"I feel like I am, in so many ways, the product of indie bookstores. I grew up in the Bay Area, and there were two bookstores in Berkeley on Telegraph Avenue--Cody's Books (which is no longer there) and Moe's Books. They were basically a few doors down from each other and they were my two favorite places to go when I was a kid. Moe's is this amazing used bookstore.... I love my books and I love these bookshops. They made me who I am, as a reader, as a writer, as a person. I am able to do this job because of indie bookshops.... 

"Booksellers know so many of the families who come into that shop, like truly know them, know what they've read, what they've liked and what they haven't, and can guide them to those books that will matter most to them. Even when a stranger walks through that door, they often don't leave a stranger. Booksellers are the reason anybody ever found my stuff in the first place."

Independent Bookstore Day Spirit Week continued with "We Wear Bookstore Shirts" on Wednesday and "Book Character Dress-up" on Thursday. Among the indies participating:

At the Book Stall

Bookstore Shirts
The Book Stall, Winnetka, Ill.: "We're honoring Indie Spirit Week here at The Book Stall. Here are some of our booksellers in GLIBA Gear, Book Stall Gear, and shirts from Boulder Book Store and Brain Lair. Left to right: Kathleen, Nicole, Christine, Leah, Mike, Kari. Happy IBD Spirit  Week!"

Sidetrack Bookshop, Royal Oak, Mich.: "Today's @americanbooksellers Spirit Week prompt is: On Wednesdays, We Wear Bookstore Shirts! We are representing some of our faves: Courtney is repping @whistlersdaughterbooks, Jen is repping @magiccitybooks, Eva is repping @roeblingbooks, And Alexa is repping @dramabookshop. We love celebrating other indie bookshops, especially on this very exciting week!"

BookPeople, Austin, Tex.: "We're celebrating #BookstoreSpiritWeek and looking forward to Independent Bookstore Day by wearing bookstore shirts (and hats!) including ones from some of our favorite other bookstores in the country.⁠"

At Chaucer's Books

Chaucer's Books, Santa Barbara, Calif.: "Today we celebrate other indie bookstores we love! Staff wearing gear from @leftbankbooks, @lostcitybooks, @tworiversbooks, @factnfictionbooks, and a bookstore crawl shirt from an old Independent Bookstore Day."

Parnassus Books, Nashville, Tenn.: "We're celebrating Indie Bookstore Day Spirit Week as we count down to the big day on Saturday, and today's theme is 'On Wednesdays We Wear Bookstore Merch!' Shoutout to all these great indies we're repping today."

Bookish, Fort Smith, Ark.: "Since it's #bookstorespiritweek we're participating in 'On Wednesdays We Wear Bookstore Shirts' to gear up for #IndieBookstoreDay happening THIS Saturday, April 25th! Tomorrow's theme is 'Book Character Dress-Up Day' in honor of World Book Day! Stop by tomorrow and join us in dressing up as your favorite book character!"

Books+, Fishers, Ind.: "On Wednesdays we wear the bookstore T-shirts of our friends."

Good on Paper Books & Stationery, Houston, Tex.: "We love participating in the themed posts leading up to #indiebookstoreday! Today is 'On Wednesdays We Wear Bookstore Shirts.' Whose style are you copying?"

Brick & Mortar Books, Redmond, Wash.: "Independent Bookstore Day Spirit Week continues with today's theme: On Wednesdays We Wear Bookstore Shirts! Our fabulous staff came prepared with Brick & Mortar Books style."

At Page 1 Bookstore

Book Character Dress-up
Page 1 Bookstore, Albuquerque, N.Mex.: "Countdown to Independent Bookstore Day! Our booksellers are getting into the spirit and getting in costumes featuring some of our favorite book characters! Who would be your character?"

Gibson's Bookstore, Concord, N.H.: "Happy #BookstoreSpiritWeek! We're counting down the days to Indie Bookstore Day (this Saturday!!!) with Bookstore Spirit Week! Today is Book Character Dress-Up Day, and our booksellers had so much fun! Take a look at their clever costumes!"

