"Owning this store was never a dream or fantasy of ours because it never would have occurred to us. It turns out it's a lot of people's fantasy, though they don't realize how hard it is. It's been this full immersion into this world that we barely knew, but now represents really everything we care about."

Tim Hely Hutchinson

David Shelley

Tim Hely Hutchinson, who has been CEO of Hachette U.K. since it was founded in 2004, is retiring at the end of the year, and David Shelley, currently CEO of Little, Brown Group and Orion, will replace him, the Bookseller reported.

As of January 1, Shelley will also become a member of the international board of Hachette Livre and a director of Hachette Book Group in the U.S. He will report to Arnaud Nourry, chairman and CEO of Hachette Livre. Hely Hutchinson will act as a consultant to the Group until the end of 2018.

Shelley became CEO of Little, Brown Group and Orion in 2015. No one new will be appointed to that role.

Hely Hutchinson commented: "I have been superbly supported by Arnaud, my present and former colleagues and our authors throughout these golden years at Hachette and I could not possibly be more grateful. I know that David and his colleagues will do brilliantly when they take over and I wish them the very best of good fortune. I have always, since my early Macmillan days, loved being part of the publishing world because of its wonderful people and look forward to staying in touch with my author, agent and publishing friends and having time to enjoy my many outside interests with them."

Nourry commented: "I wish Tim had decided to stay for longer but he is famously a planner and he has been working towards a crescendo with great results and superb acquisitions and the move into HUK's beautiful riverside home at Carmelite House. He has had an amazing career, including the founding of Headline, then Hodder Headline and finally working as my business partner to create and expand Hachette U.K. To my mind, his greatest legacy is all the talent he has recruited and developed, including the senior team whose appointments we are announcing today, but also more deeply throughout the company. He has always striven to run a talented and happy house, as well as a successful one, and he has succeeded. I am so glad he is staying with us until the end of 2018 to help the new management and I will be wishing him a very long and happy retirement when the time comes."

The New England Mobile Book Fair, which announced in March that it would have to move when its lease expired at the end of the month, has found a new home on Needham Street in the N² Innovation District of Newton, Mass. Northland Investment Corporation, a national real estate investment company with headquarters in Newton, has agreed to host the indie bookstore. Work has begun to get the space ready for the store, with the opening targeted for mid-June.

"We had been contacted by a number of cities and locations nearby but ultimately felt that we wanted to try to stay local," said NEMBF owner Tom Lyons. "When Northland contacted us it felt like the right fit. Even though it's not a permanent solution it helps keep this bookstore close to its roots. Northland clearly understands the need for unique local businesses that support the community."

The space is only available for the next two years because the property is part of a 30 acre redevelopment in the planning stages with the city of Newton that will include housing, retail, and office space. Peter Standish, Northland senior v-p, said, "Our concern is that the city of Newton should not lose this important institution. We are pleased to be able to facilitate New England Mobile Fook Fair's ongoing service and commitment to the people of Newton."

Standish also noted: "This use fits squarely with the vision for our proposed mixed-use development, and we hope to find the bookstore a permanent home here."

Winners have been announced for this year's Pannell Awards, given by the Women's National Book Association and co-sponsored by Penguin Young Readers Group to recognize bookstores "that enhance their communities by fostering a love of reading."

The winner in the general bookstore category is Bookworm of Edwards, Edwards, Colo, "in recognition of its adopt-a-reader program, which provides books for children in need, and other community-building initiatives."

In the children's specialty bookstore category, the winner is Children's Book World, Los Angeles, Calif., for its "commitment to diverse books and its 'Readers & Writers Rock!' program, which brings authors to underserved schools."

The winning stores will each receive a check for $1,000 and a work of original art from a children's book illustrator. The awards will be presented during BookExpo's Children's Book and Author Breakfast.

