Shelf Awareness aims to champion commendable writing, books with striking prose, distinctive premises, and captivating author voices. When a book excels in any or all of these areas, Shelf editors highlight the title by awarding it a star in our consumer-oriented newsletter, Shelf Awareness for Readers. We are now bringing the star feature to Shelf Awareness Pro. Starring special titles in Pro will help booksellers and librarians identify books of extraordinary merit at an earlier date and offer publishers and authors an opportunity to highlight a key title before pub date. Our first starred review, for Gish Jen's Bad Bad Girl (Knopf), appears in Pro today.

Total book industry revenue in 2024 rose 4.1%, to $32.5 billion, and unit sales rose 3.4%, to 3.1 billion, according to the Association of American Publishers' StatShot Annual Report for 2024, prepared by Industry Insights, which includes estimates of sales beyond those reported monthly to the AAP and reported on in its monthly StatShots. The annual report also includes information about trends in retail channels and general trends over the past five years.

Syreeta Swann, the AAP's COO, commented: "This year's report shows encouraging levels of year-over-year growth across multiple categories during 2024 and paints a picture of an industry that is dynamic, fast-moving, and continuing to evolve. In reference to the five-year period covered by StatShot Annual, we saw the continuation of some long-term trends, including the dominance of print formats, which accounted for more than half of the overall market for each of the five years, and sustained growth for the digital audio format, which has seen a revenue increase of nearly 80% since 2020."

The results showed that in the past five years, sales in bricks-and-mortar bookstores and other physical locations had the largest gain (48%) compared to other sales channels such as online (up 25.4%); that print represented the majority of online sales last year (57.1%); and digital audio (up 78.1%) gained more than any other format in the last five years, while e-book revenue rose only 2%.

In 2024, online retail revenue rose 10.8%, to $12 billion; physical retail was up 3.3%, to $6.2 billion; and direct sales rose 1.3%, to $7.1 billion. Export sales climbed 5.8%, to $1.1 billion.

Of online sales, 57.1% of revenue was print, 34.5% was digital (e-books and digital audio), 6.5% was instructional material (schools and professional books), and 1.9% was physical audio and other formats.

As for formats, during 2024, digital audio jumped 22.5%, to $2.4 billion; hardcovers rose 3.6%, to $7.9 billion; paperback was up 3.2%, to $7.8 billion; and e-books rose 1.5%, to $2.2 billion.

Between 2020 and 2024, book industry revenue rose 22.1%. Trade, the single-largest category, rose 23%. Other categories with major gains were religious presses, up 52%; pre-K-12, up 53%; and university presses, up 25.8%. Categories with minimal gains were higher ed, up 0.7%; and professional books, up 1.7%.

In terms of format, digital audio was the biggest gainer between 2020 and 2024, with sales up 78.1%. Paperback revenue jumped 31.7%, and hardcovers were up 16.7%. E-book revenues rose only 2%. Two formats that have been receding in popularity for some time had considerable losses: physical audio revenue fell 67.7%, and mass market dropped 44.7%.

Between 2020 and 2024, the biggest gain in revenue by channel was physical retail, up 48% (from $4.2 billion in 2020 to $6.2 billion in 2024). The other large gainers were online retail (including physical and digital products), up 25.4% (from $9.5 billion in 2020 to $12 billion in 2024), and direct, up 31.8%. Intermediary channel revenue rose 4%, and exports fell 5.1%.

Over the past five years, trade revenue rose 23%. Fiction continued to gain faster than nonfiction: adult fiction revenue was up 50.8% while adult nonfiction was down 0.3%. Children's/YA fiction rose 20%, and children's/YA nonfiction was up 9.2%.

For more information and to purchase a copy of the report, click here.

The board of directors of the Seminary Co-op Bookstores, Chicago, Ill., has named Kevin Bendle its new executive director. Since July 2024, Daniel Y. Mayer had been serving as interim executive director after Jeff Deutsch stepped down from the position in May of last year. 