Browseabout Books, Rehoboth Beach, Del.: "Thursday is 'Book Character Dress-Up Day' for Indie Bookstore Spirit Week! Tomorrow, catch us all repping the store in our Browseabout merch--and feel free to join in!

Starr Books, Royersford, Pa.: "BOOK CHARACTER DAYYYYY! Show your spirit!

Remi Reads Bookstore, Weedsport, N.Y.: "HAPPY INDIE BOOKSTORE DAY SPIRIT WEEK DAY AT REMI READS. Book character dress up day and who doesn't look classic Dr. Seuss & The Cat and the Hat? Come into the store dressed as your fav bookish character & take home a FREE ARC (advanced readers copy)."

Bettie's Pages, Lowell, Mich.: "Today's #BookstoreSpiritWeek Book character dress-up day! I struggled with this for a hot minute when I realized I'd be working today. But I knew I wanted to wear my fav fashion staple... Overalls! Know who loves characters in overalls? Queer/sapphic romances. I am fully on board with embracing my stereotype in this situation!"

Twig Book Shop, San Antonio, Tex.: "Guess the characters! (Hint: you've definitely seen them on our shelves) Book Character Day for Indie Bookstore Spirit Week!"

Story Line Bookstore, St. Paul, Minn.: "USPS getting the job done and completing the group. Happy 100 years to our favorite silly ol' bear and a happy #bookcharacterday to all!"

Main Street Books, St. Charles, Mo.: "Frog and Toad in the house! Jess and Chris are fully in on Indie Bookstore Spirit Week this week! Really, we will take any excuse to dress up like our favorite book characters. We can't wait to see you for @indiebookstoreday on Saturday!"

At HarperCollins, Stephanie Fryling has been named president of sales, leading the U.S. trade sales business across all retail channels, including national accounts, independent bookstores, mass market outlets, and online platforms, as well as distribution partners, effective May 11. Last month, HarperCollins reorganized its sales team into two groups--divisional sales and channel sales--that reported to the interim president of sales.

Stephanie Fryling

Liate Stehlik, CEO and publisher, U.S. trade, to whom Fryling will report, said, "Stephanie brings a rare combination of dynamic leadership, sharp commercial insight, and a deep understanding of the book market. Her proven ability to identify growth opportunities, build strong partnerships, and lead teams through change makes her exceptionally well suited for this role. We're confident she will propel our sales organization forward and translate bold growth ideas into action."

Most recently, Fryling was senior v-p, adult retail sales at Penguin Random House, where she led adult retail sales teams serving Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and independent bookstores, while overseeing PRH Publisher Services client sales across retail, mass, and online channels. Before joining Penguin Random House, Fryling spent more than a decade at Barnes & Noble, holding several senior leadership roles, including v-p, commercial strategy and category management, and v-p, merchandising, children's books.

Fryling said, "I'm excited to join HarperCollins at such a pivotal moment for the industry. What draws me most is HarperCollins's deep commitment to authors, readers, and the booksellers who bring stories to life every day. At the heart of this business is the idea that behind every sale is a reader discovering something meaningful--and I'm eager to work alongside this team to strengthen those connections, support our publishing, and find new ways to grow together in a rapidly evolving market."

The Book Bird bookstore, coffee shop, and wine bar will host a grand opening celebration today in its new location in The Dale, a commercial development at 70 N. Avondale Rd. Ste. 120-130, in Avondale Estates, Ga., Decaturish reported. Owners Brittany Smith and Amie Waltzer started their bookstore in 2023 in a co-op at 32 N. Avondale Rd. before moving into the larger space. 

"It was time," Smith said. "We always wanted to be in the new development at The Dale. We wanted to expand our concept to be able to offer customers the opportunity to be a one-stop shop and keep all of our events and book clubs in-house. We wanted to create something unique while keeping the magic and charm of independent bookstores."

