Brooke Warner

"We can effect change and make our dissatisfaction about this policy known by buying elsewhere. Last year I got rid of Amazon Prime. Last month I tested the waters and bought backlist books at Book Passage and Powell's. It was great.... Yes, the shipping cost is higher and I didn't get two-day delivery for my purchases, but I had my peace of mind.

"Support indie bookstores. Beware of these third-party sellers. Before you buy, at least look at who you're buying from. Don't buy blindly. Consider the ramifications of your purchases. If you want to support the authors you love, get off Amazon."

Book Culture on Columbus Avenue, on Manhattan's Upper West Side

"The rumors are true--Book Culture will be opening a 4th store in LIC!," the New York City bookseller, which has three locations in Manhattan, announced on Facebook over the weekend. The post linked to a New York Times feature on the "neighborhood-in-the-making" that is the Court Square section of Long Island City, Queens, "a longtime industrial area by the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge that is experiencing a surge in residential construction."

"For a long time this neighborhood was about what will be and now I think it's about what is," said Justin Elghanayan, president of Rockrose Development.

Book Culture has leased "a 2,300-square-foot space at 26-09 Jackson, another Rockrose berth," the Times wrote. "And to increase the likelihood that Book Culture survives after it opens next year, Rockrose is discounting its rent until it can turn a profit, Mr. Elghanayan said. 'We think it's important for the soul of the neighborhood.' "

Amazon plans to open an Amazon Books location in the Georgetown neighborhood in Washington, D.C., according to the Washington Post, which cited comments by Vornado Trust Realty, owner of the site. (The Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.)

Amazon has opened six Amazon Books book and electronics stores, and confirmed plans to open another six, not including the Georgetown store.

Steven Roth, CEO of Vornado, said that Amazon has leased 10,000 square feet of space at 3040 M. St., a space larger than most of the company's existing book and electronics stores. The space was formerly home to a Barneys New York store and is on the same block as a Barnes & Noble that closed in 2011.

The Amazon Books stores that have opened are in Seattle, Chicago, San Diego, Portland, Ore., Dedham, Mass., and Lynnfield, Mass. The stores that will open soon are two in New York City and one each in Paramus, N.J.; Walnut Creek and San Jose, Calif.; and Bellevue, Wash.

The former Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong

Causeway Bay Books, the Hong Kong bookstore that closed in late 2015 after five members of its staff and its publishing arm, Mighty Current, were kidnapped and detained by China, will reopen later this year, but in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, according to Nikkei Asian Review, which spoke with one of the booksellers, Lam Wing-Kee.

The store is being funded by "a group of pro-democracy activists from Hong Kong, who wish to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions," the Review wrote. Lam, who will be an adviser but will not not involved in day-to-day operations, commented: "It's 90% for sure now. The only thing is to find the right people and place. It will be more like a symbol--a symbol of resistance--just like Causeway Bay Books has done before."

Lam was seized by Chinese authorities in 2015 and spent eight months in detention in China before being released. Upon his return to Hong Kong, he confirmed that he had been seized, interrogated and mistreated.

Mighty Current and Causeway Bay Bookstore were known for publishing and selling books critical of the current leaders of the Chinese government and the Communist Party. The books are particularly popular among mainland Chinese; the official Chinese view has been that such critical books are based on fabrications.

Award-winning children's book author and illustrator Peter Spier, "who depicted Noah's biblical journey, told the story of the Erie Canal to the words of the song 'Low Bridge, Everybody Down' and gave voice to the sounds of hundreds of animals like hippos ('RRUMMPF) and starlings ('FEE-YOU')," died April 27, the New York Times reported. He was 89.

Spier's dozens of books, which "are filled with meticulously drawn and brilliantly colored images," include Caldecott Medal winner Noah's Ark; Circus!; People; We the People: The Constitution of the United States; The Erie Canal; and The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night. He said that he created children's books "for the kids and the child within myself."

Steve Yates, associate director and marketing director at the University Press of Mississippi, is touring Missouri and Arkansas for his new novel set in the Ozarks, The Legend of the Albino Farm (Unbridled Books).

In addition to two library-sponsored lectures, Yates appeared at Springfield, Mo., at BookMarx and at Barnes & Noble. He also drew a crowd at Nightbird Books in Fayetteville, Ark. (pictured).

