"I believe in creating spaces where people can congregate and where you can give back to the community... You can't make them into a formula. The stores grew out of the community's need. It's the proprietor's job to make sure to articulate that value to the customer. If you don't, the community won't feel invested. You have to be a good corporate citizen and develop customers one by one....

"There has always been a very narrow tribe of devoted readers, yet today so many books are being published. It becomes about selection; you need booksellers whom you can trust to put a book in your hand that you will like. It's better done in the physical world. As far as I'm concerned, bookselling is a lifestyle choice: you do it because you love it. There are better ways to invest your money, but there's no better life."

Barnes & Noble is partnering with Amtrak, HarperCollins and magazine publishers to provide free e-books and e-magazines to Amtrak customers during Amtrak Train Days, beginning May 9 and running through November. B&N said Nook will foster an "enhanced travel experience by leveraging expert booksellers to curate" the selections, including HarperCollins e-books and popular self-published titles from Nook Press. The selection will rotate throughout Amtrak Train Days.

"Barnes & Noble is always looking at new ways to connect with readers and the fantastic partnership between Amtrak and Nook is a unique way to provide travelers with engaging reading content," said Jeanniey Mullen, v-p of marketing at Nook.
 
HarperCollins CMO Angela Tribelli said the publisher is "delighted to partner with Amtrak and Nook to celebrate train travel."

Last month, Penguin Random House announced it would be offering complimentary previews of selected titles for the launch of a newly redesigned AmtrakConnect on-board wi-fi page.

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Amazon and JetBlue are partnering to offer on-demand entertainment to airline travel later this year through JetBlue's free high-speed Fly-Fi broadband Internet. The collaboration will enable Fly-Fi for Amazon Prime members to access movies and TV episodes, as well as rent or purchase titles in the Amazon Instant Video store. In addition, all JetBlue customers will be able to purchase e-books from the Kindle store, download songs from the Amazon Music store, apps and games from the Amazon Appstore and earn TrueBlue points when they shop specific categories on Amazon over the free Fly-Fi broadband internet while inflight or through JetBlue promotions.

Cnet noted the announcement "marks the first time Amazon has partnered with an airline for such a service.... the deal shows how Amazon is aggressively trying to bring its digital services anywhere it can to draw in more customers to its online music, apps and video stores and away from competing services offered by Google, Apple and others."

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In Canada, BookShout! has a new program, in partnership with American Express and HarperCollins, to distribute free e-books to travelers passing through Toronto Pearson international Airport, according to Ink, Bits & Pixels, which reported that readers can "download up to six free HarperCollins titles each month through the airport's free wi-fi. The books can be read in Bookshout's apps for Android and iPad/iPhone or via its website.

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Legend Press is launching a campaign with Virgin Trains in the U.K. to celebrate its 10th anniversary and the Legend Collection, repackaged editions of five of the publisher's titles, the Bookseller reported. The partnership includes themed promotions at Virgin Trains stations, giveaways and a social media competition to win a signed book by Virgin founder Richard Branson.

Reach Incorporated, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., that hires struggling teen readers as reading tutors for elementary school students, received the National Book Foundation's 2015 Innovations in Reading Prize. While the NBF annually recognizes individual or organization that "inspires readers and engages new audiences with literature," this year, "for the first time in Innovations history, we awarded one $10,000 prize to an organization whose work is VITAL, demonstrating vision, ingenuity, transformation, achievement and leadership."

"We know that the older kids benefit from practicing reading at or just above their current grade level, and the younger students benefit from a one-on-one relationship," said Mark Hecker, founder of Reach Incorporated. "Most people see those as two challenges, but we see that as a single solution, so we pair those kids together and watch cool things happen."

This year's honorable mentions are the African Poetry Book Fund, Call Me Ishmael, Lambda Literary and Motionpoems.

"I want to get books to kids," said Julie Wade, the founder of a non-profit bookmobile called Snake, Rabbit, and Snail, and a bookseller at Downtown Books and News and Malaprop's Bookstore & Cafe in Asheville, N.C. Through Snake, Rabbit, and Snail, Wade hosts free educational lectures for children, sells used children's books and installs small, free lending libraries around the Asheville area.

"New books can be expensive and I wanted to offer parents an alternative," continued Wade. "And I wanted to have the free lectures for them, because as a mom it's always nice to find things that are inexpensive or free, and fun, to do."

