Effective this fall, the first retail partner for Barnes & Noble's Nook in the U.K.--and B&N's first retail partner outside the U.S.--is John Lewis, which has 37 department stores, including its flagship on Oxford Street in London, opened in 1864. The device lineup includes the Nook Simple Touch and Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight but not Nook tablets or Nook Color. B&N said that the Nook "will be prominently displayed in John Lewis electronics aisles" as well as on its website. B&N will also sell Nooks and e-books directly online at nook.co.uk

B&N had announced last week that it would partner with U.K. retailers. For a long time, it had been rumored that B&N would sell the Nook in Waterstones, but earlier this year, Waterstones agreed to sell Amazon's Kindles in its stores and W.H. Smith is selling the Kobo.

In the U.S., B&N has sales partnerships with fellow book retailer Books-A-Million as well as a range of general retailers, including Walmart, Kmart, Sears, Best Buy, Target and Radio Shack.

Sad news: on Saturday, the offices and warehouse of Dot Gibson Publications, Blackshear, Ga., burned down. The company, which was founded 36 years ago, specializes in a range of cookbooks, children's books and gift books. Owners Dot and Gil Gibson have not yet decided whether to rebuild.

Because the shopping mall where it is located is being redeveloped, Latino Books y Mas in Palm Springs, Calif., has lost its lease and is being evicted, the Desert Sun reported.

The store is in Desert Fashion Plaza, which the paper described as "a largely defunct shopping mall." Under the terms of the lease, the landlord was able to give notice because the city of Palm Springs acquired part of the property for redevelopment.

Latino Books y Mas owner Luciano Ramirez told the paper, "We want what's best for Palm Springs, but I tell you what, we don't want to get screwed."

Poet Daryl Hine, "who adhered to classical themes, complicated formal structures and intricate rhyming patterns to explore themes of philosophy, history and his own sexuality," died yesterday, the New York Times reported. He was 76.
 

The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association has given the Legacy Award to Macmillan CEO John Sargent and "ALL OF US," as NAIBA president Lucy Kogler put it in announcing the award. "We thought it important to recognize John Sargent for his consistent willingness to battle Amazon and specifically for his stance regarding e-book pricing and the DOJ. Even though he will be unable to attend our convention we thought that this was 'his' time and by awarding him the Legacy Award we would be fixing this moment in time for all of us."

Kogler explained the reason for honoring NAIBA members, too: "Our member stores have been around from 100+ years to less than a year. All booksellers who choose to stay in this business, start a new store, buy an existing store, have determination and vision. Many of our members stores have nurtured new booksellers, or hosted events, served as panelists at conventions and trunk shows. NAIBA member stores recognize the cultural importance of independent bookselling. For all of these efforts, for all of the vision, for the tenacity, and for so much more, the NAIBA Board applauds us all!"

The Legacy Award will be celebrated at NAIBA's Fall Conference September 28-30 in Arlington, Va.

The cash mob that descended on Charis Books & More, Atlanta, Ga., on Saturday left behind this cheery card on the store's door. The good feeling was mutual: Charis's Sara Luce Look said, "We were so excited and grateful for the outpouring of love and support and shopping that folks gave us for three hours and really all day long!"

The Boston Book Festival, which will be held October 27, and Emerson College's ArtsEmerson are presenting a Book to Film series two weekends before the festival that will feature many films related to authors appearing at the festival.

The series has two themes--the novel on screen and the graphic novel on screen. The films are Friday Night Lights, Mystic River, Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events, The House of Sand and Fog, Gone Baby Gone, Election, Watchman, Persepolis, Howl's Moving Castle, V for Vendetta and Ghost World.

The festival's program includes Page to Screen, a panel to be held the night before the festival that includes Buzz Bissinger, Daniel Handler, Andre Dubus III--each of whom has at least one book made into a movie that will have been shown as part of the series.

With this hilarious video, the Country Bookshop, Southern Pines, N.C., and its sibling entities--the Pilot newspaper, PineStraw magazine, O.Henry magazine and the Moore and Lee County telephone directories--joined the crowds making a parody music video of "Call Me Maybe," the Carly Rae Jepsen hit. Some filming was done at the store, and the star is Bookshop general manager Kimberly Daniels, cousin of Pilot publisher David Woronoff. Read the Pilot's behind-the-scenes story here.

Kathryn Gordon has joined the William Morrow marketing department as director of brand development, a new position, where she will be responsible for expanding awareness of the imprint's authors and helping to create and oversee marketing strategies, with a focus on brand messaging, fan and reader engagement and social media. She will coordinate with publicity and marketing, work closely with authors and will pursue outside co-branded marketing partnerships.

Gordon has more than 20 years of experience in marketing and publishing, most recently as the founder of the Book Hook, a firm that specialized in creating brand identity and increasing brand awareness via social media, design and marketing. Before that, she was director of author marketing at iUniverse and earlier was editorial director of Simon & Schuster Online.

The Beautiful Music All Around Us: Field Recordings and the American Experience by Stephen Wade (University of Illinois Press), in which the author tracked down surviving performers and others connected with the Library of Congress's iconic field recordings of traditional American songs made between 1934 and 1942.

Today on NPR's Fresh Air: Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, authors of The Real Romney (Harper, $15.99, 9780062123282).

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Tomorrow on NPR's On Point: Joanna Brooks, author of The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of an American Faith (Free Press, $14, 9781451699685).

