Tattooed Tree Books held a grand opening Saturday in Fort Atkinson, Wis., the Daily Jefferson County Union reported.

Located at 122 N. Main St., Tattooed Tree Books sells new and used titles for all ages and shares space with Chroma Art Studio. In addition to books, the store sells bookmarks, book lights, and other bookish gifts and accessories. 

Owner Dena Tullis helped open the store, which began as a pop-up, with a successful Kickstarter campaign that brought in $13,314 on a $12,500 goal. The grand opening celebration drew a large and enthusiastic crowd, and festivities included a signing with a local author and a performance by a local musician. Visitors were also able to decorate the walls with sticky notes.

"We know we couldn't do it without our community, and, thank you for showing up early in the morning," Tullis told visitors during the celebration on Saturday. 

Per the Union, Tattooed Tree Books is the first bookstore to open in Fort Atkinson for nearly a decade.

After debuting as a pop-up at the Oldsmar Flea Market, Bitter End Books has opened a bricks-and-mortar location in Ozona, Fla., the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Located at 306 Orange St., Bitter End Books primarily sells used books, but does trade in rare and antiquarian books and offers new titles via its website. Crystal Niforos, who owns the bookstore with her husband, Joseph, described the store as "small but cozy," and said she hopes it "feels like a refuge and that readers serendipitously find something they love."

Prior to launching Bitter End Books, Joseph Niforos worked for Simon & Schuster, while Crystal Niforos is an editor with an M.A. in Spanish literature. They began selling books online before ever appearing at the flea market or opening a bricks-and-mortar space.

"Often, we find great books on our travels that don't fit in with our online inventory, and we decided to set up shop at the market briefly until the right bricks-and-mortar location was found," Joseph Niforos told the Tampa Bay Times.

Currently, the store is open Friday-Sunday, though hours may expand in the months ahead.

Bloomsbury is restructuring, creating three vertical business units, each operating with its own editorial, sales, marketing and publicity, rights, and audio departments. Previously, the company had operated with three major editorial divisions serviced by a global sales, marketing, and publicity division. 

The three units will be Bloomsbury Global Academic & Professional, Bloomsbury USA, and Bloomsbury Consumer UK. The new structure takes effect on June 1 and is designed to streamline operations, strengthen international reach, and accelerate the company's growth strategy. An estimated 55 jobs across the U.K. and U.S. will be affected by the changes.  

The restructuring has been led by a small group of executives, including Ian Hudson, managing director of consumer, U.K., who will retire at the end of June, but remain with the company as a consultant.  

In other changes, Kathleen Farrar will become managing director of Bloomsbury Consumer U.K. Jenny Ridout's responsibilities expand to leading Bloomsbury Global Academic & Professional and she has been appointed to Bloomsbury's board of directors. 

Sabrina McCarthy will lead Bloomsbury USA, continuing to oversee U.S. consumer publishing while also assuming responsibility for U.S. academic and professional sales, marketing, and publicity, in alignment with Ridout's global academic strategy. All three will report to founder and CEO Nigel Newton.

Vafa Payman assumes a new role as managing director, APAC and corporate development, bringing together Australia, India, Singapore, and the company's joint venture in China under unified leadership, and joins the executive committee. 

"The new organizational structure creates a clearer, more agile framework that will enable us to deliver the next phase of Bloomsbury's growth," Newton said. "By aligning our business units more closely with our key markets, we can respond to changing tastes and customer preferences, strengthening our international and digital capabilities, and leverage new technologies."

Red Wheel/Weiser has acquired the majority of the titles of Watkins Publishing, the flagship imprint of Watkins Media, in a transaction that "brings together two of the most respected names in mind, body, spirit publishing and marks an important moment for the international spiritual publishing community," Red Wheel/Weiser noted.

Red Wheel/Weiser CEO Michael Kerber and Etan Ilfeld, owner of Watkins Media.

