Encore's future location

Encore Books, Yakima, Wash., is moving after 16 years in its current space. The new location, at the corner of Walnut and 5th Avenue, "a few blocks away" and closer to downtown, has "a bit more space" and has more visibility from the street, according to general manager Brett Lamb. There's also a spot for a coffee shop, but Encore hasn't signed up anyone to put one in.

The new space is undergoing renovations and should open on August 29. A grand opening event is scheduled for Saturday, September 9. Encore sells used and new books.

Encore Books' new location is at 415 W. Walnut, Yakima, Wash. 98902.

James Lampassi

Effective July 31, James Lampassi is joining Barnes & Noble as v-p, real estate development. At the same time, David Deason will step down as v-p, development, and begin a consulting agreement with a guaranteed term through the end of the year.

Lampassi was formerly v-p, real estate and construction, at Petco Animal Supplies Stores, which added nearly 700 stores during his 10-year tenure. Earlier he held real estate positions at Office Depot, Extended Stay America, Zoots Corporation, Bed Bath & Beyond, Grossman's and Marshalls.

CEO Demos Parneros said Lampassi is "the best possible person to help take our stores into the future and grow the business." He also thanked Deason for "his leadership and outstanding contributions to the company over these past 27 years."

Jamia Wilson

Jamia Wilson has been appointed executive director and publisher of the Feminist Press at CUNY, becoming the youngest director in the press's 47-year history as well as the first woman of color to head the organization. She succeeds Jennifer Baumgardner, who ended her four-year tenure in May and said of her successor: "I can't think of a more perfect leader to take the press, with its gifted staff, into its bright future."

Prior to joining Feminist Press, Wilson was executive director of Women, Action & the Media, a direct-action network dedicated to creating gender justice in media at all levels. Before that, she served as TED Prize Storyteller and v-p of programs at Women's Media Center. As a writer, Wilson has contributed to numerous magazines and is a columnist for Rookie. In 2016, she was honored as a Black Feminist Human Rights Defender by Black Women's Blueprint and was recognized by Refinery 29 as one of "17 Faces of the Future of Feminism" in 2013.

FP founder Florence Howe noted that Wilson "is more than an activist, she's a movement maker, and I'm immensely proud to see her take the helm of the Press as our fifth director."

On behalf of the board of directors, chair Rebecca Seawright observed that Wilson "brings vision, commitment and expertise that will enable new paths to be forged at the oldest and most important publishing institution dedicated to feminist voices. We look forward to her leadership and to many successes."

Wilson commented: "I grew up reading Feminist Press books from my mother's shelf, and they were instrumental in developing my voice as an activist and writer. It's an honor to join this intergenerational team to enliven the press's intersectional vision of publishing unapologetic, accessible texts that inspire action, teach empathy, and build community. As I join this historic institution on the week of the 155th anniversary of Ida B. Wells's birth, I'm guided by her wisdom that 'the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.' It is with that spirit that I'll continue to build on FP's commitment to creating space for and representing a myriad of feminisms through books of all genres and beyond."

Australian book industry magazine Books+Publishing has launched the Think Australian newsletter, a free, monthly newsletter about the Australian book industry meant for an international trade audience. Each issue will highlight recent Australian rights sales, acquisitions, award-winners and bestsellers, and feature profiles of publishers, acquiring editors and authors. A sister newsletter, Think Australian Junior, will focus on kids and YA books. Think Australian the magazine, meanwhile, is published every year to coincide with the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Robert Wu, chairman and founder of Eslite Corp., one of the largest retail bookstore chains in Taiwan, died yesterday, the Taipei Times reported.  He was 66. Eslite was established in 1989, with its first bookshop in Taipei's Daan District. The company gradually expanded to 48 stores, one children's bookstore and four music stores in Taiwan. The first Eslite Bookstore outside the country opened in Hong Kong in 2012. Eslite also has branches in China.

Wu built his original bookstore "into an international chain of luxury book shops combined with fashion, design, lifestyle, gourmet food courts and even a hotel, often in fashionable locations. The original outlet became a 24-hour operation," Taiwan News wrote, adding that he "started off in the food and catering sector, but after developing an interest in books, he decided to give his career a new direction.... Wu saw his stores as cultural plazas more than as plain commercial sites."

The Straits Times noted that the "humble and mild-mannered Mr. Wu struggled with losses for the first 15 years of running Eslite, when the company specialized in books on art and architecture. But he persevered." In a talk at the City University of Hong Kong in 2014, he said, "I believed that reading is an integral part of life, and I did not want to see bookstores disappear in the commercial world."

