bookselling, she learned much from experienced booksellers, including Kenny Brechner of Devaney, Doak & Garrett Booksellers; Stephanie Valdez of Community Bookstore and Terrace Books; and Margie Wilson of Grand Valley Books.

The bookshop had been open for about three weeks before Independent Bookstore Day, and though it was a "really rainy day," there were plenty of shoppers who had already visited two or three bookstores that day. The fact there were so many people committed to indie bookstores moved her "almost to the point of tears." --Alex Mutter

Pages & Pixels, a bookstore and movie rental shop, opened earlier this month in Big Rapids, Mich., the Pioneer reported.

Located at 605 S. 3rd Ave., Pages & Pixels sells new and used books, along with movies and video games, with rental options available.

"We're kind of a hodgepodge of a store," co-owner Chris Densmore told the Pioneer. "We're going to do a little bit of everything so that we have something for everybody. We're just looking forward to everybody coming out and giving us a try."

Densmore and his wife, Jessica Densmore, opened the store on May 10 with the help of their children. They wanted to provide local children and families with more things to do and to improve access to books.

Despite the proliferation of video streaming services, Densmore noted, renting DVDs is still a good option for people who live in areas with unreliable Internet access or for those who worry about inappropriate content on streaming services.

In the weeks ahead, the Densmores will add a space called Side Quest, which will include a small cafe, an area for playing board games, and room to display items made by local vendors.

Title Euphoria opened earlier this year at 107 E Jackson St. in Burnet, Tex. The Burnet Bulletin recently spoke with owner Elizabeth Schlaudraff about the bookstore's journey thus far.

"It is fantastic, actually," she said. "Our goal is to create a community-hub type of thing and get people talking about books and to encourage literacy." 

Schlaudraff added that the bookstore offers "a little bit of everything," including new and old hardback and paperback books for all ages, artistic figurines, bookmarks, craft kits, puzzles and specialty binding for classic books.

For Schlaudraff, books were the primary motivation even when she worked in other fields. Eventually, with assistance from Justin Schlaudraff, her husband, she operated a mobile bookstore. 

"I love books," she said. "I love taking to people about books and readers. It is a big passion of mine.... We try to make our place comfortable for everyone." Future plans call for developing additional space toward the rear of the store for events, meetings, readings, and a study nook for students.

The French Books Mediator confirmed that Amazon's recent strategy of delivering books free to lockers to circumvent minimum fee laws is illegal. The Bookseller reported that in a second--more detailed--opinion on the issue, mediator Jean-Philippe Mochon again concluded that the practice violated the 2021 Darcos law. Mochon's first report was released in February 2024.

The 2021 law set a minimum fee of €3 (about $3.40) for book deliveries worth up to €35 (about $39.80), but exempted click and collect from outlets selling books and, according to Mochon, by extension to deliveries to checkouts or customer-reception counters.

Amazon had claimed that providing book deliveries free to nearly 3,000 points across the country would not hurt booksellers because the points are located in small towns and rural areas. Mochon's report, however, argued that "it ignores the reality of the network of booksellers (of all kinds) in France and parliament's support for them."

The French Booksellers Association (Syndicat de la Librairie Française) praised the mediator's "firm and unambiguous confirmation" that Amazon's free deliveries to lockers are outside of the law, adding that the SLF deplored the "disdain with which the American platform treats French law."

An Amazon spokesperson contended that the reports from the Book Mediator "clearly confirm that book delivery can be free when the book is picked up in any store that sells books," and the distinction between lockers and counters made by the Book Mediator has no real basis in law.

Mochon told Livres Hebdo that a new law should not be required to remedy the problem: "A judge could take up the question but that means that someone has to do it."

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Trading House BMM, a Russian book distributor, sent a letter to bookshops in the country with a list of 37 titles--including works by Jeffery Eugenides, Bridget Collins, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami, and a number of Russian writers--that should be returned or destroyed immediately. BBC News reported that the order "comes amid growing Kremlin censorship since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has targeted books featuring anti-war sentiment, LGBTQ themes, and criticism of Russia's leadership."

The newly banned books were released in Russia by the publishing houses Ripol Classic and Dom Istorii, which are affiliated with BMM. Sergei Makarenkov, the head of Ripol Classic, said: "I think [the list] is most likely connected to the anti-LGBT law. This needs to be clarified with BMM... I can't clearly explain to you what has happened here.... Such lists appear everywhere now, it's become completely routine."