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Tomorrow on NBC's Costas Tonight: Joe Posnanski, author of Paterno (Simon & Schuster, $28, 9781451657494).

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Tomorrow night on the Colbert Report: Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (Oxford University Press, $18.95, 9780199832484).

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Tomorrow night on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Bill Maher, author of The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody but Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass (Plume, $16, 9780452298293).

IFC has ordered a pilot script for a series based on Chris Gethard's book A Bad Idea I'm About to Do: True Tales of Seriously Poor Judgment and Stunningly Awkward Adventure. The Wrap reported that the comedian and author has signed a deal in which he will host on-air programming, create exclusive content for IFC.com and develop the show.  

Finalists have been named for the £2,500 Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger award for best crime novel of the year. The winner will be honored October 18 during the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards ceremony in London. The Gold Dagger shortlisted titles are:

Vengeance in Mind by N.J. Cooper
The Flight by M.R. Hall
The Rage by Gene Kerrigan
Bereft by Chris Womersley
 

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, September 4

Inventing the Enemy: Essays by Umberto Eco (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $25, 9780547640976) ponders subjects as varied as Wikileaks, St. Thomas Aquinas and the necessity of national enemies.

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens (Twelve, $22.99, 9781455502752) gives the late atheist's perspective on death and dying.

The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George (Viking, $18.99, 9780670012961) is a young adult paranormal mystery about a psychic girl fleeing her criminal stepfather.

Tiger's Claw: A Novel by Dale Brown (Morrow, $26.99, 9780061990014) pits a declining U.S. against superpower China in the near future.

Trust Your Eyes by Linwood Barclay (NAL, $25.95, 9780451237903) follows a schizophrenic whose obsessive use of a Google Maps-like program uncovers a conspiracy.

Garment of Shadows by Laurie R. King (Bantam, $26, 9780553807998) is the latest mystery featuring Mary Russell and husband Sherlock Holmes.

Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life by Gretchen Rubin (Crown Archetype, $26, 9780307886781) is a combination memoir and self-help book about finding happiness at home.

Meat Eater: Adventures from the Life of an American Hunter by Steven Rinella (Spiegel & Grau, $26, 9780385529815) is part carnivore manifesto and part memoir of a lifelong hunter.

The Victims' Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind by Bruce Bawer (Broadside Books, $25.99, 9780061807374) disparages progressivism in higher education humanities.

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27, 9780547564654) explores the environments and character traits behind successful children.


Now in paperback:

Beyond Outrage: Expanded Edition by Robert B. Reich (Vintage, $9.99, 9780345804372).

Gabriel's Inferno by Sylvain Reynard (Berkley, $16, 9780425265963).

Kij Johnson won the 2009 Nebula award for best science fiction short story with "Spar," an unrelenting tale about an astronaut trapped in an escape pod with an alien life form that blindly assaults her over and over. "She feels it everywhere inside," Johnson writes, "tendrils moving in her nostrils, thrusting against her eardrums, coiled besides the corners of her eyes." The following year, she won the prize again for "Ponies," a short short that begins with the surface sweetness of little girls playing with cartoon-like horses before taking a sharp turn with a chilling allegory of adolescent popularity dynamics.

And then, the year after that, she received another Nebula for her novella "The Man Who Bridged the Mist." This story takes full advantage of its greater length, slowly exploring the psyche of Kit, an architect sent to an outpost at the remote end of an empire to build a bridge that will span a turbulent river of mist. Kit falls in love with Rasali, the woman who runs the main ferry connecting the towns of Nearside and Farside, even as he realizes that his bridge will make her job obsolete. The depth of Johnson's portrayal of their relationship is matched by her attention to the details of life in her fantasy kingdom, a setting somewhat further along than the medieval but not quite modern, with mysterious beasts lurking under the mist ready to devour unprepared travelers.

Like these three, the other stories collected in At the Mouth of the River of Bees exhibit a captivating blend of psychological realism and hallucinatory vision, with animals often playing a central role. In the title story, a young woman and her aging dog are driving across Montana when the highway is closed due to the overflowing of the Bee River--which turns out to be quite literally named. "The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change" takes place in a world where pets have gained the ability of speech and are abandoned by their freaked-out owners. ("Sometimes we think we want to know what our dogs think," Johnson writes. "We don't, not really.") Two stories set in ancient Japan, "Fox Magic" and "The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles," are embryonic versions of Johnson's novels The Fox Woman and Fudoki.

Johnson shifts easily from domestic dramas ("The Bitey Cat") to conflicts on a vast alien landscape ("The Horse Raiders"), hitting many points in between. When she's at her best, the small emotional moments are as likely to linger in your memory as the fantastic imagery. --Ron Hogan, founder of Beatrice.com

Shelf Talker: Johnson would fit quite comfortably on a shelf with Karen Russell, Erin Morgenstern and others who hover in the simultaneous state of being both "literary" and "fantasy" writers.

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

1. Weekends Required by Sydney Landon
2. While It Lasts by Abbi Glines
3. Sarah's Surrender by Lynda Chase
4. Easy by Tammara Webber
5. Plain Jane by Carolyn McCray
6. Finding Emma by Steena Holmes
7. High Heel Mysteries Boxed Set by Gemma Halliday
8. Her Best Friend's Brother by T.J. Dell
9. The Wild Ones by M. Leighton
10. Because of Low by Abbi Glines

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]