Matthew Quick visited Downtown Books in Manteo, N.C., and spoke at Waverider's Coffee & Deli (where Downtown often holds events) about his new novel, The Reason You're Alive (HarperCollins). Quick opened with a monologue about his struggles with social anxiety and depression, and had the audience hanging on every word. Pictured: Jamie Anderson, owner, Downtown Books; Matthew Quick; Garnette Coleman, Downtown Books.

Describing Indigo Bridge Books in Lincoln, Neb., as "the eclectic, independent bookshop with a purpose," the Journal Star wrote that the business "invites you in to linger and relax in the company of a diverse selection of books and a cup of tea, or gather for conversation with friends old and new. It's an experience to savor and repeat as often as possible.... All books at Indigo Bridge have been hand-selected by staff, with each staff member taking responsibility for a section. "

"That's one of the things setting us apart from the big box bookstores," said Aja Martin, who has been at Indigo Bridge since it opened in 2008, first as a bookseller and then manager. "They have a lot more things, but we have some highly curated, important things. I hate to sound cheesy, but it also creates buy-in for the staff. This is their section. They're proud of it. They keep it tidy. They write shelf-talkers so people know what books they're excited about."

The Journal Star noted that "over the years, Indigo Bridge hasn't figured out what it wants to be, 'but I think we're proud of that,' said Martin. 'We do stand for specific principles, but we want to be responsive to the community, and our community is changing--sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly.' "

"How cool can libraries be in an era of iPads and Kindles? More than you think, if you know where to go," CNN promised in featuring "7 of the world's most beautiful libraries." 

As part of an expansion and reorganization of the recently integrated marketing, publicity and digital marketing teams in the Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division:

Chrissy Noh has been promoted to senior director of marketing for BFYR, Atheneum, Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, Margaret K McElderry, Salaam Reads, Beach Lane Books, Paula Wiseman Books and Saga Press.

Jill Hacking has been promoted to retail marketing coordinator.

Nicole Russo, senior director of publicity, will now head up the publicity team for Pulse, Aladdin, Little Simon, Simon Spotlight and Paula Wiseman Books. She will also oversee the publicity for Cassandra Clare.

Effective August 7, Lisa Moraleda is joining the company as director of publicity, overseeing BFYR, Atheneum, Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, Margaret K McElderry, Salaam Reads, Beach Lane Books and Saga Press. She formerly worked 10 years at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, where she was most recently associate director of publicity,

Effective July 25, Anna Jarzab is joining the company as digital marketing strategist, heading the newly expanded digital team. She will direct the overall strategies for the Riveted online community, social media channels, and other cross-imprint initiatives. She will also engage with marketing on our title-specific campaigns. She was formerly associate director of digital and social marketing at Penguin Young Readers.

As a result of the restructuring, Matt Pantoliano, associate digital marketing director, Katy Hershberger, associate publicity director, and Faye Bi, senior publicist, have left the company.

Lauren Hoffman, v-p and director of marketing & publicity, thanked the three for "their many contributions over the years" and wished them "well in their future endeavors."

Tropic of Kansas by Christopher Brown (Harper Voyager).

Tomorrow:
Tonight Show: Julie Klam, author of The Stars in Our Eyes: The Famous, the Infamous, and Why We Care Way Too Much About Them (Riverhead, $26, 9781594631368).

CBC has released a new teaser trailer for Alias Grace, a six-part miniseries based on Margaret Atwood's novel, directed by Mary Harron and written by Sarah Polley. A co-production between Netflix and CBC, the project stars Sarah Gadon, Kerr Logan, Paul Gross and Anna Paquin. Alias Grace will stream globally on Netflix outside of Canada in Fall 2017, debuting in Canada on CBC on September 25.

The winners of the 2017 New England Book Awards, sponsored by the New England Independent Booksellers Association and honoring books written by a New England author or set in New England, are:

Fiction: Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck (Morrow)
Nonfiction: Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel (Knopf)
Children's: Some Writer by Melissa Sweet (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Young Adult: Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee (Harper/Katherine Tegen Books)

The awards will be presented at the NEIBA Awards Banquet on September 19 in Providence, R.I.

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Travis Mossotti won the 2018 Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize for his collection Narcissus Americana. Two finalists were also named: Roy Bentley, for his collection Walking with Eve in the Loved City, and P. Scott Cunningham for his collection Ya Te Veo. The winner and finalists were chosen by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins.

The University of Arkansas Press will publish all three books, and Mossotti receives a $5,000 cash prize in addition to publication. The prize and series are named in honor of acclaimed poet Miller Williams, founding director of the press.