Early yesterday afternoon, Kelly Estep, manager/buyer at Carmichael's Bookstore, Louisville, Ken., e-mailed us regarding what was turning into a very busy day for booksellers there: "@sheaserrano (Shea Serrano, author of The Rap Year Book, Abrams) unleashed his FOH Army today on Carmichael's Bookstore. After one of our staff members ribbed him about pointing his twitter followers to Amazon, he decided to show some love to Indie stores by asking his followers to send us 1,000 orders today. As of 1p.m. we are over 600 orders!"

And the book frenzy continued for a store that averages about 1,000 online orders annually:

@ABRAMSbooks: ".@SheaSerrano strikes again! Now engaging a community that's very near and dear to our hearts--indie bookstores!"

@carmichaelsbook: "With @SheaSerrano’s help, we’re racing towards 700 orders, and have easily cleared 700 books sold! #FOHArmy"

@SheaSerrano: "1K in a Day--we're really gonna get it done--we gotta hang an FOH championship banner from the @carmichaelsbook rafters after this"

@carmichaelsbook (about 3:20 p.m.): "Alright Shea. That’s it. We just hit 1K orders!! A special gift and message is coming for customer no. 1K. WE CANNOT THANK THE FOH ENOUGH!"

@SheaSerrano: "HAHAHA WE DID IT WE DID IT 1K orders in 4 hours & 30 minutes wtf hahaha The FOH Indie Bookstore Appreciation Day was a huge success"

"We are going to need a lot of mailers! It's been really fun to see what people are ordering since it isn't his book--just all kinds of stuff!" Estep told us later, adding: "The messages from people coming in with the orders are also really fun (and a lot of twitter mentions)! Everything from the Whole 30 cookbook to Neil Gaiman to Catch 22." Carmichael's is also "working on a special something to put in each order."

"All thanks for Mark Schultz, bookseller extraordinaire," Estep noted.

British political historian Peter Mangold, who was the author of "seven acclaimed works on international politics, a visiting academic at St Antony's College, Oxford, and, for 10 years, head of the Bengali service of the BBC World Service," has died, the Guardian reported. He was 70. Mangold's works include From Tirpitz to Gorbachev; Success and Failure in British Foreign Policy and The Almost Impossible Alliance: Harold Macmillan and Charles de Gaulle. In 2013, he won the Edith McLeod literary prize for Britain and the Defeated French: From Occupation to Liberation 1940–1944.

In the Guardian, Valerie Purton wrote: "Peter had the knack of engaging his readers from the outset. The introduction to his last completed monograph, What the British Did: Two Centuries in the Middle East (2016), begins with a quotation from Kipling's Kim: 'When everyone is dead the Great Game is finished. Not before.' It then swoops, film-like, to the remains of a Roman fort on the River Tyne at South Shields, as the starting point for a panoramic history of the Middle East and Britain.... This juxtaposition of weighty academic research and vivid impressionism suggests the complexity of the man."

The 68th annual Christopher Awards, which are presented to authors and illustrators--as well as writers, producers and directors--whose work "affirms the highest values of the human spirit," were given at a gala in New York City Tuesday night. The list of winners is here. Pictured: Kathy Izard (The Hundred Story Home, Grace Press); Joan Bauer (Soar, Penguin); Sally Wern Comport and Susan Hood (Ada's Violin, S&S); Caron Levis (Ida, Always, Atheneum); Matt Weber (Operating on Faith, Loyola)

On Facebook, the Brewster Book Store, Brewster, Mass., shared a little Spring inspiration: "Reading makes your mind bloom."

Noting that "terms and conditions statements are ridiculous," Lifehacker International reported that the Australian consumer advocate group Choice employed a man to actually read all 73,198 words in Amazon's Kindle T&C. It took him eight hours and fifty-nine minutes. His valiant attempt is chronicled on the Choice YouTube channel. 

Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country by Chavisa Woods (Seven Stories Press).

Tomorrow:
Fox & Friends: James E. Ryan, author of Wait, What?: And Life's Other Essential Questions (HarperOne, $19.99, 9780062664570).

