"Understanding the first chapter of our national story is more essential today than ever. These books reconnect us with ideas that made the United States a beacon for democratic movements around the world."

Richard Johnson is stepping down from his position as Bonnier Publishing group CEO, effective immediately, after nine years in the role, the Bookseller reported. He is being replaced by Jim Zetterlund, current COO and CFO of Bonnier Books in Sweden. Zetterlund will be working in the U.K. on a daily basis, but still be based in Sweden.

"The company has reached a pivotal point in its history," Zetterlund said. "It has secured a strong foothold in the market and now it's time to increase our focus on fiction and narrative nonfiction and we will establish Bonnier Publishing as a fully-fledged publisher. Commercial nonfiction and mass-market publishing will continue to be an important part of our portfolio."

Effective March 1, the University of Washington Press is joining the University of Washington Libraries. In its announcement, the university said that the Press and Libraries "currently collaborate on a number of joint initiatives, including exploration of digital publishing platforms, open access publishing, open educational resources development, and support for digital scholarship. The Press has also published a number of books in association with the Libraries, including Rural China on the Eve of Revolution; Mary Randlett Portraits; Roots and Reflections: South Asians in the Pacific Northwest; and Shadows of a Fleeting World: Pictorial Photography of the Seattle Camera Club.

Lizabeth (Betsy) Wilson, vice provost of digital initiatives and dean of University Libraries, to whom the Press will now report, commented: "The Press and the Libraries share a complementary mission and vision for the creation, dissemination, and preservation of knowledge."

Nicole Mitchell, UW Press director, said, "My colleagues and I look forward to working more closely with the Libraries as we explore ways to support and make discoverable new forms of scholarship. We're excited about the opportunities to learn from each other and share our expertise."

In recent years, UW Press has expanded its publishing program, won many awards and received major funding, including significant grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: one to establish the Mellon University Press Diversity Fellowship program and another to create, with UBC Press, a new model for multi-path digital works in Indigenous studies in collaboration with local communities.

DIESEL in Brentwood, Calif., showed its support "for America's youth in fighting for rational, safe gun control legislation" with this window display. Owner John  Evans wrote, "What better way to say thanks for speaking out; we support you in what you are doing; and if you walk out of school and can't get to a march, a bookstore's a safe place to go and do some research!"

Independent Publishers Group's two in-house publishers, Chicago Review Press and Triumph Books, are integrating their production, marketing and publicity services.

As a result of the move, the following changes have been made:

Andrea Baird has been promoted to director of marketing for Chicago Review Press and Triumph Books. She was previously the marketing manager at Triumph Books.

Allison Felus has been promoted to director of production, Chicago Review Press and Triumph Books. She was previously the production manager at Chicago Review Press.

At IPG, Caitlin Eck has been promoted to director of publicity, overseeing publicity for Chicago Review Press and Trafalgar Square Publishing, as well as corporate communications for IPG. She was previously the publicity manager at Chicago Review Press.

Lauren Klouda has been promoted to director of marketing, IPG and Trafalgar Square Publishing. Previously, she was the marketing manager of print and digital books at IPG.

Cynthia Sherry remains the publisher of Chicago Review Press.

Noah Amstadter, the acquisitions director of Triumph Books, has been promoted to associate publisher of Triumph Books.

Mitch Rogatz, publisher at Triumph Books, has stepped down to pursue other opportunities.

Cynthia Sherry commented: "We're thrilled to be joining forces with another strong, independent Chicago publisher."

Noah Amstadter added: "In coming together, we're excited to grow both CRP and Triumph into even stronger, nimbler independent publishers. We look forward to learning from one another."

Founded in 1973, Chicago Review Press publishes about 60 titles a year in a range of areas and include the imprints Chicago Review Press, Lawrence Hill Books, Ball Publishing, Zephyr Press, Academy Chicago Publishers and Parenting Press.

Founded in 1989, Triumph Books is a sports book publisher. IPG acquired a majority interest in Triumph Books in 2011.

Bill Crider, "someone who wore nearly every hat in the mystery field--author, critic, columnist, reviewer," died February 12. He was 76. In a tribute, Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, wrote: "I've known Bill since 1990, when I bought the first book in his Truman Smith series (a book that went on to be nominated for the Shamus Award for best first P.I. novel) for the mystery line at Walker Books. When you consider Bill's incredible output--a half-dozen different mystery series (comprising more than 40 books), plus at least 16 standalones in genres outside the mystery, from horror to western to adventure, and five children's books--what stands out like a beacon is his modesty about it all. In a world in which self-promotion has become not only the norm but a necessity, I don't think I ever heard Bill, a multiple Anthony Award winner, offer an unsolicited word about his own work."

Crider's books include the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series, Carl Burns series, Stanley Waters series (co-authored with Willard Scott) and Sally Good series. He also contributed to three books in the Stone: M.I.A. Hunter series under the pseudonym Jack Buchanan.

Hutchings noted that Crider "knew about everyone else's work, though; he was a superfan, with one of the largest collections of mystery and crime fiction that's ever come to my attention.... Bill Crider's work has been so interwoven with my own career in mystery fiction that it will take time to process his absence."