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The Booksellers Association of the U.K. & Ireland and Bookshop.org U.K. are combining their respective Book of the Month campaigns for June into a "one-off" partnership to celebrate Independent Bookshop Week 2025 (June 14-21). The Bookseller reported that the hope is a "united, turbo-charged" promotion of a single title--No Small Thing by Orlaine McDonald--will 'galvanize' readers to support independent bookshops, in person or online."

Emma Bradshaw, head of campaigns at the BA, said:
"Partnering with Bookshop.org to amplify No Small Thing is a perfect example of how we can work together to support and champion independent booksellers in meaningful and practical ways."

Jasper Sutcliffe, head of business development at Bookshop.org, added: "By combining our platforms and aligning on No Small Thing, we hope to bring this brilliant book to a wider audience and reinforce our shared mission of helping independent bookshops thrive."

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, "a groundbreaking novelist, playwright and memoirist whose writings explored the iniquities and ambiguities of colonialism in his native Kenya as much as the misdoings of the postcolonial elite, and who led a passionate campaign for African authors to eschew the languages of foreign occupiers," died May 28, the New York Times reported. He was 87.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (photo: Daniel Anderson)

A perennial Nobel laureate contender, Ngũgĩ spent years in exile due to his criticism of the Kenyan government. His works drew international praise, beginning with his debut novel, Weep Not, Child (1964). He wrote Devil on the Cross (1980) "on prison toilet paper while detained by Kenyan authorities for a year without trial because of a play," Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want), which he co-authored with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii in 1977.

Released in 1978, he went into exile in 1982, and later moved from the U.K. to the U.S., where he became a professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine, heading its International Centre for Writing and Translation.

Composed in his native tongue as Caitaani Mutharaba-Ini, Devil on the Cross was considered the first modern novel in the Gikuyu language, spoken by the country's largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu. The book launched his career writing in his own language and subsequently translating his work into English.

Ngũgĩ's life and writing "unfolded in lock step with the stirrings of emancipation in British-run East Africa," the Times noted. He lived in Uganda, which secured independence in 1962, and in Kenya both before and after its independence in 1963. Educated at Kenya's British-run Alliance High School, he returned home to find that his settlement had been destroyed by British authorities, he recalled in his memoir, In the House of the Interpreter (2012). After his studies at the Alliance, he won a place at Makerere University in Uganda, "which at that time was a cultural and intellectual hub of the emerging Africa of independent nations. It was at Makarere that his emergence as a writer began," the Times noted.

His work "was heavily intertwined with the politics of the era, and his thinking about the far-reaching impact of imperialism on African sensibilities played a central role in a much broader debate," the Times wrote. Ngũgĩ's other books include Grain of Wheat (1967), Decolonizing the Mind (1986), Detained (1980), and Birth of a Dream Weaver (2016).

Pantheon Books posted on social media: "We are deeply saddened by the loss of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, whose bold blend of satire and magical realism reshaped global literature. We were honored to publish Wizard of the Crow, Dreams in a Time of War, and In the House of the Interpreter."

"I have become a language warrior," he told the Los Angeles Review of Books in a 2017 interview. "I want to join all those others in the world who are fighting for marginalized languages. No language is ever marginal to the community that created it. Languages are like musical instruments. You don't say, let there be a few global instruments, or let there be only one type of voice all singers can sing."

"Oh noooo we’re stuck in the bookstore again! Whatever shall we do! (Surely if we just keep buying books we’ll find a key or something? Worth a shot.)," Annie Bloom's Books, Portland, Ore., posted on Instagram, along with an escape room-themed video and a "shoutout to @bookpeople in [Austin] Texas for the audio!"

"Keep it cool with comics!" That was the colorful sidewalk chalkboard message in front of Betty's Books, Webster Groves, Mo., which noted: "A new sidewalk sign has entered the chat!! Thank you to our lovely bookseller Elena for this summer refresh."

Netflix has released the first teaser for The Thursday Murder Club, based on the bestselling novel by Richard Osman, Deadline reported. Directed by Chris Columbus, the film stars Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie. It will premiere August 28.

Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote adapted the novel for the film, which is produced through a partnership between Netflix and Amblin Entertainment. The cast also includes Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Tom Ellis, Jonathan Pryce, David Tennant, Paul Freeman, Geoff Bell, Richard E. Grant, and Ingrid Oliver.

Jennifer Todd and Columbus produced, with Jo Burn, Osman, Eleanor Columbus, Holly Bario, and Jeb Brody serving as executive producers.

The winners of the IndieReader Discovery Awards, sponsored by IndieReader, have been announced. Winners in the many categories can be seen here. The winners of the fiction and nonfiction categories are:

Fiction:
First Place: The Last Whaler by Cynthia Reeves
Second Place: A Fondness for Truth by Kim Hays
Third Place: The Puppy Prophet by David Cary Lane

Nonfiction:
First Place: Property of the Revolution: From a Cuban Barrio to a New Hampshire Mill Town by Ana Hebra Flaster
Second Place: The Endless Sphere of Time, photographs by Geir Jordahl, poetry by Rolf Jacobsen
Third Place: Celebrating Comfy, Cozy Foods from North America by Astrid Tuttle Winegar

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Rosie Rowell won the Women's Prize Trust Discoveries Prize for Down by the Stryth. Curtis Brown Creative and Curtis Brown literary agency partner with the Women's Prize Trust and Audible to run Discoveries, a writing development award and program for unpublished women writers.

As winner, Rowell receives an offer of representation by Curtis Brown (she has signed with Jess Molloy, Curtis Brown literary agent and Discoveries 2025 judge), a cash prize of £5,000 (about $6,350), and a place on a Curtis Brown Creative six-week online course. In July, she will also join CBC's specially designed two-week Discoveries Writing Development course alongside the other 15 writers longlisted for Discoveries 2025.

Additionally, Jac Felipez has been named this year's Discoveries Scholar, winning a place on CBC's flagship three-month Writing Your Novel course, worth £1,900 (about $2,565) to further develop her work-in-progress: A Long Ways from Home. 

Chair of judges Kate Mosse said: "I'm delighted to say that the process of choosing the winner and scholar for our 2025 Discoveries was tough, reminding us yet again of what a huge range of diverse and brilliant female talent is out there. I've no doubt that all the authors longlisted and shortlisted have a great writing future ahead of them. Rosie's novel-in-progress is atmospheric, beautifully structured and puts the painful struggles of contemporary teenage girlhood vividly on the page. Jac's developing novel is bold, intense, glitters with nuance and politics, and offers fascinating insights into black artists from the 1980s whose works are only now being 'discovered.' "

photo: Kayla Pavao

R.M. Gray hails from a quaint Texas town best known for its soda, shiplap, and mammoth graveyards. She lives beside a field of bluebonnets with her film fanatic husband and two giant dogs, where she enjoys writing stories about pirates, magic, mystery, and all things fantastical. Her debut, Nightweaver (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), is the first in a YA romantasy series.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

Pirates of the Caribbean meets gothic Downton Abbey but with a dark, magical twist, perfect for fans of Powerless by Lauren Roberts and Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli.

On your nightstand now:

Chocolat by Joanne Harris. I adore the movie, which is whimsical and romantic and inspirational all at the same time, so I decided this year I was finally going to read the novel.

The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber. After reading Garber's Caraval series, I could hardly wait to get my hands on this series set in the same world as Caraval. I devoured the first book, and I can't turn the pages of the sequel fast enough!

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. This has been on my TBR forever now and, with the release of Oathbound, the final book in the trilogy, I'm finally ready to dive in.

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games was one of the first YA books I ever read, and it has haunted me ever since. Collins is a mastermind, and I just know this book is going to break my heart.

Favorite book when you were a child:

How will I ever choose one? I won't! The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne, all the Nancy Drew books by Carolyn Keene, Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, and of course, all the various educational books on dinosaurs that I forced my poor mother to read at night as I was falling asleep.

Favorite book to read to a child:

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander. The prose is fun, the pacing is swift, and Taran speaks to the child in me that always wanted to wield a sword and go off on an adventure. Also, I'm quite proud of my Gurgi voice.

Your top five authors:

Gail Carson Levine, A.G. Howard, Jodi Lynn Anderson, Louisa May Alcott, Suzanne Collins.