"There is a long history between Watkins and Weiser that predates current ownership of both companies, making this a meaningful alignment of heritage and editorial vision," said Michael Kerber, president and CEO of Red Wheel/Weiser. "Watkins carries extraordinary brand recognition and an impressive publishing list. We are honored to build on their foundation and to welcome the Watkins authors into the Red Wheel/Weiser family."
 
Etan Ilfeld, owner of Watkins Media, commented: "Watkins Publishing has grown into a powerful and respected imprint inspired by a historic name and legacy. As part of a broader strategic review of Watkins Media and its publishing portfolio, we determined that Red Wheel/Weiser is the ideal long-term steward for its continued growth."

Distribution arrangements will remain uninterrupted during a transition period, with Penguin Random House Publisher Services continuing to distribute in the U.S. and Wiley in the U.K. until June 30. Beginning July 1, U.K. and European distribution will be managed by the Mare Nostrum Group. Red Wheel/Weiser will oversee distribution in the U.S. through its partnership with Books International, and internationally through its established partners, including Publishers Group Canada and New South Books Australia.

The transaction does not affect Watkins Books, the bookstore in Cecil Court London, or Watkins Mind Body Spirit magazine, both of which will continue to operate independently and are not part of this sale.

Rodolfo F. Acuña, founder of one of the first and largest Chicano studies programs at an American university and the author of a pioneering history of Mexican Americans, "who was known nearly as much for his gusto for political confrontation as for his scholarship," died on March 23, the New York Times reported. He was 93.

Rodolfo F. Acuña

Born in East Los Angeles to Mexican immigrant parents, Acuña earned a Ph.D. in Latin American history from the University of Southern California in 1968. The Times noted that his consciousness about his heritage and activism "were shaped by the 1960s civil rights movements, especially the drive by Chicanos for cultural and political power in the American Southwest."

He was hired by San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University, Northridge) in Los Angeles in 1969 as its first professor of Mexican American studies, at a time when more Latino students were entering higher education. 

His book Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (1972) "is a foundational text of Chicano studies that is still in print and still assigned to students. Its controversial thesis is that people of Mexican origin in the American Southwest remain subject to 'internal colonialism' more than a century and a half after the United States seized California and other territory from Mexico," the Times wrote.

"I contend that Mexicans in the United States are still a colonized people, but now the colonization is internal--it is occurring within the country rather than being imposed by an external power," Acuña observed in the book.

Historian Ramón Eduardo Ruiz, the author of 15 books on Mexico and Latin America, credited Acuña with "opening the national debate on the Chicano experience."

"I don't consider myself an intellectual," Acuña told an interviewer in 2014. "When I received my Ph.D., my father asked me, 'Si eres doctor, que curas?' 'If you are a doctor, what do you cure?' My strategy has always been to take my cause of the moment to the edge of the cliff and be prepared to go over the cliff if necessary."

His other books include Anything but Mexican: Chicanos in Contemporary Los Angeles (1996) and Corridors of Migration: The Odyssey of Mexican Laborers, 1600-1933 (2007).

Acuña's writing and teaching were sometimes a target of political conservatives. The Times noted that in 2012, public schools in Tucson, Ariz., removed Occupied America and other Chicano studies titles from classrooms "under a state law aimed at shutting down Mexican American curriculums. Conservatives said the books fostered resentment of white people."

Students and parents in Tucson protested, and in 2017, a federal court ruled the state had passed the law with racist intent. After further years of litigation, the same court, in 2025, overturned Arizona's ban on ethnic studies.

Book Passage, Corte Madera, Calif., with Dominican University's Institute for Leadership Studies, hosted Michael Pollan (l.) in conversation with Avram Kosasky about Pollan's A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness (Penguin Press).

Click here to see the latest Independent Press Top 40, the weekly bestseller list celebrating the bestselling 40 fiction and 40 nonfiction titles from independent publishers, as sold by independent bookstores across the country. The list is sponsored by the Independent Publishers Caucus and the American Booksellers Association.