Wade originally had the idea for Snake, Rabbit, and Snail in the winter of 2009. Her initial plan, in fact, was to open a used children's bookstore in Asheville. But, after doing some research and taking some classes about opening bookstores, she realized that having a bricks-and-mortar storefront wouldn't be feasible. After reading Audrey Niffenegger's graphic novel The Night Bookmobile, though, she was inspired.

Julie Wade and her Snake, Rabbit, and Snail bookmobile.

"I saw that and thought, oh my God, a bookmobile, that's perfect," recalled Wade.

She began raising funds and planning for the bookmobile, and by April 2014, it was up and running. At first, Snake, Rabbit, and Snail was a sole proprietorship business. Wade began organizing free, educational lectures for children in August 2014, and by that time she had also started installing free, rotating libraries at places around Asheville, including a youth shelter, a preschool and a charity center waiting room. Given the cost of running the lectures, installing the libraries and donating so many books, Wade knew she wasn't selling enough used books for Snake, Rabbit, and Snail to be self-sufficient. "As a non-profit, I can at least get grants to cover some expenses and do more with the bookmobile," explained Wade.

Wade hosts a lecture about once per month. Though educational, the lectures are also meant to be entertaining, and past topics have included talks about bats, tornadoes, astronomy and birdwatching. At a recent event, on April 26, wildlife educator Steve Longenecker visited to teach children about snakes. He brought several live specimens with him, Wade recounted, and kids in the audience were able to handle some of the snakes. More than 50 people were in the audience, making it Snake, Rabbit, and Snail's best attended event yet.

Kids meeting Steve Longenecker and his snakes.

"Basically, honestly, they're things that I think are cool, that I want to learn about," said Wade, laughing, when asked how she picked topics for the event series. "It wasn't purely selfless."

Wade is planning lectures for later in the spring and this summer. Future lecture topics will include bike repair (followed by a guided bike ride along Asheville's greenways), the science of sound, acting, cave exploration and nocturnal animals. Also this summer, an Asheville ice cream parlor called Ultimate Ice Cream will have a special Snake, Rabbit and Snail flavor for the month of July.

"Each month they pick a different non-profit and create a flavor, and then all the money from the flavor of the month goes that non-profit," said Wade. The specifics of the Snake, Rabbit and Snail flavor haven't been decided yet, she added. The ice cream is still in the brainstorming stages.

At the moment, Wade doesn't have any broad plans for the bookmobile beyond continuing to plan lectures, sell books and create free libraries. "I'm doing what I can with the time I have right now," said Wade. "It seems like what I'm doing is small but maybe it will slowly build up."

And currently, Wade operates the bookmobile entirely on her own. "I'm trying to talk to more friends about helping me out," she said. "With the scope of this thing, it has so much potential." --Alex Mutter

French book editor and translator Claude Durand has died, GalleyCat reported. He was 76 years old. Hachette Livre CEO Arnaud Nourry called Durand a "discoverer of outstanding talent, a tireless defender of authors, but also a man of legendary flair," who will be remembered "as one of the great figures of the French edition of the last 40 years. Until the end, Fayard continued to benefit from his experience and his contacts, and his daily work with authors. French literature and Hachette Livre owe him a lot."

In addition to hosting Independent Bookstore Day events last weekend, Browseabout Books, Rehoboth Beach, Del., celebrated its 40th anniversary. DelmarvaNow reported that "a few locations, some expansions, a gift shop and a toy store later," Browseabout, owned by Steve and Barbara Crane, "is still going strong... It's one of the few businesses that have lasted the past 40 years in the resort town."

"Everything has changed, but what we try to do in this store is be consistent, like our customers and give them a unique place to shop," he said. At 68 "and fresh off a three-month cruise with his wife," Crane is thinking about his next moves and the future of the bookstore. "It's fulfilled all my dreams," he said. "I'm complete. I don't know what else I could do." DelmarvaNow noted that the plan "is not set in stone, just yet, but he wants Browseabout Books to be in the hands of some of the people who have cared the most about and for it--his staff."

Crane said he knows the bookshop's managerial team, which has a combined 35 years at the store, will keep Browseabout thriving. Plans are already in motion for next year. "We don't celebrate complacency. We're just going to be better every day," he said. "That's what they're going to do, and Browseabout will get better and better and better and better."