Waltzer added that they "wanted to create a space where people could not only find their next read, but also to sit and read it either in peace or with like-minded folks. This space offers so many different ways to experience literature and to gather with a dynamic community."

The Book Bird will host community events and offer a wide selection of books, along with book clubs for younger readers and storytime for children in both English and Spanish. The bookstore is partnering with Decatur's Wonder Lab for the storytime events. There will also be open mic nights every month featuring the work of local poets. "The store is proud to spotlight local authors," the owners noted. 

One More Page bookstore had its soft opening on April 7 and a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the C-Street Merchants Association on April 15 at 306 E. Commercial St. in Springfield, Mo. The Daily Citizen reported that owner Laurali Carroll, who plans to expand the business with a liquor license soon, said Historic C-Street was her ideal place to put the store.

"Commercial Street, to me, is a place that I've seen evolve over the last 20 years to such a vibrant community," she noted. "And I thought, if Springfield needs another bookstore, this is where they need one."

One More Page features new books in a range of categories. "I really just wanted to have something that would appeal to a variety of people," Carroll said. "I'm trying to have a little bit of everything." The bookstore's logo incorporates Carroll's dog, a pit-mix named Sadie. "I would love to have (Sadie) here, but she's way too enthusiastic. We probably won't have a pet in store, but pets are welcome."

Carroll purchased the 3,300-square-foot building that houses her bookstore last fall and renovations began almost immediately, though she said they were mostly cosmetic. She added that she bought the property as an investment in the community.

"I want to be a real part of the community," Carroll noted. "I wanted to be a part of C-Street. I wanted to be fully invested--figuratively and literally--in this community."

The bookstore will eventually offer beer and wine, as Carroll is starting the process of applying for a liquor license and hopes to have one by the end of the year. One More Page will "probably do glasses of wine and maybe beer, just so people can come have a glass of wine and look at books, talk about books, just kind of hang out," she said.

Community events are also key. "Part of my mission is that I want to be part of the community at large and help serve the neighborhoods around us," Carroll said. "I want to do story time. I want to have local authors. And I'd love to do some drag queen story times as well. You know, we want to be here for everyone."

The focus of the business, however, will always be books. "We'll be more bookstore than bar," she noted.

Andrew Hacker, "a scholar of political science who wrote a host of provocative books on education, race relations and what he called a growing chasm between women and men," died April 21, the New York Times reported. He was 96. 

"To say that Professor Hacker, who taught at Queens College for over 50 years, was a contrarian hardly captured the audacity of his attacks on conventional ideas," the Times wrote. "He declared that colleges were failing to educate students and that high school math was a waste of time. He called men selfish, and said a war between the sexes was intensifying. He argued during the Vietnam War that the United States was falling apart or ungovernable, or both."

"I combine information, analysis and irritation, all intended to get readers thinking," wrote Hacker, whose work included more than a dozen books, as well as book reviews and essays for the New York Times and the New York Review of Books.

Among his books are The End of the American Era (1970), Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal (1992), Mismatch: The Growing Gulf Between Women and Men (2003), and The Math Myth and Other STEM Delusions (2016). Hacker's more recent writings concerned education. He collaborated with Claudia Dreifus, his partner (and later wife) and a writer for the Times, on Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids--And What We Can Do About It (2010).

In an interview for his Times obituary in 2018, Hacker attributed his career choices largely to the influence of a professor at Amherst College, whom he did not name: "He was more than a role model. He was a human model. There is a whole lot about him inside me, in terms of character and personality, a certain cynicism perhaps, an inflection in the voice. In some portion, I became that person. He's why I became a teacher."

A political science major, Hacker graduated from Amherst in 1951, from Oxford with a master's degree in 1953, and from Princeton with a doctorate in 1955. He then joined Cornell as a lecturer, rose to full professor in 1966, and moved to Queens College in 1971.