Longfellow Books topped the best bookstore category in this year's "100 Best of Portland" list from the Portland Phoenix, which noted: "Here's the news from this comfortable, friendly, expert-staffed bookstore: Every First Friday, these bibliophiles host a Community Night, a simple gathering of all of us who feel that the policies of the current administration go against this country's true principles. This is from their explanation: 'We refuse to silently allow policies to be put in place that marginalize segments of our society for the sake of a nationalistic foreign and domestic policy.' Do you think the big and nonsensical bookstores have that kind of calm courage? Longfellow Books does."

On April 21, Russia held Biblionight, "an annual event that is libraries' counterpart to the Night of Museums." To celebrate, Russia Behind the Headlines presented "seven libraries in St. Petersburg that will stay open until late night and will offer free entry to all visitors, including those without a library pass."

Eileen Lawrence has been named associate publisher, Algonquin Young Readers. She was formerly marketing director and started at Algonquin as a consultant in 2012. Earlier she had been executive marketing director of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and executive director of advertising and promotion at the Macmillan Children's Publishing Group.

Kitchen Disco by Clare Foges, illustrated by Al Murphy (Faber & Faber).

Today:
Good Morning America: Paula Hawkins, author of Into the Water: A Novel (Riverhead, $28, 9780735211209).

Today Show: Brad Thor, author of Use of Force (Atria/Emily Bestler, $27.99, 9781476789385).

NPR's Morning Edition: Vaddey Ratner, author of Music of the Ghosts: A Novel (Touchstone, $26, 9781476795782).

Fresh Air: Gabourey Sidibe, author of This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $25, 9780544786769). She will also appear tomorrow on the Talk.

Fox Radio's Kilmeade and Friends: David McCullough, author of The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For (Simon & Schuster, $25, 9781501174216). He will also appear tomorrow on Fox Radio's Tom Sullivan Show.

The Real: Kelly Osbourne, author of There Is No F*cking Secret: Letters from a Badass Bitch (Putnam, $27, 9780399176562), will guest co-host all this week.

Nightline: Byron Pitts, author of Be the One: Six True Stories of Teens Overcoming Hardship with Hope (Simon & Schuster, $17.99, 9781442483828).

Conan: Todd Barry, author of Thank You for Coming to Hattiesburg: One Comedian's Tour of Not-Quite-the-Biggest Cities in the World (Gallery, $25.99, 9781501117428).

Late Late Show with James Corden: Caitlyn Jenner, author of The Secrets of My Life (Grand Central, $30, 9781455596751).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Ashley Graham, co-author of A New Model: What Confidence, Beauty, and Power Really Look Like (Dey Street, $26.99, 9780062667946). She will also appear on the View.

Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda and Candice Bergen will star in Book Club, the directorial debut from producer Bill Holderman (A Walk in the Woods), who co-wrote the script with Erin Simms. Deadline reported that the film, "set in and around California... is a heartfelt comedy about four lifelong friends in their 60s who read 50 Shades of Grey in their monthly book club and have their lives changed forever. For these successful and intelligent women, this is not the type of book that they typically read, but as they soon find out, inspiration can come in the most unlikely of places."

---

Lionsgate will release The Glass Castle, based on the memoir by Jeannette Walls, on August 11, Deadline reported. The film stars Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts. It was directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, who co-wrote the script with Andrew Lanham.

The winners of the 2017 Best Translated Book Award, sponsored by Three Percent, are:

Fiction: Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lúcio Cardoso, translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson (Brazil, Open Letter Books)
Poetry: Extracting the Stone of Madness by Alejandra Pizarnik, translated from the Spanish by Yvette Siegert (Argentina, New Directions)

Concerning the fiction winner, one of the judges, Jeremy Garber of Powell's Books, commented: "Though it took longer than 50 years to finally appear in English, Lúcio Cardoso's Chronicle of the Murdered House was well worth the wait. Epic in scope and stunning in its execution, the late Brazilian author's 1959 masterpiece is a resounding accomplishment. Thanks to the translational prowess of Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, Cardoso's saga of familial scheming and salacious scandal deservingly comes to an even wider audience."