Fox News's Greg Gutfeld Show: Robert O'Neill, author of The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior (Scribner, $28, 9781501145032).

The Real: John Gray, author of I Am Number 8: Overlooked and Undervalued, but Not Forgotten by God (FaithWords, $22, 9781455539543).

The View: Jeffrey Tambor, author of Are You Anybody?: A Memoir (Crown Archetype, $27, 9780451496355).

Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Paula Poundstone, author of The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness (Algonquin, $25.95, 9781616204167).

Hamilton star Daveed Diggs, who won a Tony for his performance as Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson, will top the cast of the upcoming TNT series Snowpiercer, based on Bong Joon Ho's film adaptation of the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette. IndieWire reported that  Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange) will direct the pilot, with Diggs playing the role of Layton Well. Derrickson will also serve as executive producer, along with writer/showrunner Josh Friedman, Marty Adelstein and Becky Clements of Tomorrow Studios; and the original film's Bong Joon Ho, Park Chan-wook, Lee Tae-hun and Dooho Choi.

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, May 20
10 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. Live coverage from the 2017 Gaithersburg Book Festival at City Hall in Gaithersburg, Md. (Re-airs Sunday at 12 a.m.) Highlight include:

• 10 a.m. Maria Leonard Olsen, author of Not the Cleaver Family: The New Normal in Modern American Families (Tate Publishing, $12.99, 9781683190394).
• 10:35 a.m. Melvin A. Goodman, author of Whistleblower at the CIA: An Insider’s Account of the Politics of Intelligence (City Lights, $19.95, 9780872867307).
• 11:15 a.m. Meredith Wadman, author of The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics, and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease (Viking, $30, 9780525427537).
• 12:15 p.m. Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World (Knopf, $32.50, 9780385351799).
• 1:15 p.m. Craig Shirley, author of Reagan Rising: The Decisive Years, 1976-1980 (Broadside, $29.99, 9780062456557).
• 2:15 p.m. Sidney Blumenthal, author of Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II, 1849-1856 (Simon & Schuster, $35, 9781501153785).
• 3:15 p.m. Sally Mott Freeman, author of The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home (Simon & Schuster, $28, 9781501104145).
• 4:15 p.m. William Hogeland, author of Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion That Opened the West (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $28, 9780374107345), and Peter Cozzens, author of The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West (Knopf, $35, 9780307958044) discuss country's militarized westward expansion.

5:15 p.m. C-SPAN's "Local Content Vehicles" tour literary and historical sites in Trenton, N.J. (Re-airs Sunday at 9 a.m.)

7 p.m. Robert M. Sapolsky, author of Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (Penguin Press, $35, 9781594205071), at Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.

8 p.m. Paul Starobin, author of Madness Rules the Hour: Charleston, 1860 and the Mania for War (PublicAffairs, $27, 9781610396226). (Re-airs Sunday at 1:18 p.m. and Monday at 2 a.m.)

8:30 p.m. David Grinspoon, author of Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future (Grand Central, $28, 9781455589128). (Re-airs Sunday at 10:30 a.m.)

10 p.m. Stuart Taylor, author of The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities (Encounter Books, $27.99, 9781594038853). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m. and Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m.)

11 p.m. Coverage from the grand opening of the American Writers Museum in Chicago, Ill. (Re-airs Sunday at 7 p.m.)

Sunday, May 21
1 p.m. Linda Lumsden, author of Inez: The Life and Times of Inez Milholland (Indiana University Press, $24, 9780253020604). (Re-airs Monday at 1 a.m.)

8 p.m. Susan Bordo, author of The Destruction of Hillary Clinton (Melville House, $24.99, 9781612196633), at Book Culture Bookstore in New York City. (Re-airs Monday at 6 a.m.)

10 p.m. Peter Andreas, author of Rebel Mother: My Childhood Chasing the Revolution (Simon & Schuster, $26, 9781501124396). (Re-airs Monday at 4:45 a.m.)