His last book was Downfall: The Demise of a President and His Party (2020), an analysis of what he predicted would be the mutual self-destruction of Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party, the Times wrote, adding that at his death, "he was at work on a project about Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and their conflicting ideas about America's future."

Barnes & Noble at The Grove, Los Angeles, Calif., hosted the launch event for Marcus Kliewer's (front) The Caretaker, with actress/author Judy Greer (front, left) moderating. The Caretaker is the inaugural title from the 12:01 Books horror imprint, and Emily Bestler, Scott Glassgold, and Liz Parker, who are behind the joint venture, were in attendance, along with David Bruckner, director of upcoming movie version of The Caretaker.

Co-owners Suzanna Hermans and Dick Hermans flank Sen. Michelle Hinchey.

Congratulations to Oblong Books, Rhinebeck and Millerton, N.Y., which has been designated part of the New York State Historic Business Preservation Registry. The Registry honors and promotes New York businesses that have operated for 50 years or more and have made meaningful contributions to their communities. Designated businesses are featured on an interactive online map managed by the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to encourage visitors and patronage.

State Senator Michelle Hinchey, who nominated Oblong Books for the Registry, said, "Across two generations of family stewardship, Oblong Books has flourished as a beloved Hudson Valley institution and community bookstore. Oblong has stood the test of time, even in the age of e-commerce, because it has remained authentically true to its mission of human connection and a heartfelt commitment to quality service that keeps people coming back. I'm proud to award Oblong Books a place on the New York State Historic Business Preservation Registry, and by every measure, the best chapters of its story are still ahead."

Kathy Mosher, acting commissioner of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, added, "Oblong Books is a shining example of the small businesses that define New York's character and strengthen our communities. We are grateful to Senator Michelle Hinchey for recognizing this Hudson Valley institution and securing its place on the New York State Historic Business Preservation Registry. Through this important program, we are proud to celebrate long-standing businesses like Oblong that have fostered meaningful community connections and continue to draw visitors to explore and support the unique local economies that make New York so special."

Suzanna Hermans, co-owner of Oblong Books, said, "We are honored to see Oblong included among New York's Historic Businesses. Businesses like ours do not happen by chance, they happen when people work incredibly hard to build something they believe in, and when the community rises to support them. We are immensely grateful to our staff and customers for making our dream of building a long-lasting community bookstore come true."

During Poetry Month, Camino Books in Del Mar, Calif., "has been posting daily videos of us reading our favorite poems," including works by Michael Ondaatje, Mary Oliver, Maggie Smith, Ada Limón, and more. Videos are featured on the bookshop's Instagram page. 

Interabang Books in Dallas, Tex, shared a pic of its colorful sidewalk chalkboard in front of the store, promoting tomorrow's Indie Bookstore Day.

Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home by Dr. Katharine K. Wilkinson (Andrews McMeel Publishing).

Netflix is developing The Nanny Diaries, a series based on the bestselling book by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. Deadline reported that Scarlett Johansson, who starred in the 2007 film adaptation of the novel, is executive producing the project, from Greg Berlanti's Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television.
 
Written and executive produced by Amy Chozick (The Girls on the Bus) and Jenny Bicks (Sex and the City) who will serve as showrunners, The Nanny Diaries "centers on Annie, a broke, aspiring writer in search of a story who takes a nanny job for a magnetic Upper East Side socialite, plunging into an elite world of unimaginable excess. When she lands the book deal of her dreams to go undercover and expose the salacious lives of the ultra-rich, Annie must try to keep up this double life even as she grows attached to the people and this world... and finds out what her elusive boss is actually capable of," Deadline noted. 

"In a competitive situation," Fifth Season has acquired the rights to High Rise, the 2025 novel by Australian writer Gabriel Bergmoser, Deadline reported. The author will write a film adaptation and Patrick Hughes is directing, "in a reunion with Hidden Pictures and Huge Film following their work on the recent Netflix hit War Machine." 