This week's debut fiction titles:
26. The Way Disabled People Love Each Other by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Arsenal Pulp Press)
34. Beartooth by Callan Wink (Spiegel & Grau)
39. Devil of the Deep by Falencia Jean-Francois (Bindery Books)

This week's debut nonfiction titles:

6. Another Kind of Freedom by Pema Chodron (Shambhala)
17. Concrete Botany: The Ecology of Plants in the Age of Human Disturbance by Joey Santore (Cool Springs Press)
27. A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders: Surprising Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps by Jonn Elledge (The Experiment)

Posted on Instagram by Print: A Bookstore in Portland, Maine: "Hello. I (Konner, the person behind the social media) have been carefully curating our drama section over the years and today Drama *officially* expanded enough to get its own case! As a theater kid I was always disappointed by the lacking drama sections in bookstores so I made it my mission to have a robust play section here at Print! My work has paid off (because we have such a rad customer base) and Drama has proven that it's worthy of its own case here in the store! Stop by and see what you find!"

The sidewalk chalkboard in front of Wicked Good Books in Salem, Mass., offered some good advice for a sunny day: "Hop in for a Wicked Good Book!"

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Tracy Deonn, author of Oathbound (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, $15.99, 9781665951913).

Drew Barrymore Show: Lena Dunham, author of Famesick: A Memoir (Random House, $32, 9780593129326).

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this weekend from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, April 18
9:30 a.m. Matthew Pinsker, author of Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln (W.W. Norton, $39.99, 9780393240788). (Re-airs Saturday at 9:30 p.m.)

7:50 p.m. Jon Meacham, discusses American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (Random House, $25, 9780812973464).

Sunday, April 19
8 a.m. Ty Seidule and Connor Williams, authors of A Promise Delivered: Ten American Heroes and the Battle to Rename Our Nation's Military Bases (St. Martin's Press, $29, 9781250330284). (Re-airs Sunday at 8 p.m.)

9 a.m. Shyam Sankar, co-author of Mobilize: How to Reboot the American Industrial Base and Stop World War III (Bombardier Books, $30, 9798895655160). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m.)

11 a.m. Richard Baum, author of Inside America's Opioid Crisis: 12 Hard Lessons for Today’s Drug War (Bloomsbury Academic, $32.95, 9781538186411). (Re-airs Sunday at 11 p.m.)

1:40 p.m. Francis Gorman, author of Confronting Bad History: How a Lost Cause and Fraudulent Book Caused the John Wilkes Booth Exhumation Trial (Gateway Park Publishing, $24, 9798218516420).

2:55 p.m. Molly Beer, author of Angelica: For Love and Country in a Time of Revolution (W.W. Norton, $31.99, 9781324050216). 

3:55 p.m. Daniel Rood, author of In the Shadow of the Great House: A History of the Plantation in America (W.W. Norton, $35.99, 9781631498374). 

4:55 p.m. Leslie Stainton, author of Scarlett: Slavery's Enduring Legacy in an American Family (Potomac Books, $32.95, 9781640126756).

5:50 p.m. Robert M. Hazen and Michael L. Wong, author of Time's Second Arrow: Evolution, Order, and a New Law of Nature (W.W. Norton, $28.99, 9781324105480).

The 5 million Swedish Kronor (about $540,000) 2026 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award has gone to Canadian illustrator and picture book artist Jon Klassen. The award will be presented by H.R.H. Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden on May 25 in Stockholm.

The jury commented: "Through his subtle and evocative storytelling in words and pictures, Jon Klassen opens new perspectives on our place in the universe. What happens when a rock falls from the sky, when hats disappear or a skull begins living a life of its own? With precision, emotion and inventive wit, life's challenges of uncertainty and hopefulness are portrayed in an interplay of color and form. Jon Klassen's brilliant tales stand out for their effortless elegance and ambiguous depth, where the reader becomes a co-creator."

The ALMA jury added that Klassen's body of work "forms a subtle, astute, and humorous investigation into existential questions, where feelings of anticipation, suspense, and shock play a central role. His books open new perspectives on life's challenges of uncertainty and hopefulness."