11:15 p.m. Pamela Paul, author of My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues (Holt, $27, 9781627796316), at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Jhumpa Lahiri won the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. She will receive the $5,000 prize on December 8 at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Lahiri is the author of four widely acclaimed works of fiction: Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland; as well as two works of nonfiction: In Other Words and The Clothing of Books. She also translated the novel Ties by Domenico Starnone from the Italian.

Lahiri's honors include the Pulitzer Prize; the PEN/Hemingway Award; the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award; the Premio Gregor von Rezzori; the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature; a 2014 National Humanities Medal; and the Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia.

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Finalists have been named in six categories for this year's Shirley Jackson Awards, which recognize "outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic." The winners, which are voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics and academics, will be announced in July. 

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, May 23:

Dragon Teeth: A Novel by Michael Crichton (Harper, $28.99, 9780062473356) is a posthumously published thriller about Wild West fossil hunters.

The Frozen Hours: A Novel of the Korean War by Jeff Shaara (Ballantine, $28.99, 9780345549228) is military historical fiction set during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in 1950.

The Exile: The Stunning Inside Story of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Flight by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark (Bloomsbury, $30, 9781620409848) explores the 10 years between 9/11 and Bin Laden's death.

Shadow Man: A Novel by Alan Drew (Random House, $27, 9781400067800) is psychological suspense about a serial killer in Southern California.

The Long Drop: A Novel by Denise Mina (Little, Brown, $26, 9780316380577) is a fictionalized account of a real murder case in 1950s Glasgow.

Fashion Committee by Susan Juby (Viking, $18.99, 9780451468789) is a YA novel about two very different artistic teens battling for one spot at an elite (and unaffordable to both) private arts school.

Paperback:
Cross the Line by James Patterson (Grand Central, $16.99, 9781455585311).

From last week's Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org, here are the recommended titles, which are also Indie Next Great Reads:

Hardcover
Salt Houses: A Novel by Hala Alyan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26, 9780544912588). "Accomplished poet Hala Alyan exceeds the brilliance of her excellent collections of poems in her moving, deeply felt, powerfully realized first novel, Salt Houses. I can't think of many writers who have so adeptly written of family relationships--here, spanning five generations, all against a vividly rendered backdrop of exile and migration. From Palestine to Jordan, Lebanon to Kuwait, Boston to New York, this is a story of people losing, finding, and making their way. Salt Houses gives voice, body, and love to people whose lives in this country tend, at most, to be featured anonymously in news accounts--and at that, in the negative. This is real life, beautifully written and graciously enlarging the sense of who we are." --Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, Wash.

Miss Burma: A Novel by Charmaine Craig (Grove Press, $26, 9780802126450). "Charmaine Craig's Miss Burma is nothing short of stunning. Based on the lives of her mother and grandparents in Burma, Craig deftly tells the epic story of one family as they try to survive the horrors of World War II, independence, and then civil war. What distinguishes this book from others is its frank look at who and what survives under such perilous conditions. Especially for readers unfamiliar with Burma, like me, Miss Burma is a chronicle of loss and love in a country too long neglected by the world." --Michael Triebwasser, Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, D.C.

Paperback
Fen: Stories by Daisy Johnson (Graywolf Press, $16, 9781555977740). "This collection of stories scrambled my brain, in the best possible sense. They made me reread, wonder, turn the book upside down and shake it a bit to see what other fantastical imaginings would fall out. Girls turn into eels and men into foxes, a house is obsessed with a woman, and a bloodsucking girl gang preys on Internet dates. A few stories broke my heart, too. Johnson has a way of manifesting loneliness and loss into physical pain and malady that shocks the senses. Startling, unusual, and sneakily profound, Fen is an unforgettable collection." --Stefanie Kiper Schmidt, Water Street Bookstore, Exeter, N.H.