Kevin Bendle

On behalf of the board, chair Katie Parsons said that Bendle "has 24 years of experience in bookselling and managing bookstores, primarily with a series of Barnes & Noble University bookstores. He was, among other things, manager of the University of Chicago B&N in Hyde Park and at the Gleacher Center for most of those 24 years. Kevin knows our stores well and we are certain of his commitment to maintaining their unique character and mission for both the University and the wider South Side Community.... We look forward to his leadership ensuring that the Seminary Co-op and 57th Street Books will continue to serve our communities for another 65 years."

"I am excited to join the Seminary Co-op Bookstores team, and am humbled to steward these cultural institutions," Bendle said. "I look forward to meeting you in the stacks!"

Regarding his prior experience, Bendle told the Hyde Park Herald: "I always saw that our relationship at these locations were different than just a corporate bookstore, because we served a community we interacted with on an ongoing, regular basis. It was a bookstore that actually was an entwined part of the campus community."

Bendle added that the Co-op is "a place for intellectual inquiry, community events and this curated assortment of books. And that will not change. What will change is that there will be a next generation of readers coming up. So, the question is, how do we embrace that, and how do we welcome them in?"

He also noted that his first two weeks at the Seminary Co-op have reaffirmed why he took the job: "It's been wonderful to meet people in the community and meet the booksellers. I'm very excited for our future."

Bonsai Books, which opened in 2023 at 126 Quincy Road in Cheyenne, Wyo., will close at the end of the year. Co-owners Sarah and Jason John announced their "difficult decision" in a post on social media, noting that this "wasn't an easy choice, but we're deeply grateful for everyone who's been part of our journey.... Thank you for your trust, encouragement, and loyalty--it's meant the world to us." 

They added: "From our family at Bonsai Books, thank you. To everyone who has walked through our doors, shared a conversation, bought a book, or simply stopped by--your support over the past two years has meant the world to us. We've met so many incredible people along the way, and we are deeply grateful. As we turn the page to a new chapter in life, we invite you to stop by one last time--grab a great book for yourself or a friend, sip on one of our delicious drinks, and help us celebrate the journey we've shared together."

Sarah John told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle that she wants to make it clear her decision to close the store is not reflective of the community's support: "I don't want to say that people haven't been supporting us, because the town has supported us greatly, and we have been so thankful for all of their support. It doesn't really have anything to do with that. It's kind of more like the behind-the-scenes type of stuff. It always seems like we've got another hoop to jump through."

She said that Bonsai Book Club will continue, and noted there is a small chance someone may decide to buy the bookstore from her to keep it open, but that is not confirmed.

"I do think that people are going to miss it," she added. "I'm going to miss it, for sure. The community is what I'm really going to miss. I've made a lot of friends opening this business, and so that's the hard part."

Zdena Salivarova, a Czech publisher and writer "who established an émigré press that kept her country's literature alive for years after Russian tanks stamped out Czechoslovakia's renaissance in 1968," died August 25, the New York Times reported. She was 91. Salivarova "was overshadowed by her famous husband, the novelist Josef Skvorecky, whose depiction of how individuals cope with the tyrannical Czech state made him one of his country's leading late-20th-century writers, along with Vaclav Havel and Milan Kundera."

Salivarova published all three of them, along with many other writers, after establishing 68 Publishers in 1971 in the couple's Toronto apartment when they were in exile. Eventually they moved the operation to small offices in the city, where Salivarova managed the operation, typeset the books, took them to the post office and sometimes sent them back across the Iron Curtain for free.

The works of more than 200 writers, including her husband, had been banned by the Communist regime, but 68 Publishers was launched "into competition with Czechoslovakia's official publishing establishment," Times reporter Michael Kaufman wrote in 1983.

By the time the company ceased operations in 1993, "after the Velvet Revolution in Prague had overturned the Communist regime and made the couple's work superfluous, they had published 227 books by dozens of exiled and underground writers, and some 12,000 people were on their mailing list," the Times wrote.

"At a certain point she did almost everything: typeset, design, she hired people to do the art for the cover," said Paul Wilson, who was Skvorecky's translator and knew the couple well. "She laid out the books. She was there all the time. She came in early and stayed late."

