"After 26 years in a Hyde Park bungalow," Inkwood Books, Tampa, Fla., is moving to a new location that will be "just a couple of miles away, in burgeoning Tampa Heights," the Tampa Bay Times reported.
"I was afraid it was going to get leaked. I haven't even signed the lease yet, so I hope this all works out," owner Stefani Beddingfield said of the news. After a YA author mentioned her September 27 event at Inkwood's new location on her website, Beddingfield posted confirmation on Facebook that a move was in the works because "the property is up for sale. Stay tuned for more clues as to where, when and how this is all going to happen. We're telling you now because we have a super exciting YA novelist coming in September for an event at the new space and she put it on her website... so #CatOfficiallyOutOfBag #NotFakeNews #BookiLeaks #ItsAllGood #MovinOnUpToTheHeights."
If all goes according to plan, the new location will be at 1809 N. Tampa St. "It's right across the street from the Hall on Franklin," a new restaurant cooperative, and near Hidden Springs Ale Works and Foundation Coffee, she told the Times. "I think we'll get a little more synergy" with the nearby businesses. "People can walk across the street for a cocktail, or have coffee and then come to a book signing."
Beddingfield purchased Inkwood from Carla Jimenez and Leslie Reiner in 2013 and leased the space. "Carla and Leslie own the property, and they're selling it. It's been on the market for a while," she said, adding that she is excited about bringing the business to Tampa Heights, where she lives. "For a very short period of time, I'll have two stores. What I'm toying with is a kind of bookstore popup shop on September 1 (in Tampa Heights). Maybe sell a hundred titles, our 'Best of 2017.' "
Her target date for Inkwood to open fully in Tampa Heights is January 15. "I'm figuring out how to make it a bookstore and a community center," she said.
New Orleans' Maple Street Book Shop Delays Closure
Maple Street Book Shop, New Orleans, La., which announced in May that it would be closing in June, has extended the date until July 29 "after a surge of sales from people wanting to make one last purchase propped up the business for a little while longer," WWL-TV reported.
"As soon as I announced the closing, business doubled," said owner Gladin Scott. "To be honest, because business had been so bad, I really didn't know if people cared anymore."
Asked if he might extend the store's life beyond July 29, Scott said he had not spoken to the landlord about staying past that date. He is, however, ordering small numbers of new releases and bestsellers each week. "Only enough to sell what we sold the previous week."
Ingram Publisher Services has acquired Book Network International Limited (NBNi), the U.K. book distributor with headquarters in Plymouth, England, from Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group.
David Taylor, senior v-p of content acquisition international at Ingram Content Group, said: "NBNi is a sound, established and widely respected distributor in the British book trade with a reputable base of publisher clients, well-supported by the excellent and experienced team in Plymouth. Our plan is to build on this strong foundation and grow the business: our acquisition of NBNi is premised upon that strategy. We think this is a marvellous opportunity to have a distribution centre in the U.K. and one that complements our growing range of services that we provide to publishers in the United Kingdom market."
Jed Lyons, CEO of Rowman & Littlefield, commented: "As our academic publishing program in the U.K. has grown very quickly under the leadership of Oliver Gadsby in our London office, we are shifting our focus away from distribution and toward publishing outside of North America. We will continue to own and operate NBNi's sister company, National Book Network, in North America. Our 14 years in Plymouth have been rewarding, and we thank the team there. Ingram is the ideal new owner to step into our shoes, and we will be pleased to remain clients of NBNi for all our international distribution."
Besides National Book Network, Rowman & Littlefield's other companies include Globe Pequot, Falcon Guides, Lyons Press, Stackpole Books, Bernan and Sundance-Newbridge. It is also affiliated with Rowman & Littlefield International, whose headquarters is in London.
MVB, a subsidiary of the Börsenverein, the German book industry association, has purchased Pubnet and PubEasy from NPD Group, which acquired the online ordering systems when it bought Nielsen's U.S. marketing information and research services in January, according to Publishing Perspectives. (The main part of NPD's purchase was BookScan.)
MVB has run Germany's Verzeichnis Liefbarer Bücher--the country's books in print database--for 45 years and recently launched Metabooks Brasil.
Ted Hill
Ted Hill, head of THA Consulting, is heading the newly formed MVB US, which consists of Pubnet and PubEasy. The technology used by the two ordering services will be used until the end of 2018, after which it will be replaced by MVB's platform.
Ronald Schild, managing director of MVB (which stands for Marketing und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels, or Marketing and Publishing Service of the Book Trade), said that the acquisition "gives MVB a leading position among service providers in two of the world's largest book markets, the U.S. and Germany. Both offer a high degree of recognition as well as a very good market penetration.
