Chin Music Press's new store in Seattle's Pike Place Market.

Chin Music Press, a publisher for more than a decade of books focusing on contemporary Japan and China, has opened a new office and retail/exhibit space in Seattle's Pike Place Market, a major tourist destination that features hundreds of food stalls, stores, restaurants, several used bookstores and more. The store will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, and feature all Chin Music titles as well as related posters, zines, chapbooks, stationery, broadsides and artwork.

Chin Music Press publisher Bruce Rutledge commented: "We now have room to give all of our titles the shelf space and attention they deserve. But more importantly, we can add to the literary ecosystem in Seattle. We look forward to connecting with other presses, bookstores, artists and lovers of literature to make our space a vibrant part of the community."

The press will host a reception this Saturday, July 19, from noon to 2 p.m., featuring D. Michael Ramirez, who translated the recently released bilingual poetry collection Lizard Telepathy, Fox Telepathy by Osaka poet and photographer Yoshinori Henguchi. The event is free and open to the public.

Among Chin Music Press's best known titles are Shiro: Wit, Wisdom and Recipes from a Sushi Pioneer, Yokohama Yankee and A Commonplace Book of Pie. The Japan Times called Chin Music Press "an independent publisher that has produced some of the best collections of contemporary literature from Japan over the past decade or so."

Chin Music co-owner and translator Yuko Enomoto noted the historical significance of the press's move to Pike Place Market, where before World War II, Japanese and Japanese-American farmers made up as much as 80% of the farmers selling at the Market, until they were forcibly evacuated in 1942: "I hope that in some small way our presence in the Market helps reconnect it with its Japanese roots."

The Chin Music Press office and retail space at Pike Place Market is located at 1501 Pike Place #329, Seattle, Wash. 98125.

Ann Christophersen and Linda Bubon, who founded Women & Children First, Chicago, Ill., in 1979 and put it up for sale last October, have sold the store to two staff members, Lynn Mooney and Sarah Hollenbeck. They described the new owners as their "colleagues, both literary feminists who are invested in the same mission that began the store almost 35 years ago." The sale marks another successful ownership transition for established independent bookstores in the past several years.

Christophersen, a former American Booksellers Association president, will retire in August, but work on special projects and consult at the store. Bubon will work a couple of days a week at the store and host the Wednesday morning children's story time and the monthly Women's Book Group; she looks forward to more time, she said, "to read, write, perform (and play golf)."

Former owners Ann Christophersen and Linda Bubon

New owners Lynn Mooney and Sarah Hollenbeck

Lynn Mooney is the store manager; before joining Women & Children First she worked in the publishing industry for more than 20 years, including stints at HarperCollins and McGraw-Hill. Sarah Hollenbeck, a bookseller at the store, is a writer who earned an MFA in creative writing from Northwestern University and whose essays exploring sexuality, gender, disability and the perception of self have appeared in literary journals and blogs including TriQuarterly, Dogwood and In Our Words. She has worked at Independent Publishers Group, StoryStudio, Borders and Barnes & Noble.

Mooney and Hollenbeck have a vision, the store said, that "builds upon Ann and Linda's enduring legacy with a fresh energy and commitment to amplify the voices of the next generation of feminists. Over the years, Women & Children First has thrived as a feminist bookstore, a neighborhood bookstore, an LGBTQ support network, and the anchor for Andersonville's dynamic shopping district of locally owned businesses. By rejuvenating the current space and diversifying the store's events and programming, Lynn and Sarah intend to create a 'third place' that physically and philosophically invites spirited, respectful dialogue about feminism--what it was, what it is, and what it must become."

Photo of Hollenbeck and Mooney by Ross Forman/Windy City Times

Books-A-Million will open a new store August 14 in Beckley, W. Va., at the Cranberry Creek Shopping Center. The Register-Herald reported that "construction started Monday in the old Hibbetts Sports location between Pet Supplies Plus and Rue 21." Anne-Marie Johnson, a former Waldenbooks manager who will serve as general manager of the new BAM location, said, "It's going to be great for this area." A grand opening is planned for August 21.

Keen Communications has bought Nature Study Guild Publishers and made it the company's fifth imprint--in addition to Menasha Ridge Press, Wilderness Press, Clerisy Press and the Unofficial Guide series.

The Nature Study Guide line consists of 14 pocket-sized identification guides for field use. Subjects include trees, flowers, ferns, tracks, constellation, and others. Publishers Group West will remain the distributor of Nature Study Guild to the trade.

Keen has offered Nature Study Guides as a client service since Keen acquired Wilderness Press in 2008. Nature Study Guild Publishers has been family-owned, headed by Bridget Watts with headquarters in Rochester, N.Y. Its administrative functions are being transferred to Keen's Birmingham, Ala., offices.