In an interview with DelmarvaNow, Crane was asked what his favorite part of the job was. "I take a lot of pride in the fact that I own this store and it's a clean, nice business," he replied. "I try to treat people the way I like to be treated and that's all I've ever done. It's been my rule. The best thing to happen is that I created it, it's created a lot of jobs and a lot of goodwill. When it's all said and done, I think I've done what I had to do and I feel good about it."

"All over the United Kingdom, you can find great bookshops to walk in, browse and find something to take home with you," Anglotopia noted in featuring the "top 10 coolest bookshops in Britain to visit on your next trip."

At HarperOne:

Claudia Boutote is being promoted to senior v-p, publisher, of HarperElixir, HarperOne's recently launched line of books in the body, mind and spirit category. She joined HarperOne 11 years ago as senior director of publicity and was most recently senior v-p and associate publisher.

Laina Adler is being promoted to v-p, associate publisher, of HarperOne. She joined the HarperOne publicity department in 2002 and briefly departed as a publicist for Chronicle Books.

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After nearly three years with Penguin's Berkley/NAL Publishing Group, Colleen Lindsay's position as associate director marketing, social media & reader experience has been eliminated. She can be reached at colleen.lindsay@gmail.com or on Twitter at @colleenlindsay.

Love Is Red by Sophie Jaff (Harper), the first book in the Nightsong Trilogy.

Today Fresh Air remembers thriller and mystery writer Ruth Rendell, who died last Saturday.

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Sunday on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo: George J. Mitchell, author of The Negotiator: A Memoir (Simon & Schuster, $28, 9781451691375).

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Sunday on 60 Minutes: Misty Copeland, author of Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina (Touchstone, $15.99, 9781476737997).

Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television is adapting Aldous Huxley's Brave New World as a scripted series for the Syfy network, the Hollywood Reporter wrote. The screenplay will be written by Les Bohem (Taken). Amblin TV co-presidents Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey will executive produce with Bohem.

"Brave New World is one of the most influential genre classics of all time," said Syfy president Dave Howe. "Its provocative vision of a future gone awry remains as powerful and as timeless as ever."

Disney has acquired the rights to Jonathan Auxier's The Night Gardener, which will be developed by Sean Bailey's Disney live-action group with Auxier adapting the script, Variety reported. Jim Whittaker is producing. The book is Auxier's follow-up to Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes.

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The first official image has been released for Martin Scorsese's highly anticipated film Silence, based on the novel by Shusaku Endo, Indiewire reported. The project, which is currently filming, stars Andrew Garfield, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano and Adam Driver. It is slated for release in 2016.

Finalists for the 2015 Locus Awards in all 15 categories may be seen here. Winners will be announced during the Locus Awards Weekend in Seattle, Wash., June 26-28.

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A seven-book shortlist has been released for the 2015 Branford Boase Award, which celebrates "the most promising book for seven-year-olds and upwards written by a first-time novelist and also highlights the importance of the editor in the development of new authors." The winner will be announced July 9 in London and receive £1,000 (about $1,525), with both author and editor also receiving a hand-crafted silver-inlaid box. The seven shortlisted titles are:

Bone Jack by Sara Crowe, edited by Charlie Sheppard and Eloise Wilson
The Year of the Rat by Clare Furniss, edited by Jane Griffiths
Cowgirl by Giancarlo Gemin, edited by Kirsty Stansfield
Half Bad by Sally Green, edited by Ben Horslen
Trouble by Non Pratt, edited by Annalie Grainger and Denise Johnstone-Burt
Leopold Blue by Rosie Rowell, edited by Emily Thomas
The Dark Inside by Rupert Wallis, edited by Jane Griffiths

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This year's finalists have been announced for the £10,000 (about $15,235) Caine Prize for African Writing--sometimes referred to as the "African Booker." Each of these stories will be published in New Internationalist's Caine Prize 2015 Anthology in July and through co-publishers across Africa, who receive a print ready PDF free of charge from New Internationalist. The winner will be named July 6. This year's shortlisted authors are:

"The Folded Leaf" by Segun Afolabi (Nigeria)
"Flying" by Elnathan John (Nigeria)
"A Party for the Colonel" by F.T. Kola (South Africa)
"Space" by Masande Ntshanga (South Africa)
"The Sack" by Namwali Serpell (Zambia)

photo: Anne Livingston

Tara Austen Weaver grew up in Northern California and British Columbia. A writer focusing on travel, food, agriculture and the environment, she is the author of The Butcher and the Vegetarian and Tales from High Mountain; she blogs at Tea & Cookies. Weaver is also founder of the Litquake Lit Crawl and a member of Seattle7Writers, working to support literacy in the Northwest. She lives in Seattle, Wash., where she is the editor of Edible Seattle magazine. Her latest book is Orchard House: How a Neglected Garden Taught One Family to Grow (Ballantine, March 31, 2015).