About the poetry winner, judge Emma Ramadan of Riffraff Bookstore said in part that Extracting the Stone of Madness is "a book screaming and barking with jagged solitude and beautiful pain, each poem's broken melody attempting to fill a void we can all see lurking. Yvette Siegert perfectly inhabits Pizarnik's tortuous, vivid world and allows us to do the same."

Each winning book is awarded $10,000, to be divided among the authors and translators.

---

The winners of the 2017 Christian Book Awards, sponsored by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, are:

Christian Book of the Year: Shaken by Tim Tebow (WaterBrook)
Bibles: NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, edited by Craig S. Keener and John H. Walton (Zondervan)
Bible Reference: A History of Western Philosophy and Theology by John M. Frame (P&R Publishing)
Bible Study: Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel by Ray Ortlund (Crossway)
Biography & Memoir: Courageous Faith by Charles Stanley (Howard Books/S&S)
Children: Jonah and the Fish by Dandi Daley Mackall, illustrated by Lissy Marlin (Tyndale House)
Christian Living: Parenting: The 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family by Paul David Tripp (Crossway)
Devotion & Gift: A Spectacle of Glory by Joni Eareckson Tada with Larry Libby (Zondervan)
Faith & Culture: 75 Masterpieces Every Christian Should Know by Terry Glaspey (Baker Books)
Ministry Resources: Leadership Mosaic: 5 Leadership Principles for Ministry and Everyday Life by Daniel Montgomery with Jared Kennedy (Crossway)
New Author: Union with Christ by Rankin Wilbourne (David C. Cook)
Young People's Literature: Unblemished by Sara Ella (Thomas Nelson)

Nigerian author Leye Adenle introduces fans of crime fiction to the staggeringly corrupt city of Lagos in his debut novel, Easy Motion Tourist. In a spare style reminiscent of Raymond Chandler, Guy Collins, an inexperienced British journalist new to Lagos, navigates the city. His misadventures begin abruptly when he stumbles upon a horrible crime: the all-too-real phenomenon of ritual killing, a gruesome practice involving the removal of human body parts in order to perform black magic. When he's arrested and interrogated by local police, he's acquainted with the brand of rough justice that leads many Nigerians to be "as scared of their police as they were of killers."

Collins is also introduced to Amaka, a cross between a vigilante and a guardian angel, who tries her best to look after the working girls of Lagos and get revenge on the men who abuse them. Amaka explains: "Prostitution is illegal in Nigeria so nobody watches out for these girls. They are molested, extorted, short-changed, raped, killed, you name it.... What you saw, it has happened before. Not like that, not so openly, but at its worst that's exactly what we try to prevent." She springs Collins from jail and the two of them embark on a dangerous mission to find out who's responsible for the ritual murders.

Collins and Amaka are the most important characters out of a cast of dozens. For a short novel, Easy Motion Tourist is packed with feuding killers, prostitutes, police officers and the opulently wealthy inhabitants of Victoria Island--a city-within-the-city that serves as a reminder of the metropolis's incredible inequality as well as the main source of the police's funding. Adenle's characters bounce around Lagos and into each other like pinballs, sparking surprising moments of violence, betrayal and temporary alliances. Adenle is skilled at evoking a sense of spontaneity and chaos even as he carefully orchestrates the action.

The title is a reference to a song by the Nigerian group the Harbours Band, and is used by one of the characters to describe Collins. The song is about a "nocturnal misadventure," an understated label for Collins's often-nightmarish journey through Lagos. The man's comparison makes the implicit point, however, that the British wanna-be-journalist is getting only a brief taste of the razor's-edge world many inhabitants of Lagos have to deal with every day. The vast inequality that Adenle notes, after all, is a microcosm of the global inequity that benefits Collins.

Not that Easy Motion Tourist is concerned with preaching. In what could be read as a hat-tip to Elmore Leonard, even the most hardened criminals often come off as pathetic and impulsive rather than cartoonishly evil. The novel is a wild read, surging back and forth from seedy underbellies to the equally threatening halls of wealth and power with uncompromising speed. --Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C.

Shelf Talker: Easy Motion Tourist is a fast-paced debut that follows a British journalist and a Nigerian vigilante as they attempt to track down the perpetrators of shocking ritual murders in Lagos.