Fleur Fine Books, which features "all new books, about 300 signed books, some antiquarian books and took hundreds of man hours to get ready for opening" has made its debut in Port Neches, Tex., the Port Arthur News reported.

Dale LaFleur, who previously owned Read 'Em Again books in the city, "purchased the Magnolia Room, a former rental event room and building located at 1720 Magnolia Ave. Everything was going fine for a while but the bibliophile missed being a book store owner. Then one day he called his friend Rick Beaulieu," the News wrote.

"He woke up one morning and called me and said you have 24 hours to talk me out of opening a new book store," Beaulieu said. "By the time I called him back he had already ordered books."

Penguin Random House and Transit Wireless have launched Subway Reads, an eight-week-long promotion that celebrates the installation of free Wi-Fi in more than 175 underground New York City subway stations by providing customers with access to five free e-shorts and samples from some 175 books to read while on the subway.

In announcing the program yesterday, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, "We've made tremendous progress in modernizing the system, and Subway Reads is a fun way to introduce riders to the new Wi-Fi experience."‎ By the end of the year, all 278 underground stations should have Wi-Fi.

Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle said, "For millions of New Yorkers, having a few minutes to get lost in a great book is one of the true pleasures of riding the subway. This fun promotion provides commuters with a new twist on that classic--and classically New York--pastime, with great short fiction, and the chance to access extensive samples of some of the very best, and most entertaining books in the world."

New York City Transit president Veronique Hakim noted that "reading has been a key part of the New York commute for as long as there has been a New York commute."

The five free e-shorts are "High Heat," a Jack Reacher novella by Lee Child; F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz"; "3 Truths and a Lie" by Lisa Gardner; "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe; and "At the Reunion Buffet" by Alexander McCall Smith.

The excerpts of longer works from 175 Penguin Random House titles include as many titles by New Yorkers or about New York as possible, including poetry from Walt Whitman and Billy Collins as well as selections from Beloved by Toni Morrison, Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem, Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben and Open City by Teju Cole. Spanish-language titles include Manuscrito Encontrado en Accra by Paulo Coelho, Así es Como la Pierdes by Junot Díaz and El cuaderno de Maya by Isabel Allende.

Altogether more than 40,000 pages or 50-plus hours of reading are available on the Penguin Random House web platform. Riders can choose what to read by category, genre or length of reading time. They'll also be able to purchase the e-books in the promotion; the MTA will receive a share of revenue. This is the second time the company has tried such a venture. To celebrate its 80th birthday last year, Penguin held a similar program in the London Underground for most of August, as outlined by the Bookseller.

In response to a recent sales slump, last month Kathleen Caldwell, owner of A Great Good Place for Books, Oakland, Calif., formed "a committee of loyal customers to brainstorm how to keep the bookstore open--and make sure it is a viable community resource for years to come," the East Bay Times wrote.

She also started the Great Good Friends Members Program, which has a range of membership levels, from the $50 Kathleen's Kids Club to the $500 Inner Circle membership. Each membership level has a variety of perks. For example, the $50 level, geared to children, includes a $10 gift card, membership in the loyal readers program, a 10% discount on the child's birthday, invitations to Sunday morning Kids Corner events and a quarterly pizza party with a kids' book author of illustrator.

The $500 level includes, among other benefits, two $10 gift cards, quarterly members-only sales, 20% off a personal shopping spree twice a year, complimentary invitations to several offsite literary salons, two personally autographed books and home delivery service.

Caldwell said that sales had been solid since she bought the store 11 years ago--until this summer, when she had to lay off several employees and briefly considered closing. "It's been very sleepy this summer," she told the East Bay Times. "Bills are piling up, and sales aren't matching them."

She isn't sure of the cause: online booksellers, a shift from the buy local movement or a traditional drop in sale during presidential election years.

Amazon will open its eighth warehouse in Texas in Coppell, a Dallas suburb. It's the second Amazon warehouse in Coppell; the million-square-foot facility will pick, pack and ship larger customer items, such as big-screen televisions, kayaks and patio furniture. In Texas, the company operates five warehouses and is constructing two, in San Marcos and Houston.