In honor of the Winter Olympics that just ended in Pyeongchang, the Los Angeles Times "visited Koreatown's bookstores.... With new, used and specialty shops stocking comic books and manga, translations of bestsellers and literary fiction, as well as scores of workbooks for language learning, Koreatown is a destination for English, Korean and bilingual--or aspiring to be--readers of every age."

Posted on Facebook earlier this week by the Bookloft, Great Barrington, Mass., to promote Thursday's Poetry Night event: "Reading is not required, but we want everyone to feel free to have fun with it. For those who like to decide on the spur of the moment that they'd like to read, there will be assorted poems in the proverbial hat to choose from! PLUS, ALL POETRY BOOKS ARE 10% OFF that night for attendees!" The chalkboard reads:

Emily Malter has been hired as sales assistant, special markets, at Chronicle Books. Previously she was a research assistant at Sunset Magazine.

I Am a Warrior Goddess by Jennifer Adams, illustrated by Carme Lemniscates (Sounds True).

Today:
Fresh Air: Tim Kreider, author of I Wrote This Book Because I Love You: Essays (Simon & Schuster, $26, 9781476738994).

Fox News's the Story with Martha MacCallum: Mark Weinberg, author of Movie Nights with the Reagans: A Memoir (Simon & Schuster, $28, 9781501133992). He will also appear tomorrow on Fox Business's Varney & Co.

Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Patton Oswalt discusses I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by his late wife, Michelle McNamara (Harper, $27.99, 9780062319784). He will also appear tomorrow on the View.

Late Night with Seth Meyers: Stephanie Wittels Wachs, author of Everything Is Horrible and Wonderful: A Tragicomic Memoir of Genius, Heroin, Love, and Loss (Sourcebooks, $25.99, 9781492664109).

Tomorrow:
The Chew: Sebastian Maniscalco, author of Stay Hungry (Gallery, $25, 9781501115974).

The Real: Iyanla Vanzant, author of Get Over It!: Thought Therapy for Healing the Hard Stuff (Hay House, $24, 9781401944018).

Stephen King's narrative poem The Bone Church has been acquired by Chris Long and David Ayer's Cedar Park Entertainment, which will be develop it as a TV series, Deadline reported, adding that King wrote the poem in the 1960s and after a later revision it was published as part of the anthology, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. This deal extends the relationship between King and Long, who was an executive producer on the adaptation of Mr. Mercedes for the Audience Network. Ayer most recently directed the Netflix hit Bright.

The finalists for the 2018 George Washington Prize, which recognizes " best-written works on the nation's founding era, especially those that have the potential to advance broad public understanding of early American history," are:

The New Map of Empire: How Britain Imagined America before Independence by S. Max Edelson (Harvard University Press)
George Washington: A Life in Books by Kevin J. Hayes (Oxford University Press)
Boston's Massacre by Eric Hinderaker (Harvard University Press)
Patrick Henry: Champion of Liberty by Jon Kukla (Simon & Schuster)
The Burr Conspiracy Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis by James E. Lewis, Jr. (Princeton University Press)
The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century America by Jennifer Van Horn (University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture)
Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England by Douglas L. Winiarski (University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture)

The winner of the $50,000 prize, sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, George Washington's Mount Vernon and Washington College, will be announced at a gala on May 23 at Mount Vernon.

In 2011, award-winning journalist Rania Abouzeid was blacklisted by the Syrian regime, designated a spy and banned from entering the country. She continued to enter Syria illegally with the advantage of her fluency in Arabic and her ability to blend into crowds. No Turning Back is an account of her six years following civilians, soldiers, gun runners, children, a doctor, a cleric, poets, prisoners and activists as their country devolved into a bitter civil war. For the most part, it is told in their voices. "I went to Syria to see, to investigate, to listen--not to talk over people who can speak for themselves. They are not voiceless. It is not my story. It is theirs."

Abouzeid describes Syria as a state "built on silence, and fear, and... [a] permanent state of emergency." Syrians, scarred by decades of a repressive regime, were pushed beyond the end of their patience by generations of violence and grief, and broke out into protests. "Many had stories about a brother, a daughter, a neighbor, a friend who was killed or wounded or disappeared. They wanted to be heard. Modesty was discarded as clothing was edged away to reveal scars, electrical burns, or the red-raw anger of bullet wounds. Mobile phones, like so many fireflies, lit up with grisly images of corpses that were once loved ones."

"Everybody here is a martyr in waiting. Either we die free or we die," a young man in a crowd shouts. "And besides, he said, he was sure the international community would soon demand an end to the violence: 'They can't stay quiet forever as we die, can they?' "

Abouzeid carefully disentangles the significance of complex and shifting political, ethnic and religious identities involved, and provides expert historical and political context, maintaining strict objectivity and taking no sides. She explains her criteria for believing a story, and how she came to be deceived in her earlier reporting of certain incidents. Readers may still be horrified by the actions of some of her subjects, but will come away with a better understanding of their motivations. Some of Abouzeid's subjects flee Syria, adapt and don't want to return. Others face the terrible choice between staying despite lost homes, family and friends, risk of being tortured and losing their lives--or becoming an exile from the country and people they love and for whom they have sacrificed so much. This may be the most intimate and epic account yet for the ongoing tragedy of the Syrian civil war. --Sara Catterall

Shelf Talker: An intimate and epic account of the Syrian civil war, from six years on the front lines.