"The technical and substantive proximity to our existing IBU business makes the takeover a perfect acquisition within our development strategy, with which we want to grow beyond the borders of the German-speaking region.
"The synergies in the functionality of the three ordering systems provide us with the opportunity to merge the technical infrastructure so as to serve the current and additional markets with a uniform platform strategy."
Pubnet has 250 active publishers and suppliers and 1,600 active retailers. The company made 16.7 million business transactions in 2016.
PubEasy has 11 U.S. and three Canadian suppliers, and 4,100 dealers operating in 100 countries and made 10.2 million transactions last year.
Janet Lunn, "the beloved children's author whose historically rich novels and nonfiction inspired many writers to follow in her footsteps," died June 26, Quillblog reported. She was 88. Lunn published 18 books for young readers, including The Hollow Tree, winner of the Governor General's Literary Award in 1998, and The Story of Canada (co-authored with Christopher Moore), which won a Mr. Christie's Book Award in 1993.
Over the course of her 50-year career, Lunn received honors that included the Canadian Authors Association's Vicki Metcalf Award for Body of Work and the Writer's Trust of Canada's Matt Cohen Award in Celebration of a Writing Life. A past-chair of the Writers Union of Canada, Lunn was also appointed to the Order of Ontario in 2005 and a Member of the Order of Canada the following year.
"I thought of Janet Lunn as a model of what a Canadian writer should be," said friend and collaborator Moore. "She was righteous and full of imagination and empathy, and brave as a lion. She became an inspiration and mentor to many other writers, for kids and for adults."
Tattered Cover was at Denver Comic Con this past weekend, with an impressive lineup of celebrity authors. Here, Diana Gabaldon and John Scalzi enjoy a break with store co-owner Len Vlahos.
Congratulations to Porter Square Books, Cambridge, Mass., named the best bookstore in the "Best of Boston" by Boston Magazine, which wrote:
"Can your Kindle feed you while you browse? Porter Square Books does, at its on-site café serving delicious Iggy's pastries. Does your Kindle help out with the kids? Porter Square Books will, with reading groups for teenagers and preschool story hours. This place is constantly reminding us why bookstores still matter."
Goddard Riverside to Honor B&T's David Cully, Mary Higgins Clark
David Cully
Goddard Riverside's annual Book Fair Gala, to be held this year on November 1, will honor David Cully, president of Baker & Taylor. At the same time, a special presentation will be made to Mary Higgins Clark for her philanthropy, and the inaugural Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice will be awarded to "a groundbreaking book on social justice."
The publishing industry has partnered with the Goddard Riverside Community Center in New York City for more than 30 years to fight homelessness and poverty in New York City and has raised millions of dollars through its annual book fair and other efforts.
Gayley Avery has joined Bonnier Publishing USA as director of marketing and publicity for Little Bee Books and Weldon Owen. She was formerly marketing director at Scholastic.
Media Heat: Andy Cohen on Live with Kelly and Ryan, Colbert
Today: NPR's Here and Now: Tim Marshall, author of A Flag Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of National Symbols (Scribner, $26, 9781501168338).
Bloomberg Surveillance: Jon Kukla, author of Patrick Henry: Champion of Liberty (Simon & Schuster, $35, 9781439190814).
The View repeat: Chelsea Clinton, author of She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World (Philomel, $17.99, 9781524741723).
Last Call with Carson Daly repeat: Jay Chandrasekhar, author of Mustache Shenanigans: Making Super Troopers and Other Adventures in Comedy (Dutton, $27, 9781101985236).
Tomorrow: Today Show: Matt Moore, author of The South's Best Butts (Oxmoor House, $26.95, 9780848751852).
Access Hollywood: Kathy McKeon, author of Jackie's Girl: My Life with the Kennedy Family (Gallery, $26, 9781501158940).
Live with Kelly and Ryan: Andy Cohen, author of Superficial: More Adventures from the Andy Cohen Diaries (St. Martin's Griffin, $16.99, 9781250145710). He will also appear on a repeat of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
"Sweet Sop" by Ingrid Persaud (Trinidad and Tobago), a tale that explores "harrowing themes of fractured families, death and terminal illness, through the medium of chocolate," won the £5,000 (about $6,505) Commonwealth Writers' Short Story Prize, the Bookseller reported. The award's aim "is to seek out talented writers and bring stories from new and emerging voices, often from countries with little or no publishing infrastructure, to the attention of an international audience."
Chair of the judging panel Kamila Shamsie praised the story's "originality, the strength of its characterization, the control of voice, and its humor and emotional punch. It loses none of its effectiveness on a second or third or fourth re-reading, always the mark of a rich and layered story.”