Coppell Mayor Karen Hunt said that the city is "thrilled that Amazon has decided to build a second fulfillment center in Coppell. Adding hundreds of new, full-time jobs to the more than 1,000 they already provide is a demonstration of their commitment to the city. Not only has their presence been a significant economic driver for our community, they have been a consistent and reliable community partner. The city and I are looking forward to our continued relationship with Amazon as we continue to grow together."

Very sad news: longtime bookseller Nick Setka died of cancer on Friday. He was 65.

He was a manager at Book Passage, Corte Madera and San Francisco, Calif., for many years and earlier worked at the University of California Press and at Cody's Books, where he was manager. He was also a former president and board member of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, which over the weekend called him "a man loved and respected not just in his many roles in the bookselling community... but an amazing, intelligent man who will be infinitely missed by friends and his bookselling community."

In 2015, he was also the recipient of a James Patterson holiday bonus award given by the author to individual booksellers.

Book Passage owner Elaine Petrocelli commented: "There was nothing that Nick couldn't do. We are all better booksellers because Nick showed us what it really means to love books and all the people--authors, agents, publishers, sales reps, journalists, colleagues and especially customers--who make bookselling possible."

In an e-mail to staff, she wrote, "The last time I spoke to him, Nick told me that his years at Book Passage had brought him deep joy. For me, he will remain near register 3, finding that book that I had missed when I looked for it in the history section, and then recommending a couple of other books that illuminate the subject. I will picture the way his whole face lit up when customers came in to chat with him and to thank him for recommending the perfect book.

"From the history of the original Americans to The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, he knew and loved books on all subjects and his love was contagious. Nick's wisdom and kindness was a gift. We are so fortunate that this magnificent man gave so much of himself to us."

Last Tuesday at the Jacob Sears Memorial Library in East Dennis, Mass., on Cape Cod, Roselee Blooston held a talk and signing for Dying in Dubai: A Memoir of Marriage, Mourning and the Middle East, which Apprentice House Press at Loyola University is publishing. One attendee (standing, l.) said she had just spent two months in Dubai and noted that Apprentice House is "my school's press." A friendship and book sale resulted!

Congratulations to the Dolphin Bookshop & Café in Port Washington, N.Y., which will celebrate its 70th anniversary in September, the Island Now reported. Owner Judith Mitzner purchased the store in 2013 from Pattie Vunk, who had inherited it from her mother, Dorothy.

"It's really for the Port residents," said Mitzner. "They like having an independent bookstore in their community, and they really count on us for a lot of different things."

Bookseller Robyn Carthagine noted: "All the time we see customers--and a lot of the time repeat customers--come in and ask us what we’re reading and what we suggest to them. They trust our opinion and we take pride in our suggestions."

"Let's be honest, everyone shops on Amazon," Mitzner added. "There's great stuff there, but we do things that Amazon doesn't have the ability to do. There's no button on Amazon that lets a person suggest books to you. You can't go to Amazon last minute and say 'I need something for a birthday party.' That's where we come in."

"While mega-bookstores like Barnes & Noble have struggled with the rise of Internet sales, Durango patrons support seven bookstores," the Herald reported.

Co-owners Andrea Avantaggio and Peter Schertz outside Maria's Bookshop. Photo: Suzi Moore McGregor

"We're a very literate community with a wide-reading taste.... There is plenty of book purchasing to go around for everybody," said Maria's Bookshop co-owner Andrea Avantaggio, adding that while the bookshop has lost sales to e-books, "the increase in availability of literature ultimately expands the pool of readers in the community, and that is positive."

Of the indie bookstore resurgence in recent years, Maria's co-owner Peter Schertz noted: "We hear about communities that haven't had an independent bookstore for 10 years getting one back."

Keena Kimmel, owner of White Rabbit Books & Curiosities, observed: "I think people are more after the experience of a tangible bookstore as a gathering place."

And Terry Hutchison, owner of YESS, The Book Hutch, predicted: "I think bookstores, whether they are new bookstores or used bookstores, will always have a space."

Trent Shaw has joined Ingram's wholesale field sales team and will handle the West territory. He had worked with Partners West from 2005 until its closing earlier this year as a rep and regional sales manager and buyer. Before that, he was director of purchasing at Booksource from 1994 to 2004.