"Billed as Die Hard meets The Raid, High Rise follows a rogue ex-cop who tracks down his estranged daughter to a grimy high-rise--only to find she doesn't want to be rescued, least of all by him. Before either can react, the entire city's criminal underworld descends on the building with a bounty on his head and no concern for her survival," Deadline wrote.

Hughes said, "We're thrilled to be partnering again with Hidden Pictures, it's a relationship we really value. High Rise also gives us a chance to continue championing Australian talent, which sits at the heart of Huge Film."

Hannah Ritchie won the £10,000 (about $13,480) Unwin Award, which recognizes nonfiction writers "in the earlier stages of their careers as authors, whose work is considered to have made a significant contribution to the world." Supported by the Unwin Charitable Trust and administered by the Publishers Association, the prize "is intended to champion and showcase the value of the U.K. publishing industry to the world, and rewards an author for their overall body of work." 

Ritchie is the author of two works of nonfiction: Not the End of the World (2024) and Clearing the Air (2025). The judges praised Not the End of the World as "a well-written and revealing book and for its optimistic and data-grounded approach which gives readers hope for the future of the planet. The panel recognized Hannah's masterful handling of this ambitious subject matter and praised how she drilled into it using data and science. They believe this book will continue to have a huge impact on readers long after publication, along with her second non-fiction book, Clearing the Air, which is also about climate change. Hannah has kindly decided to donate the prize money to the Against Malaria Foundation."

Chair of judges Claudia Hammond said Ritchie's "meticulous marshalling of the evidence shows that there has been more progress than we might think and that there is hope. And hope is something we all need at the moment."

photo: Leah Ramuglia

Caroline Bicks is the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine. She writes academic and popular books about Shakespeare's plays and world, and cohosts the Everyday Shakespeare podcast. Her humorous pieces have appeared in the Modern Love column of the New York Times and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King (Hogarth, April 21, 2026) chronicles what she discovered when Stephen King granted her access to his private archive and talked to her about how he crafted his most iconic stories.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

An English professor walks into the King of Horror's archive, faces her childhood fears, and gets to know the man whose stories first unleashed them.

On your nightstand now:

James Ijames's hilarious Hamlet adaptation, Fat Ham; Charlotte Perkins Gilman's feminist utopia, Herland; and Stephen King's It. I like to be prepared for whatever mood strikes me at the end of the day.

Favorite book when you were a child:

I was a city kid, so I was fascinated by books about girls surviving in the wilderness (or what seemed like the wilderness from my limited perspective). Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins was one of my favorites, but I also couldn't stop reading the Little House on the Prairie series. I used to put on this flannel nightgown I had and pretend I was Laura Ingalls crawling across the floor with scarlet fever to get a ladle of water. Melodrama was my love language back then.

Your top five authors:

Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, Toni Morrison, William Shakespeare, and Jeanette Winterson. All of these authors turn narrative convention on its head; and they all mobilize the sensory effects of language to take me to unexpected emotional places.

Book you've faked reading:

I was supposed to read James Joyce's Ulysses for my PhD oral exam but never made it through. Every time I try to untangle his (brilliant, I know) intertextual references, I lose the story and abandon it. Elevator Repair Service just premiered a production of Ulysses at the Public Theater in New York City that I hear is fabulous, with lots of beer guzzling and debauchery. If I ever get to see it, maybe I'll become a convert.

Books you're an evangelist for:

Jeanette Winterson's novel Written on the Body was unlike anything I'd ever read before when I picked it up in 1992. It's a gorgeous meditation on love, desire, and embodiment that keeps the narrator's gender unspecified for 190 pages. Twenty years later, she wrote her memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, about searching for her origins (and so much more). It tries to answer the question that haunts Written on the Body: Why is the measure of love loss? Now I'm obsessed with both of these books and teach them whenever I can.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Bette Greene's Summer of My German Soldier. I bought it at the Scholastic book fair in the seventh grade because it had a picture of Kristy McNichol on the cover from the television film.