On your nightstand now: 

I have a shelf of books I keep close by for inspiration--The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, an atlas of the world, a few volumes of poetry, The Book of Roads by Phil Cousineau. Also, currently: The Mushroom Hunters by Langdon Cook, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, She Weeps Each Time You're Born by Quan Barry, a book on Seattle history and a never-ending pile of galleys to review for the magazine. 

Favorite book when you were a child:

So many! I was one of those children for whom books are a solace. I loved the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (in fourth grade, I temporarily changed my name to Laura), and the Nancy Drew books by Carolyn Keene. Also, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. After I finished writing Orchard House, I realized it shares a lot of its DNA with The Secret Garden, which was not at all intentional. Some books just become part of who you are, especially those you read as a child.

Your top five authors:

That feels like picking a favorite child--I couldn't possibly. I will say I am extremely fond of Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, Laurie Colwin, Monique Truong and Ann Patchett. 

Book you've faked reading:

I certainly have nodded along to some discussions about Russian classics.... 

Book you're an evangelist for:

West with the Night by Beryl Markham is an all-time favorite--for the use of language and the life lived. I recently read The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker and keep recommending it. And I buy every child I know a copy of the D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. 

Book you've bought for the cover:

This month alone: A Bowl of Olives by Sara Midda and Chasing the Rose by Andrea di Robilant. Put a watercolor cover on a book, and I will buy it.

Book that changed your life:

I was in college when I read Cowboys Are My Weakness by Pam Houston. It was such an inspiration and relief to see a woman having the sort of adventures I wanted to have--rafting and climbing mountains and holding her own in a physical and masculine world. It felt like validation, like coming home. Also: Miles from Nowhere by Barbara Savage, about cycling around the world. There were so few female role models for the life I wanted to lead.

And I traveled to China by myself when I was 21, purely because I had read and loved Wild Swans by Jung Chang. It wasn't at all what I expected--all the old teahouses had been torn down. My first day there I sat on a street corner and cried because real life wasn't nearly as lovely as the book had been. (It got better after that.) 

Favorite line from a book:

"That was how it began; that is how it always begins. Luminously." --Phil Cousineau, The Book of Roads

Which character you most relate to:

I'm currently rereading all my favorite childhood books with my nieces, and it's made me realize I modeled my entire life on Betsy Ray of the Betsy-Tacy books--from dreams of being a writer, to living in Europe, a love of picnics and climbing trees, a penchant for getting in scrapes, enthusiasm if not grace. We also share a weakness for flowery language, a tendency to leave things to the last minute and extremely disappointing hair. 

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

Perhaps it would be The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx. I'd like to relive the shock and delight of discovering her stunning use of language.

Following two distinctive and critically praised short story collections, Like You'd Understand, Anyway and You Think That's Bad, Jim Shepard has written a novel for the first time in a decade. In The Book of Aron, he imagines the early years of the Warsaw Ghetto through the eyes of an adolescent whose life intersects with that of Janusz Korczak, the real-life doctor whose struggle to preserve the lives of some 200 children in his orphanage was one of World War II's great tales of heroism. Perfectly channeling the artless voice of his young narrator, and with impressive restraint, Shepard gives readers a glimpse of the nightmare world of Warsaw's Jews.

Aron Różycki has just celebrated his 10th birthday when the Germans invade Poland, and it's only a few months before the Nazis construct the walled quarter into which they herd the city's Jews. At first, Aron and his friends take on the challenge of scavenging and petty theft almost with a sense of playfulness. But as the ghetto's barely livable space shrinks, their games turn deadly. Aron finds himself reluctantly serving one of the representatives of the Jewish police force, and he plays a role, if only an indirect one, in the deaths of two of his band. After his father and brother are transported to a labor camp and his mother dies, Aron lands on Korczak's doorstep.