For Ages 4 to 8
Escargot by Dashka Slater, illustrated by Sydney Hanson (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $16.99, 9780374302818). "Escargot is an adorable French snail trying to reach the salad at the end of the book. He admires himself and his shiny trail as he moves across the table to the salad. He hopes it has no carrots, because he really does not like carrots. Fun illustrations and a charming story make this a picture book for everyone to enjoy!" --Cathy Berner, Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston, Tex.

For Ages 9 to 12
The Thickety: The Last Spell by J.A. White, illustrated by Andrea Offerman (Katherine Tegen Books, $16.99, 9780062381392). "Kara, Taff, and friends search for their story's end, with new and old foes meeting their fates in this conclusion to the Thickety series. The strength of the books relies on never knowing who is truly on the 'right' side of things--and that theme continues from start to finish in the fourth volume, namely with Kara never being sure about the motivations of Grace and Princess Evangeline. Satisfyingly, answers to story lore arise: Why could only girls and women, not boys and men, use grimoires? Why has the one-eyed bird been so helpful? Is the Well of Witches truly a place of forever torture?" --Todd Wellman, Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, Wis.

For Teen Readers
Radio Silence by Alice Oseman (HarperTeen, $17.99, 9780062335715). "In a sea of over-achieving high schoolers, you're forced to play the game, but it's just not you. You're a different person when you're not at school, but you feel you need to hide it. You're scared to rock the boat, until you meet your first true friend, which, to me, is what this novel is all about. Radio Silence has so many facets to it: it's contemporary YA, but each chapter begins with a sci-fi-esque podcast, which miraculously weaves itself into the story; it lightly explores sexual identity and diversity, but doesn't disrupt the story; and it has an element of mystery and a thriller-like pace, but it digs deep. One of my favorite books of 2017." --Kristen Gilligan, Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, Colo.

[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]

Playwright Kathleen Anne Kenney unfolds Siobhan Doyle's coming-of-age story in Girl on the Leeside. Since her mother's death in an IRA bombing when Siobhan was a toddler, she has lived a quiet life in rural western Ireland with her uncle Keenan. Steeped in the traditions of village life and ancient Irish poetry, both Siobhan and Kee are content with their nearly solitary existence, serving customers in their family's pub, the Leeside, and discussing literature. But when American professor Tim Ferris comes to visit the Leeside and talk about poetry, Siobhan is drawn to him in a way she can't explain. As she wrestles with her unfamiliar feelings for Tim, she also learns that her father, whom she thought had also died in the bombing, is still alive.

Kenney uses the image of the lee side (the area of a tree or structure protected from wind and weather) not only as the name of Kee's pub, but also as an apt metaphor for Siobhan's sheltered, safe existence. Though she works in a pub and has a few treasured friendships with people she's known all her life, she is naive, fearful of the world. Kenney sensitively explores the complications Siobhan faces as she comes out of her shell, daring to imagine a life beyond the Leeside, and even considering the possibility of falling in love.

Though this is mainly Siobhan's story, Kenney draws other characters and their struggles with deft, vivid strokes. Uncle Kee, who was devoted to his rebellious younger sister (Siobhan's mother), has done his best to raise his niece in an atmosphere of safety and love while regretting his stalled career as a teacher. Katie O'Farrell, a brash horse breeder whose feelings for Kee run deeper than she cares to admit, also plays a surprising role in helping both uncle and niece face new challenges. Siobhan's father, John, a former British soldier, has been chasing his own demons but is a fundamentally decent man. And Galway Gwen, the enigmatic traveler who comes through with her family once a year, provides both a connection to Ireland's history and a source of wisdom and comfort for Siobhan. Kenney gathers her narrative threads in a satisfying way, while leaving her characters--especially Siobhan--open to new possibilities.

Quiet, lyrical and sprinkled with verses of the Irish poetry Siobhan loves, Girl on the Leeside is a slim, beautiful debut about one woman taking her place in the world. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Shelf Talker: Playwright Kathleen Anne Kenney's debut novel tells a lyrical coming-of-age story set in rural western Ireland.