Book you hid from your parents:

Judy Blume's Forever. Actually, I first tried to hide it from the school librarian by checking it out tucked in with a pile of books (like she'd never seen that move before). Forever was the closest thing to porn that a 1970s kid was going to find in their middle-school library. Until Scott Spencer's Endless Love came along.

Book that changed your life:

I read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale when I was 20 and living in the same city where the book takes place. I'll never forget when June tries to use her credit card at a local store and it's declined. Atwood's dystopia crystallized everything I was scared of as a young woman and everything I was figuring out at the time about what I needed to fight for.

Book that made you laugh and cry:

Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half, based on her web comic/blog. She uses stick-figure drawings and hilarious vignettes about her life to get at some very unfunny truths about living with depression.

Favorite line from a book:

I could write a whole book about Shakespeare lines that have rocked my world (I talk about some of them in Monsters in the Archives), but I'm going to go with a non-Shakespearean favorite here. Although Ulysses leaves me cold, I love the last line of Joyce's short story "The Dead" from Dubliners: "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." The poetry of the first half--all those soft sounds and faintly falling snowflakes--lulls you into this sense of peace; and then, with one simile, Joyce slides you toward the bleakest universal truth about humanity. It guts me every time.

Five books you'll never part with:

My childhood editions of L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, Grimm's Fairy Tales, and E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, my eighth-grade copy of Shakespeare's Macbeth, and my 1979 paperback of Stephen King's The Shining (with photo inserts from the Stanley Kubrick film). I love to save original copies of books that take me back to significant memories (like learning to read) and to emotions that shook me--often with fear or sadness, but sometimes with wonder.

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

Daniel Mason's North Woods. It has one of the best surprise endings since Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.

"I was never really in the world," the great Scottish author Muriel Spark told an interviewer late in her long life. That would explain her ability to squirrel herself away and write 22 novels, some of them among the finest of her time, as well as poetry, plays, and short stories. Her colorful life has been catnip for biographers since Spark, a lifelong cat lover, died at 88 in 2006. One such biography is Like a Cat Loves a Bird by the English critic James Bailey, author of the scholarly analysis Muriel Spark's Early Fiction. With this volume, he widens the aperture for a reverent and engrossing look at Spark's peripatetic life.

Bailey became obsessed with Spark, "perhaps modern literature's finest shapeshifter," when he read her most famous work, 1961's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Once he finished the rest of her output, he was struck by "how deceptively violent her books are," with shootings and cannibalism, and "in one particularly grisly scene, a corkscrew driven through the neck," a reference to The Ballad of Peckham Rye. Her range of subjects made her a hard author to pin down. Bailey wrote this book to capture "this lifelong slipperiness, this sense of perpetual reinvention," and to present, as he puts it, "a series of flickering sparks, each illuminating a different aspect of a life in constant motion."

The result is an affectionate work that covers Spark's Edinburgh childhood, when she was already "an avid watcher of others"; her years in South Africa, when, at 19, she married 32-year-old Sydney Oswald Spark, who, Spark learned too late, "had been suffering from a serious mental illness for some time"; her escape to England, leaving Sydney and young son Robin behind, to create wartime propaganda for the Foreign Office in Milton Bryan; her controversial postwar stint as general secretary of London's Poetry Review; her midlife conversion from Judaism to Catholicism; her eventual success as a novelist; and her final years living in Tuscany. To its credit, Bailey's book is not indiscriminately adulatory. He doesn't hesitate to criticize works like The Mandelbaum Gate, which he says is "riddled with contrivances," and he calls 1970's The Driver's Seat "a deeply unsettling book." But he's clearly a fan, and readers unfamiliar with Spark's work will be, too, after reading this excellent book. -- Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Shelf Talker: Like a Cat Loves a Bird by the English critic James Bailey is an appreciative but by no means indiscriminately adulatory biography of the great Scottish novelist Muriel Spark.