Shepard makes no attempt to exaggerate the terror and bewilderment of the children under Korczak's care. "Death by famine lacked drama," he tells one of his nurses. "It was slow and dispiriting. At least until the crows or the rats or the dogs came along." The ones who don't starve succumb to typhus, spread by the lice that infest everyone. Aron accompanies an ailing Korczak on daily trips through the ghetto's streets, begging and bartering for scraps of food. "I exist not to be loved but to act," Korczak says in a summary of his creed. But through all this, as Shepard shows with profound compassion, the doctor's love nourished his charges as much as any physical sustenance.

From the historical record, Shepard suggests, Korczak and his children died in Treblinka in 1942. The novel's moving final pages, when Korczak rejects even the hope of an escape that would involve abandoning the orphans, are almost too intense to bear. And the sentence that concludes the novel, one that grants absolution to Aron, has the power to break your heart. The Book of Aron ennobles unimaginable suffering through the gift of art. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: With compassion and restraint, Jim Shepard's new novel views the suffering of the Warsaw Ghetto through the eyes of a child.

Something amazing is happening right now at independent bookstores all over the world. These moments range from the private--a child reading quietly in the children's department, or an extraordinary handselling session between bookseller and reader--to the very public, like an unforgettable author event. Last weekend, in the midst of the Independent Store Day frenzy, I had to miss Booktopia Vermont, one of these wonderful, bookish moments, but I don't want it to pass unremarked upon.

In Manchester Center, home of the Northshire Bookstore, Random House sales reps and Books on the Nightstand co-hosts Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness held their next-to-last Booktopia event. I covered their first Booktopia in 2011, and since then Booktopias have been held in several cities in partnership with some great indie booksellers. After the inaugural event, Ann told me: "We started with the reader. Every plan we made, every idea we had, started with the reader in mind. We did this for them, not for the authors and not for the bookstore. I didn't realize this really until one of our guests said, 'It was a reader's retreat, not an author's retreat.' "

Ann Kingman (l.) and Michael Kindness (r.) bookend the authors who participated in last weekend's Booktopia Vermont

I liked her words then and I like them now. Thank you notes are in order. One came in a video by Ryan Ludman, a multiple-time/multiple location Booktopia attendee. Another can be found in the words of Northshire buyer Stan Hynds, who spoke on behalf of the bookstore to open Saturday night's Celebration of Authors event. I'd like to share the transcript of his thank you note:

"We are going to try to say thank you now which is going to be very difficult to do. I can't come up with a few well-constructed sentences, string them together in one lovely paragraph and adequately express how grateful we are to Ann and Michael.... The best I can do is make a list. Maybe the cumulative effect of a detailed list will come close to being adequate. First, Thank You. For the podcast. That's a good place to start. We certainly wouldn't be here if it weren't for that. You started with a great idea. You have executed it well and it is a pleasure to listen to every week.

"Thank You also for all the hard work and countless hours it takes in creating that podcast. Among ourselves, we always say we don't know how you have time to do everything you do. Somehow you do it plus your regular more-than-full-time job. I, too, have a full-time job and wonder what would happen if I told my boss and family that in addition to the bookstore, I'm going to create an audio product about my interest in books, baseball and 70s pop music. I'll do one every week and put it out there and see if anybody listens. Well, I'd never do that. But you do. So we're making headway but we're not there yet because...

"Thank You. For simply having the idea of a Books on the Nightstand retreat and having the guts to give wings to it. And talk about your hard work. 'Hey boss and family. In addition to the audio product, I'm going to invite 80 of my best listeners to a weekend--no, weekends--around the country in towns with baseball stadiums. I'll plan the programs, catering and lodging. It'll be great.' Never. But you do.

"Thank You--and we say this at the Northshire all the time--for having Booktopia here. You bring wonderful authors and dream customers into our store. Yes, the sales are much appreciated, especially this time of year, but the energy and passion of the Booktopia crowd is absolutely inspiring to us and we are extremely grateful. Maybe we're getting close but we're still not there because...

"Thank You. For helping create a community. With a good idea, hard work and a little technology…look what you did. Communities come in all shapes and sizes and this is definitely one. I know at this point Ann and Michael would prefer to deflect the praise, credit others, and have me stop talking but we can't just yet because, finally...

"Thank You. For being the kind of people you are. Good-hearted, decent, book-loving human beings. If it weren't for that I know we wouldn't be here. They wouldn't want to come and, frankly, we wouldn't want to host you. From the bottom of our hearts and the bottom of this list, we thank you, Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness."

Amazing things are happening in the book world right now; and I mean right now... everywhere. All we have to do is pay attention... and occasionally say thank you. --Robert Gray, contributing editor (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)