Keen president Richard Hunt commented: "The smart packing and clear illustrations that aid easy identification of plants have been the foundation for success for NSG for decades. The books pair wonderfully with our extensive list of outdoor adventure and activity-based titles." He added that Keen looks forward to "supporting and growing this line."

Amazon is testing a subscription service for e-books that offers unlimited access to more than 600,000 titles and thousands of audiobooks for $9.99 a month, a service that competes with Scribd and Oyster. Gigaom, which has an informative q&a about the service, called Kindle Unlimited, noted that many of the available titles are titles published by Amazon and many have been included in Amazon's Kindle Owners Lending Library, which allows Prime members who own a Kindle to borrow one e-book for free each month.

Rapper Ja Rule appeared at Books & Greetings in Northvale, N.J., last week to promote his memoir, Unruly: The Highs and Lows of Becoming a Man (HarperCollins). The singer lives in nearby Saddle River. Here's Ja Rule with Books and Greetings owner Kenny Sarfin.

Here's a bookstore specialty that's new to us: Libramoto in Paris focuses on books about motorcycles and includes titles in English and Italian as well as French, according to Autoevolution.com. The store also stocks "motorcycle-related comics, DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, as well as small-scale models and even build-it-yourself such models."

Titles include National Geographic's 500 Routes de Rêve (500 Dream Routes), 50 Ans de Motos Russes (50 Years of Russian Motorcycles), Brough Superior: The Complete Story, Casey Stoner's Pushing the Limits and Victory Lap and Classic Japanese Motorcycle Guide.

Tor.com featured "a long overdue nod to scifi and fantasy's best librarians," noting that "whether in fantasy or science fiction, there are any number of amazing fictional libraries we’d love to visit, especially to meet up with the guardians of the stacks. So we turned to Twitter to find out where your SFF librarian loyalties lie. Here are your favorites, as well as a few of our own!"

Watermark Books & Café, Wichita, Kan., is hosting a midnight release party on Monday, August 11, for the U.S. edition of Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage: A Novel by Haruki Murakami (Knopf). The party, which begins at 11 p.m. and runs until 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday, features treats, prizes and readings from attendees' favorite Murakami passages. Sales of the book begin at midnight. The store has a limited number of signed copies for purchase during the event only.

Co-sponsored by the American Booksellers Association and facilitated by Donna Paz Kaufman and Mark Kaufman of the Bookstore Training Group of Paz & Associates, "Owning a Bookstore: The Business Essentials," a week-long workshop retreat, for new bookstore owners or people opening a bookstore, will be held Monday through Friday, September 15-19, at Amelia Island, Fla. Participants will learn best practices of the many aspects of the business, including start-up costs, effective marketing practices, the importance of store design, choosing a computerized management system, selecting your opening inventory, buying and inventory management, and more.

ABA members are eligible for discounted tuition. For details, visit PazBookBiz.com or call 904-277-2664.

Effective this fall, ACC Distribution will distribute Roads Publishing in the U.S. and Canada.

A division of luxury brand Roads, Dublin, Ireland, Roads Publishing publishes highly illustrated books on art, photography, design, pop culture and classic literature. Besides its backlist, available titles will include these six new titles:

• Paparazzo: The Elio Sorci Collection, a collection of 1950s, '60s and '70s Hollywood celebrities in Dolce Vita era Rome with a foreword by Philippe Garner.
• Weekly World News, a collection of the tabloid's most outrageous headlines.
• Reservoir, a monograph from Irish contemporary artist Alice Maher featuring sketches from throughout the artist's career with a foreword by Whitney Chadwick.
• Fernando Vicente, a monograph from the Spanish contemporary artist, focusing on his forensic paintings series.
• Bram Stoker's Dracula and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, parts of the Roads classic literature series.

Founded last year, Roads Publishing plans to publish about 12 books a year.

At Chronicle Books, Will Schrom has been promoted to national accounts manager, calling on Barnes & Noble and Calendar Club. He joined Chronicle's trade sales department in 2011.

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At Putnam:

Katie McKee has been promoted to senior publicity manager. She was formerly publicity manager and has worked at Putnam for 10 years.
Elena Hershey has been promoted to associate publicist. She was formerly a publicity assistant.

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Kelsey Dickson has joined the Simon & Schuster Children's Division as a publicity assistant. She formerly worked for Barnes & Noble in Texas, where she managed events and was trained as a community relations manager.

Today on Fresh Air: Laura Erickson-Schroth, editor of Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community (Oxford University Press, $39.95, 9780199325351).

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Tomorrow on a rerun of Dr. Phil: Lisa Bloom, author of Suspicion Nation: The Inside Story of the Trayvon Martin Injustice and Why We Continue to Repeat It (Counterpoint, $25, 9781619023277).