Also present at the ceremony were the other four regional winners: Akwaeke Emezi (Nigeria) for "Who Is Like God"; Anushka Jasraj (India) for "Drawing Lessons"; Tracy Fells (U.K.) for "The Naming of Moths"; and Nat Newman (Australia) for "The Death of Margaret Roe." The stories can be read on Granta online through Commonwealth Writers' partnership with Granta magazine.
Review: What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen
What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen by Kate Fagan
(Little, Brown, $27 hardcover, 320p., 9780316356541, August 1, 2017)
What began as "Split Image," a profile piece for ESPN by columnist and feature writer Kate Fagan (The Reappearing Act), swelled into a heartbreaking exploration of mental health in college sports during the era of social media. Madison Holleran was a 19-year-old freshman University of Pennsylvania track recruit whose depression resulted in her suicide in January of 2014. As she wrote about Maddy, Fagan heard from many others like her--young athletes struggling with depression or anxiety. Fagan cites the NCAA as saying, "suicide is the third-leading cause of death among student-athletes--behind accidents and cardiac causes." The overwhelming prevalence of mental health issues among these young people inspired Fagan to expand "Split Image" into What Made Maddy Run.
Fagan depicts the Maddy Holleran her friends and family knew, a smart, beautiful, talented, successful young woman. In high school she excelled at soccer and track, the latter being the sport that opened doors to an Ivy League college. She had many friends, was close with her family and eagerly anticipated going away to school. Through Maddy's text messages, personal writings and relationships with those around her, Fagan illustrates how college turned out to be the trigger for her depression. The strong confident athlete transformed into an overwhelmed, unhappy teenager who was crippled by her own expectations and felt she had no control over her life.
Entwined with Maddy's story is Fagan's: her own experience with anxiety and having a panic attack, the state of college athletic programs--Fagan played college basketball at Colorado University--her research and efforts to connect with other college-level competitors. With immense empathy, she shares insights particular to student athletes, but presents them in universally accessible language and connects with the non-athlete through vivid examples and metaphors:
"Picture every Hollywood sports movie, ever. One thing they all have in common: A montage of the lead character pushing through the pain, training to become the best. Our culture celebrates harder, faster, stronger. Vulnerability, it would seem, undermines that pursuit."
Coupled with the role of athletics and mental health is the looming presence of social media in the lives of these students. Fagan uses images collected from Maddy's Instagram account and text messages to illustrate the literal and figurative filters applied to her life, not unlike many of her generation. This distortion of reality exacerbates the underlying struggles of Maddy's battle with depression.
Maddy Holleran's story is tragic, but not rare. Fagan removes the filters her subject so carefully applied, and demonstrates with sensitivity and compassion the urgent need to understand and address a deadly problem. --Jen Forbus, freelancer
Shelf Talker: A 19-year-old Ivy League track recruit's suicide shook her school, her family and ESPN reporter Kate Fagan, who explores the young athlete's story.
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Maple Street Book Shop, New Orleans, La., which announced in May that it would be closing in June, has extended the date until July 29 "after a surge of sales from people wanting to make one last purchase propped up the business for a little while longer," WWL-TV reported.
Ingram Publisher Services has acquired Book Network International Limited (NBNi), the U.K. book distributor with headquarters in Plymouth, England, from Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group.
MVB, a subsidiary of the Börsenverein, the German book industry association, has purchased Pubnet and PubEasy from NPD Group, which acquired the online ordering systems when it bought Nielsen's U.S. marketing information and research services in January, according to Publishing Perspectives. (The main part of NPD's purchase was BookScan.)
Tattered Cover was at Denver Comic Con this past weekend, with an impressive lineup of celebrity authors. Here, Diana Gabaldon and John Scalzi enjoy a break with store co-owner Len Vlahos.
Congratulations to Porter Square Books, Cambridge, Mass., named the best bookstore in the "Best of Boston" by Boston Magazine, which wrote:
A Stitch of Time: The Year a Brain Injury Changed My Language and Life by Lauren Marks (Simon & Schuster).
What began as "Split Image," a profile piece for ESPN by columnist and feature writer Kate Fagan (The Reappearing Act), swelled into a heartbreaking exploration of mental health in college sports during the era of social media. Madison Holleran was a 19-year-old freshman University of Pennsylvania track recruit whose depression resulted in her suicide in January of 2014. As she wrote about Maddy, Fagan heard from many others like her--young athletes struggling with depression or anxiety. Fagan cites the NCAA as saying, "suicide is the third-leading cause of death among student-athletes--behind accidents and cardiac causes." The overwhelming prevalence of mental health issues among these young people inspired Fagan to expand "Split Image" into What Made Maddy Run. 