In an interview contained in The Achievement of Josef Skvorecky (1994), edited by Sam Solecki, Salivarova recalled when the idea of starting a publishing house first came up, "Josef was very insecure, anxious, nervous. He said, 'What if we get bankrupt? Everybody in Prague will be so happy.' " The company's first book was Skvorecky's unpublished early novel The Republic of Whores, which earned enough money to publish another book, and the press was on its way. 

68 Publishers "was far and away the most important of the émigré publishing houses," said Derek Sayer, an expert on Czech literature and an emeritus professor at the University of Alberta. "It basically kept Czech literature alive."

Salivarova put aside her own literary career to sustain the operation. Her novel Honzlova (1973, published in English as Summer in Prague) received good reviews and went through four editions at 68 Publishers, but like her husband's work, it was banned in Czechoslavakia.

In the early 1960s she had been an actress and singer. In 1965, she was admitted to the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where she studied script writing and worked under Milan Kundera, whose "misogynistic treatment of his women characters 'provoked' her," she said, into writing a collection of novellas published in 1968, Panska Jizda (Gentleman's Ride). She also acted in several major films under leading Czech New Wave directors. 

She later said that her legacy, 68 Publishers, was almost an accident, telling Solecki: "You know, when all this started I didn't plan to be a publisher forever. It was a solution to an immediate problem--what was I going to do in Canada, and how were we to publish Josef's novel."

Dan Buzzetta (pictured with his wife, Justine) greeted a standing-room-only crowd at the launch for his debut legal thriller, The Manipulator (Severn River) at Barnes & Noble, Holmdel, N.J. Store manager Taylor reported that Buzzetta's event was the second best-attended book signing by a debut author she'd ever seen. (The best-attended was for Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino of Jersey Shore fame.)

The American Booksellers Association has launched its fall marketing campaign for bookstores, which features posters, web banners, social media graphics, and suggested copy for social media and newsletters. They all emphasize "everything indie bookstores give this giving season: community, cozy vibes, and real connection," as the ABA put it. "When customers shop local, they're not just buying a book, they're supporting the heart of their neighborhood. Let's make this season a story worth telling." See more here.

"Just because summer vacation is over, it doesn't mean summer reading has to be." That was the sidewalk chalkboard message in front of Boxcar & Caboose bookstore in St. Johnsbury, Vt., which noted: "So much good at your Local Independent Bookstore!"

Renata Sweeney has joined Sourcebooks as director of online marketing, audience development.

Spare These Stones: A Journey Through Southern Climbing Culture by Andrew Kornylak (Mountaineers Books).

Today:
Good Morning America: Lauren Roberts, author of Fearful: A Powerless Story (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, $16.99, 9781665971072).

Also on GMA: Jayne Kennedy, author of Plain Jayne: A Memoir (Andscape Books, $28.99, 9781368110952).

Today: Dan Pelosi, author of Let's Party: Recipes and Menus for Celebrating Every Day (Union Square & Co., $35, 9781454956785).

Also on Today: Sally McKenney, author of Sally's Baking 101: Foolproof Recipes from Easy to Advanced (Clarkson Potter, $32.99, 9780593581964).

The View repeat: Dawn Staley, author of Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned from All Three (Atria/Black Privilege Publishing, $28.99, 9781668023365).

Tomorrow:
CBS Mornings: Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, co-author of The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics (Little, Brown Spark, $30, 9780316258340).

Today: David Duchovny, author of About Time: Poems (Akashic Books, 19.95, 9781636142630).

Noah Baumbach (Jay Kelly, Marriage Story, The Squid & the Whale) is developing a TV series adaptation of Andrew Ridker's novel Hope with A24 at Netflix, Deadline reported. Baumbach will produce with screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood, The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story).

Set over one year in 2013, Hope "tells the story of the Greenspans, who are the envy of Brookline, Massachusetts, an idyllic and idealistic suburb west of Boston. Scott Greenspan is a successful physician with his own cardiology practice.... But when Scott is caught falsifying blood samples at work, he sets in motion a series of scandals that threatens to shatter his family."