A trailer has been released for Hector and the Search for Happiness, based on François Lelord's eponymous novel (Le voyage d'Hector ou la recherche du Bonheur). Directed by Peter Chelsom, the film was adapted by Maria von Heland, Chelsom and Tinker Lindsay and opens September 19 "in New York and L.A. with a select city rollout and expansion following," Deadline.com reported. The cast includes Simon Pegg, Toni Collette, Rosamund Pike, Stellan Skarsgard, Jean Reno and Christopher Plummer.

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this weekend from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, July 19
12 p.m. Book TV interviews authors and visits literary sites in Des Moines, Iowa. (Re-airs Sunday at 10:30 a.m.)

5 p.m. Aaron Hurst, author of The Purpose Economy: How Your Desire for Impact, Personal Growth and Community Is Changing the World (Elevate, $25, 9781937498290), at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, Calif. (Re-airs Monday at 6:45 a.m.)

6 p.m. Coverage from FreedomFest, an annual "libertarian conference" in Las Vegas, Nev.

10 p.m. Jay Barbree, author of Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight (Thomas Dunne, $27.99, 9781250040718). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m. and Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m.)

11 p.m. Doug Menuez, author of Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985-2000 (Atria, $39.99, 9781476752693).


Sunday, July 20
12 a.m. John Hope Bryant, author of How the Poor Can Save Capitalism: Rebuilding the Path to the Middle Class (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, $24.95, 9781626560321). (Re-airs Sunday at 2 p.m.)

1 p.m. Karen Elliott House, author of On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines--and Future (Vintage, $16.95, 9780307473288). (Re-airs Monday at 1 a.m.)

1:40 p.m. Craig Detweiler, author of iGods: How Technology Shapes Our Spiritual and Social Lives (Brazos Press, $17.99, 9781587433443). (Re-airs Monday at 1:40 a.m.)

3:30 p.m. James Rogan, author of And Then I Met...: Stories of Growing Up, Meeting Famous People, and Annoying the Hell Out of Them (WND Books, $27.95, 9781936488384).

4:30 p.m. E.G. Vallianatos, co-author of Poison Spring: The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA (Bloomsbury, $28, 9781608199143).

5:30 p.m. More coverage from FreedomFest.

10 p.m. Chris DeRose, author of The Presidents' War: Six American Presidents and the Civil War That Divided Them (Lyons Press, $28.95, 9780762796649), at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Ariz.

11 p.m. Michael Waldman, author of The Second Amendment: A Biography (Simon & Schuster, $25, 9781476747446).

Sonali Deraniyagala won the £3,000 (about US$5,150) PEN/Ackerley Prize, English PEN's award dedicated to memoir and autobiography, for Wave (Vintage), a memoir of grief that begins in Sri Lanka on December 26, 2004, when she lost her parents, her husband and her two young sons in the tsunami she miraculously survived.

Chair of judges Peter Parker said Deraniyagala's book "goes far beyond its dreadful starting point. Subtitled 'A Memoir of Life After the Tsunami,' it is as much a reclamation and celebration of the lives that were lost as it is an account of the processes of shock, grief and mourning. In a strong and varied shortlist, Wave emerged as the winner of this year's prize because it upholds the standards that J.R. Ackerley himself set: truthful, unsparing, and written with outstanding grace and economy."

Deraniyagala commented: "The pleasure of receiving this wonderful prize makes me see that there is a beauty in struggle and a resting place in the eyes of others.... I have found myself a writer, another identity in the ongoing bewildering journey of my life."

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The Southern California Independent Booksellers Association has announced the finalists for its 2014 Book Awards. The awards will be presented at the SCIBA Trade Show, Saturday, October 18.

Fiction

Laurel Corona, The Mapmaker's Daughter

Michelle Huneven, Off Course

Jervey Tervelon, Monster's Chef

Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Nonfiction

Roy Choi, L.A. Son

Steven Hackel, Junipero Serra

Theresa Wahl,  The Auntie Em's Cookbook: A Musician's Guide to Breakfast & Brunch

T. Jefferson Parker Mystery Award

Andrew Chapman, The Ascendent

Naomi Hirahara, Murder on Bamboo Lane

David Putnam, The Disposables

Glenn Goldman Award for Art, Architecture and Photography

William Bradley, Los Angeles Union Station: Tracks to the Future

Chris Burkard, Distant Shores

Miguel A. Gandert,  Hotel Mariachi: Urban Space and Cultural Heritage in Los Angeles

Children's Picture Book

Marla Frazee, God Got a Dog

Keika Yamaguchi, Puddle Pug

Salina Yoon, Found

Middle Grade Novel

Stuart Gibbs, Poached

Tracy Holczar, The Secret Hum of a Daisy

Holly Goldberg Sloan, Counting by 7s

Young Adult Novel

Catherine Linka, A Girl Called Fearless

Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

John Corey Whaley, Noggin

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, July 22:

Tom Clancy Support and Defend by Mark Greaney (Putnam, $28.95, 9780399173349) continues the Campus thriller series.