Collins said that "what often lures us into poems and keeps our interest is the poet's sensibility, that intangible element that arises from poet's tone, his or her verbal personality. That is what hooked me when I began to read Narcissus Americana."

photo: Christopher Kern

Sean Young is a professor at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founder and executive director of the UCLA Center for Digital Behavior and the UC Institute for Prediction Technology. He has a Ph.D. in psychology and Master's in health services research from Stanford University. His book Stick with It: A Scientifically Proven Process for Changing Your Life--for Good was published by Harper on June 20, 2017.

On your nightstand now:

Science! I'm reading scientific manuscripts of studies testing whether we can use social media data like Tweets to predict disease outbreaks. It's an area of informatics we study at our institute.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. I grew up loving animals and still do. What animal-loving kid wouldn't like a story about a boy and his love for his dogs that save his life? That set a high bar for my lazy dogs.

Your top five authors:

I loved Russian literature when I was in high school and college. I haven't gone back and reread them in a while, but remember that I spent hours in high school nerding out at the library on the literary critiques of Dostoyevsky and Lermontov.

Book you've faked reading:

Every book I was assigned in eighth grade. Great Expectations comes to mind, along with stories from religious school.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Market Wizards by Jack Schwager. This is an amazing book of interviews with hedge fund and financial wizards about their history and success. The financial education is only a small part of my excitement for the book. It's so psychological. They describe their hardships and how their own psychology used to psych them out and had them lose money year after year, but they gradually learned to master their psychology and it's demonstrated by their financial success. I think the lessons in the book can be applied across areas of life and behavior change.

Book you've bought for the cover:

A book of stamps.

Book you hid from your parents:

The book of letters from a girlfriend at the time.

Book that changed your life:

My health psychology course reader from my college health psych professor, Traci Mann. That's how I wound up studying psychology. But it wasn't really about the reader, it was the teacher.

Favorite line from a book:

My dad gave me one dollar bill
'Cause I'm his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
'Cause two is more than one!
--from "Smart," in Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends

Five books you'll never part with:

The ultimate book: The Pentateuch

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

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

In Wicked Like a Wildfire, Lana Popovic's gorgeous debut, the women of Iris's family are all witches who pass down a dangerous legacy of magic, some even dying for the beauty they create.

Iris remembers that the world of her childhood had been "brilliant and blazing and alive from every angle." Using her gleam (what her mother called "eating the moon"), Iris could make the whole world "explode into fractal fireworks." Twin sister Malina's gleam allowed her to harmonize three vocals by herself, creating "the precise pitch of wonder." But when a neighbor witnessed the seven-year-old twins and their mother, Jasmina, producing magic in their backyard, Jasmina put an end to the nighttime practices and forbade the use of magic ever again. That moment set Iris on a course of resentment and spite and, in turn, sparked a terrible, decade-long coldness from Jasmina.

Now 17, Iris feels like a thing apart, a "prickly offshoot" of the charm, grace and easy beauty her mother and sister share--the power to bloom had been her only way to feel both special and connected to the women in her family. One evening, Iris gets spectacularly wasted at a party and offers to "make a galaxy out of the ceiling" for an attractive new boy. Extremely hungover the next morning, she goes to work at Jasmina's café, where the appearance of a mysterious woman with striking white hair upsets Jasmina. When the woman leaves, Jasmina (who never drinks) gets stinking drunk and "weirdly lovey" with her black sheep daughter. The next day Iris arrives at the café to find blood everywhere and her mother's chest smashed in. Though Jasmina has no pulse and no heartbeat, something is keeping her from dying, keeping her faintly alive but moaning in relentless pain. And women begin appearing, women who also wield the gleam and issue conflicting demands of loyalty. Iris and Malina know they need to untangle the roots of their obscure family tree, so they set off with close friends (and brother and sister) Luka and Nikoleta on a road trip to find answers. Who was the white-haired woman? Who are these women with the gleam? And who was the new boy who let Iris make him a galaxy? What the teens find is a deadly curse passed down through the generations.

Popovic weaves a "wild and beautiful" tale, a contemporary world so seemingly different from our own that references to a "modern age full of mundane things" seem strangely out of place. The magic is old, going back to pre-Indo-European tribes and one woman who is at the heart of it all: a witch, a god, or both. Yet Iris's struggles with her mother ring true to any age, and the drive to create beauty feels universal. Readers will revel in the evocative language and sensory details that feel a time and place apart, in this first of a planned duology. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI

Shelf Talker: Twins Iris and Malina are forbidden to use their magic, but when their mother is attacked, they must make sense of a deadly curse and the family of witches they never knew they had.