The shortlist has been selected for the 2025 Cundill History Prize, administered by McGill University. The winner receives $75,000 and the two runners-up $10,000 each. Three finalists will be announced September 30 and the winner October 30.

The shortlist:
Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise by Emily Callaci (Allen Lane)
A Fractured Liberation: Korea Under U.S. Occupation by Kornel Chang (The Belknap Press of Harvard University)
The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe by Marlene L. Daut (Knopf)
America, América: A New History of the New World by Greg Grandin (Penguin Press)
To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement by Benjamin Nathans (Princeton University Press)
Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants' War by Lyndal Roper (John Murray Press)
The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life by Sophia Rosenfeld (Princeton University Press)
The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West by Martha A. Sandweiss (Princeton University Press)

Chair of the jury Ada Ferrer commented: "The eight books on our list are all quite different from one another, but all share some essential characteristics: analytical sharpness, engaging writing, and a firm belief that what the past reveals must be urgently understood. The committee is so proud to present this slate of eight books to the world."

LibraryReads, the nationwide library staff-picks list, offers the top 10 September titles public library staff across the country love:

Top Pick
Heart the Lover by Lily King (Grove Press, $28, 9780802165176). "A young woman meets two friends, Sam and Yash, in her senior year college literature class. Impressed with their intellect, she gets pulled into their circle and starts dating Sam. This coming-of-age story begins as they are all completing college, then finishes as they reconnect as adults. With beautiful writing and a character-driven story, this novel is perfect for fans of Sally Rooney." --Sophia Geron, Chesterfield Public Libraries, Va.

We Love You, Bunny: A Novel by Mona Awad (S&S/Marysue Rucci, $30, 9781668059869). "This atmospheric, wickedly funny prequel to Bunny is a treat. Readers get to know the bunnies and their first creation intimately. Arieus experiences many firsts: love, heartache, frat parties, being made a muse. Awad fans will rejoice and new fans will be made with this riotous little novel." --Brooke G., DeKalb County Public Library, Ill.

People Watching: A Novel by Hannah Bonam-Young (Dell, $19, 9780593871881). "Milo, an eternal wanderer, and Prue, happily settled in her hometown, seem to have nothing in common. Through some tangled family challenges, they find that they have a lot to learn from each other. This wonderful romance features messy, moving, and complex characters who fight hard for their happily ever after." --Sharon Layburn, South Huntington Public Library, N.Y.

A Land So Wide by Erin A. Craig (Pantheon, $28, ‎ 9780593686805). "Greer, a mapmaker in the town of Mistaken who fantasizes about leaving, notices strange things happening. Then her lover mysteriously leaves town. In her attempts to save him, she learns about herself, her cursed town, and the lore surrounding both. This suspenseful and emotional romantasy is well plotted with great world building." --Margaret Balwierz, Villa Park Public Library, Ill.

The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy (Mariner, $30, 9780063318779). "Over the course of 20 years in New York and Los Angeles, Desiree, Danielle, January, Monique, and Nakia face both the universal hardships of growing up and the specific challenges of doing so in 21st-century America. These intertwining stories of five Black women finding their way into adulthood create a deeply moving portrait of friendship." --Jennifer Alexander, St. Louis County Library, Mo.

The Phoebe Variations: A Novel by Jane Hamilton (Zibby Publishing, $27.99, ‎ 9798991140287). "Told in flashback, Phoebe, about to graduate high school, is forced by her adoptive mother to meet her birth family, jumpstarting a search for identity and belonging that reveals layers of uncertainty and mistrust surrounding her best friend and the family of 14 who take her in. Illuminating and lush, this literary jewel will spark numerous discussions." --Ron Block, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Ohio

Breathe In, Bleed Out by Brian McAuley (Poisoned Pen Press, $17.99, 9781464238208). "Hannah and four friends join a private retreat to relax and regroup after experiencing big life incidents and time apart. One by one, they start disappearing, and it's up to Hannah to figure out where her friends are and why. Readers will enjoy this blend of horror and suspense with twists they won't see coming." --Kristi Shepherd, Springfield-Greene County Library, Mo.

Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature, edited by Becky Siegel Spratford (S&S/Saga Press, $18, 9781668205099). "With introductions and readalikes by renowned horror expert Spratford and essays from contemporary writers, this collection will be a great resource for library staff. The essays get to the heart of why horror is such an important genre and why it speaks to such a diverse audience, with personal and entertaining passages. Horror fans and anyone who recommends books will find this invaluable." --Kristin Skinner, Flat River Community Library, Mich.

The Librarians by Sherry Thomas (Berkley, $30, 9780593640456). "This intriguing mystery is also an in-depth character study of a group of people working for a small public library in Austin, Texas. No one is quite who they seem, but when two suspicious deaths happen in the area, with both victims having recently been in the library, the staff must band together to try to decipher what happened. Books about librarians are always a win/win, and this one is particularly well done." --Douglas Beatty, Baltimore County Public Library, Md.

You Weren't Meant to Be Human: A Novel by Andrew Joseph White (S&S/Saga Press, $29, 9781668038079). "Heed the trigger warnings. This book is about a self-harming, autistic trans man who finds himself unwillingly pregnant and forced to carry to term. The story is compelling and explicit enough as is, but then there's the Hive... which brings in a gross, sci-fi element. Very political, important, and memorable." --Sarah Hamil, Twin Lakes Library System, Ga.

Gish Jen's autobiographical Bad Bad Girl is a singular intergenerational novel. Jen's act of imaginative empathetic storytelling is inspired by the author's complex, frequently antagonistic, relationship with her mother, who immigrated from China in the 1940s. Jen (The Resisters; Thank You Mr. Nixon) re-creates her mother's childhood as a privileged girl in pre-Revolutionary China, her solitary journey to pursue her graduate studies in the United States, and her subsequent life there. It's a story both deeply personal and universally resonant.

Jen skillfully navigates the cultural misalignments, the sacrifices, and fierce determination that characterized her mother's life, and later her father's, as an immigrant. Jen's artistic reach allows her to reconstruct events and the emotional landscape of her mother's inner world, giving readers a detailed sense of the woman behind her memories. This extraordinary portrayal includes poignant imagined posthumous conversations with her mother. "I'm glad that I'm not as angry with you as you were at your mother," Jen says, to which her mother responds, "You were angry enough to write this book." Through these exchanges, Jen grapples with the reasons for her mother's abuse and favoritism, seeking clarification and offering parallels between their lives. "She did not want me asking why I couldn't wear pants or miniskirts or use tampons, either.... Everything was no." The title itself, Bad Bad Girl, is the phrase Jen's mother often used in reference to her daughter.

The conversations feel strikingly authentic, capturing the rhythm and tone of mother-daughter dynamics. This technique allows Jen to explore movingly themes of memory, legacy, and the ongoing influence of the deceased on the living, transforming what could have been a straightforward reconstruction of events into a vibrant, ongoing dialogue across time and mortality.

Jen's prose is precise, elegant, and often witty in a way that acts as a balm for some of the more troubling events, like when the teenage daughter runs away and is severely beaten by her father, under the mother's approving eye. Jen has a remarkable ability to distill complex emotions and experiences into clear, evocative language.

The historical context of Jen's family's journey is seamlessly integrated, providing a dynamic backdrop without ever overwhelming the personal narrative. Bad Bad Girl is a powerful reminder that while death may silence voices, it cannot extinguish the conversations that continue in our hearts and minds. This book is imperative for anyone interested in immigrant experiences, the complexities of family, and the art of writing personal history. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.

Shelf Talker: Gish Jen's autobiographical novel is a brilliant and touching emotional depiction of a conflicted mother-daughter relationship.

The bestselling self-published books last week as compiled by IndieReader.com:

1. Accomplice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
2. Lights Out by Navessa Allen
3. Mobility for Life by Jeff Bailey
4. Caught Up by Navessa Allen
5. Zodiac Academy 7 by Susanne Valenti
6. Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
7. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros 
8. Profit Generating Pipeline by Leslie Venetz
9. Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
10. Scythe & Sparrow by Brynne Weaver 

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]