Book you've faked reading:

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross. It's at the top of my TBR, but every time I'm with bookish friends and they rave about it, I just smile and nod and pretend I know what they're talking about. I wouldn't want to ruin their fun just because I'm drowning in books.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson. Told through Tinker Bell's point-of-view, the story follows Tiger Lily, showing what Tiger Lily was up to before and during Peter Pan. I don't think I've ever cried so hard reading a book in my entire life, and I think about this story at least twice a day.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Forged by Blood by Ehigbor Okosun. The colors? Stunning! The art? Striking! It's one of those covers that catches your eye from across the bookshop and stops you in your tracks.

Book you hid from your parents:

I never had to hide books from my parents. I did try to hide how many books I was attempting to buy during any given trip to the bookstore, to no avail.

Book that changed your life:

The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine. The book follows two sisters: the brave older sister, Meryl, and the timid younger sister, Addie. Growing up, I was the timid younger sister, with a bold, outgoing older sister, so I saw a lot of myself and my own sister in this story. To this day, I think of Addie's journey of self-discovery whenever I'm faced with challenges. I even quoted a passage from the book at my sister's wedding.

Favorite line from a book:

"I like to think that nothing's final, and that everyone gets to be together even when it looks like they don't, that it all works out even when all the evidence seems to say something else, that you and I are always young in the woods, and that I'll see you sometime again, even if it's not with any kind of eyes I know of or understand." --from the final paragraph of Tiger Lily, which makes me sob every time I read it.

Five books you'll never part with:

The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine, of which my paperback copy is well-loved. Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson, because I read it every time I need a good cry. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, not only because I collect special editions (gifted to me by my husband and family), but because it inspired my love of storytelling. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, because it's my all-time favorite comfort book. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, because every time I read it I notice something new, and I'll never get tired of the Owens sisters.

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

The entire Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi. Mafi's style is captivating, the characters are lovable, and the plot was everything I could have hoped for in a dystopian romance. I never wanted those books to end!

The challenges of love and fidelity provide the grist for Helen Schulman's smart and often witty collection, the aptly titled Fools for Love. In its 10 well-shaped stories, set mostly in reasonably well-to-do segments of New York City's populace, Schulman (Lucky Dogs; Come with Me) creates an engaging cast of characters struggling to balance their desire for stable relationships with the allure of sexual adventure.

Though it wouldn't be entirely accurate to characterize this as a collection of linked stories, Schulman does display an affinity for recurring characters. For example, Anna Herrera, who appears in the title story as the young spouse of a bisexual actor in the AIDS era, comes back many years later in the final entry, "In a Better Place." There, she experiences a hallucinatory encounter with her late father while touring Normandy with her second husband, Walker, a director and producer.

Another character who makes multiple appearances is Mirra, a divorce attorney who encounters her ex-husband, Mike, at a school event in "Parents' Night." She then returns in "The Interview" as the mother of a child whose refusal to talk imperils his chances of entering a nursery school she hopes someday will help pave the path to highly ranked college. There's also an allusion to her in "I Am Seventy-Five," as the eldest daughter of Lily Weilerstein, who discovers six months after the death of her husband that he had been a compulsively unfaithful partner, meticulously documenting his serial infidelity in a collection of journals.

Readers of Schulman's novel The Revisionist will recognize its protagonist, neurologist David Hershleder, in the Cheever-esque story of the same title here. In "P.S.," Columbia School of the Arts admissions coordinator Louise Harrington, the main character in the novel of that name, risks her job over a sexual encounter with one of the school's applicants who has the same name as her dead high school boyfriend.

One of Fools for Love's strangest and most entertaining stories is "My Best Friend," where Jake Kaminsky, fresh from roles in Oliver Stone films, weds Jeannie, the ex-wife of Phil, a failed novelist, in a ceremony where Phil serves as his best man. The divergent paths their careers take afterward set up a wild climax to the story. Another brief but enjoyable entry is "The Memoirs of Lucien H.," narrated in the voice of an infant whose young mother, an ex-model, is engaged in a desperate search for a mate after Lucien's father abandoned them before the child was born.

In these and other stories, Schulman's characters make enough foolish and self-indulgent choices to fill a volume twice the size of this slim one. But that's the stuff of enjoyable fiction, and she delivers it with style here. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: Helen Schulman's stories follow the challenges of modern love in the lives of a group of New Yorkers.