The Republic of Football: Legends of the Texas High School Game by Chad S. Conine (University of Texas Press).

Today:
NPR's On Point: Michael Tackett, author of The Baseball Whisperer: A Small-Town Coach Who Shaped Big League Dreams (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26, 9780544387645).

Diane Rehm: Norman Ornstein, co-author of It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism (Basic Books, $16.99, 9780465096206)

Also on Diane Rehm: Robert P. Jones, author of The End of White Christian America (Simon & Schuster, $28, 9781501122293).

Also on Diane Rehm: Garry Trudeau, author of Yuge!: 30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump (Andrews McMeel, $14.99, 9781449481339).

Tomorrow:
Bloomberg Radio's Surveillance: Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher, authors of Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money, and Power (Scribner, $28, 9781501155772).

Diane Rehm: Frank Browning, author of The Fate of Gender: Nature, Nurture, and the Human Future (Bloomsbury, $28, 9781620406199).

A. S. Patrić won the AU$60,000 (about US$45,430) Miles Franklin Literary Award, honoring a novel "of the highest literary merit and which must present Australian life in any of its phases," for Black Rock White City.

Speaking for the judging panel, State Library of NSW Mitchell Librarian Richard Neville, said "the novel delivers a powerful and raw account of the migrant experience in Australia, exploring the damages of war, and the possibility of redemptive love, in the context of debilitating emotional and physical dislocation.... it is a novel of compassion and challenge, its driving, urgent narrative envelops the reader in one of the great issues of our time."

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Paul Cleave won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel for Trust No One, the New Zealand Listener reported. He had previously won the prize in 2015 and 2011. The judging panel praised Trust No One, published here by Atria, as "a stunningly audacious novel that functions as a literary hall of mirrors... it succeeds brilliantly on many different levels."

The inaugural Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel went to Ray Berard for Inside the Black Horse, which the judges called "a lucid and potent portrait of good people and gangsters that is unmistakably Kiwi in flavor and tone... a fine crime story with considerable depth."

Tana French's sixth novel, The Trespasser, revisits the burgeoning careers of Dublin Murder Squad Detectives Antoinette Conway and Stephen Moran, introduced in The Secret Place. As atmospheric and intricate as French's past work, this engrossing mystery succeeds in both style and plot. Fans and new readers alike will be captivated.

Conway and Moran are partners now, but they are far from fitting in with the rest of the Murder Squad. The guys--and they are all guys--give Conway more than the usual rookie hazing. In the opening pages, she and Moran are assigned what looks like yet another boring domestic homicide: a beautiful young woman has been killed, apparently in a fit of passion during a romantic dinner at home. A little too perfect, she "looks like Dead Barbie," and her apartment "like it was bought through some Decorate Your Home app." But most disturbingly, Conway is sure she's seen the vic somewhere before. The young detectives may be a little overeager to find links to organized crime or something more involved, but as this case unfolds, the ambitious Moran and much-beleaguered Conway find wider-reaching connections than they'd bargained for. As an added headache, the obnoxious veteran Detective Breslin has been assigned to "assist" Conway, who is ostensibly the lead detective, though Breslin seems to think he can call the shots.

French's fans will recognize of the hallmarks of her mystery novels: intense interior struggles afflicting the protagonist detective; a potent undercurrent of class tensions; a case that appears to have a mind of its own; a victim whose personality haunts those who are seeking justice. The oppressive mood of the Murder Squad threatens to overwhelm Conway, who's barely holding it together under the stress of workplace harassment; the incident room she is assigned becomes a character unto itself. The Trespasser is told in Conway's voice, giving the reader full access to her troubles and offering perhaps a hint of the unreliable narrator to sneak in.

It is a testament to French's talent that she more than matches her established achievements in characterization, dialogue, atmosphere and detailed setting, while also surprising her reader at every turn. She offers layers of possible betrayal, hypothetical events and convoluted stories, even an upheaval in Conway's private life that echoes an element of the case at hand. More than 400 pages pass by almost without blinking, as The Trespasser's momentum presses forward to a finish that staggers Conway and Moran as much as it does the reader. This is a complex, compulsively readable novel; French keeps getting better and better. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: Tana French surpasses herself with character nuance and plot twists in her sixth gritty, Dublin-set murder-mystery.