Remains of Innocence: A Brady Novel of Suspense by J. A. Jance (Morrow, $26.99, 9780062134707) is the 16th Joanna Brady mystery.

Last to Know by Elizabeth Adler (Minotaur, $25.99, 9781250019929) takes place in an idyllic lakeside community rocked by an explosion.

Bravo by Greg Rucka (Mulholland, $26, 9780316182300) continues the Jad Bell thriller series.

Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do Wallace J. Nichols (Little, Brown, $27, 9780316252089) advocates proximity to bodies of water.

Last Chain on Billie: How One Extraordinary Elephant Escaped the Big Top by Carol Bradley (St. Martin's Press, $25.99, 9781250025692) explores the plight of circus elephants.

Bricks & Mortals: Ten Great Buildings and the People They Made by Tom Wilkinson (Bloomsbury, $30, 9781620406298) chronicles the historical impact of architecture through ten buildings.


Now in paperback:

Trapped at the Altar by Jane Feather (Pocket, $7.99, 9781476703640).

The Part Time Vegetarian (PTV) Smoothies and Juices: Boost Your Immune System and Increase Your Energy With a Flexitarian Diet by Tina Haupert (Cider Mill Press, $18.95, 9781604334630).


Movie Tie-in

A Most Wanted Man, based on the John le Carré novel, opens July 25. Anton Corbijn (The American) directs Robin Wright, Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe and Philip Seymour Hoffman. A movie tie-in (Scribner, $16, 9781476740140) is available.

Thanks to recent violent upheavals in Ukraine, civil war in Syria and ongoing political protests in Istanbul, the setting for Charles Cumming's new spy novel should feel familiar--like something freshly posted on Twitter or broadcast on Al Jazeera. A sequel to his A Foreign Country, Cumming's A Colder War digs deeper into the lives of Britain's disgraced Secret Intelligence Service agent Thomas Kell and his boss Amelia Levene, the first female chief of MI6. When Paul Wallinger, SIS Head of Station in Turkey and Levene's occasional lover, dies off the small Greek island of Chios in the crash of a plane he was piloting, she brings in her trusted friend Kell for an off-the-books investigation. Was womanizer Wallinger with another woman? Was he working one of his assets? Was he perhaps leaking secrets to the Soviets? Or was the crash just bad luck or pilot error?

Kell is in professional no-man's-land while being investigated for an overzealous, post-9/11 terrorist interrogation. His long, rocky marriage has ended in divorce. He's drinking too much and has returned to smoking a pack a day. He's desperate to get back in the game. Levene's assignment is his life preserver, "a sign from the God in whom Kell still occasionally believed." A visit to Chios quickly convinces him that Wallinger's death is just one knot in a more elaborate tangle of duplicity among the Soviets and both the SIS and its "cousin," the CIA.

A former MI6 recruit before he began writing fiction, Cumming knows his John le Carré and Graham Greene as well as the language and bureaucracy of today's world of digital espionage. Like all good spook noir, A Colder War has plenty of spy slang, with cut-outs, moles, drops, honey traps, one-on-ones and other terms of the tradecraft permeating the narrative. It also includes plenty of globetrotting around Istanbul, Odessa, Kiev, London and the remote Turkish borders with Syria and Iran.

The author of six well-received international thrillers, Cumming has mastered the cinematic-spy-novel tricks of a split-screen plot and cameo characters who turn out to be pivotal players in the drama (English actor Colin Firth has optioned film rights to both Kell novels). Throw in a hot love affair between Kell and Wallinger's daughter, and A Colder War has plenty going on to help you while away the last days of summer. Even more, it is a smart representation of an underground world we might have thought disappeared with the Cold War--until Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and deadly drones came along. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Discover: Charles Cumming's second Thomas Kell thriller continues the le Carré tradition, with a cast of Soviet, British and American spies one-upping each other around the Black Sea.

The following were the bestselling Christian books as compiled by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association for June:

1. Jesus Calling by Sarah Young (Thomas Nelson)
2. Heaven Is for Real by Todd Burpo (Thomas Nelson), tie-in edition
3. Good Call by Jase Robertson (Howard Books)
4. Heaven Is for Real by Todd Burpo (Thomas Nelson), paperback
5. Instinct by T.D. Jakes (Faithwords)
6. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman (Moody Publishers)
7. Child of Mine by David and Beverly Lewis (Bethany House)
8. The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey (Thomas Nelson)
9. I Am a Church Member by Thom S. Rainer (B&H Publishing Group)
10. The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn (Frontline/Charisma House)

[Many thanks to the ECPA!]