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, April 21:

Last Night in Brooklyn: A Novel by Xochitl Gonzalez (Flatiron, $27.99, 9781250372031) follows a 26-year-old woman living in 2007 Brooklyn.

Small Town Girls: A Writer's Memoir by Jayne Anne Phillips (Knopf, $28, 9780593804933) is a memoir in essays by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist.

Small Boat: A Novel by Vincent Delecroix, trans. by Helen Stevenson (Mariner, $25, 9780063491694) fictionalizes a real case of migrants being left to drown in the English Channel, and is shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.

The Rolling Stones: The Biography by Bob Spitz (Penguin Press, $38, 9780593489093) explores the legendary rock band. 

Song for a Hard-Hit People: A Memoir of Antiracist Solidarity from a Coal Miner's Daughter by Beth Howard (Haymarket Books, $29.95, 9798888904893) gives an insider's view of Appalachian Kentucky.

The Caretaker: A Novel by Marcus Kliewer (Atria/Emily Bestler/12:01 Books, $29, 9781982198817) is supernatural horror about a nightmarish house-sitting job.

The Neverending Book by Naoki Matayoshi and Shinsuke Yoshitake, trans. by Kendall Heitzman (‎W.W. Norton, $27.99, 9781324123804) is an illustrated fable about two men searching for magical books.

Questions 27 & 28 by Karen Tei Yamashita (Graywolf, $30, 9781644453810) is a novel about the internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor.

Clock Hands by Marieke Nijkamp, illus. by Sylvia Bi (Greenwillow, $15.99, 9780063027138), is a stand-alone middle-grade graphic novel companion to Ink Girls about a child who dreams of being a metalworker.

The Whale's Tale and the Otter Side of the Story by Kate Messner, illus. by Brian Biggs (Clarion, $19.99, 9780063372627) is an entertainingly formatted picture book that tells two different stories when read forwards and backwards.

The Noma Guide to Building Flavour by René Redzepi and Noma Test Kitchen (Artisan, $45, 9781579657192) is a cookbook from a famous Copenhagen restaurant. 

Paperbacks:
The Antiquarian's Object of Desire (Love's Academic #3) by India Holton (Berkley, $19, 9780593641491).

Mrs. Shim Is a Killer: A Novel by Kang Jiyoung (Harper Perennial, $18.99, 9780063457324).

Thrall by Rebecca Mahoney (Hyperion Avenue, $18.99, 9781368113816).

From last week's Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org, here are the recommended titles, which are also Indie Next Great Reads:

Hardcover
The Oldest Bitch Alive by Morgan Day (Astra House, $28, 9781662603372). "Probably the strangest book I've ever read. Think Ulysses, with a parasite-riddled old French Bulldog named Gelsomina. She'll break your heart and make you think too hard…and look at your dog differently." --Vaughn Lachenauer, Main Point Books, Wayne, Pa.

Hardcover: An Indies Introduce Title
Honeysuckle: A Novel by Bar Fridman-Tell (Bloomsbury, $28.99, 9781639736737). "I truly love and appreciate when authors use horror, Gothic, and mythology to weave a complex story, and that is what Bar Fridman-Tell did perfectly here. A magnificent debut. Obsessed is an understatement." --Mirna Villeda, Timbre Books, Ventura, Calif.

Paperback: An Indies Introduce Title
Aicha by Soraya Bouazzaoui (Orbit, $18.99, 9780316582018). "Aicha is an unforgettable fantasy that will have you cheering for a heroine determined to save her people and preserve their culture. Filled with resistance, sacrifice, and the raw magic of survival, this story will grip you." --Ambir Moore, The Book Lovers Era, Hill AFB, Utah

Ages 3-6
The Rare Bird by Elisha Cooper (Roaring Brook Press, $18.99, 9781250364395). "What a joy to follow Rare Bird's feline main character as he soars from couch to cloud to dream, and what a perfect book to remind us that imagination is limitless." --Victoria Sanchez, Bookshop West Portal, San Francisco, Calif.

Ages 9-12
Sweet, Tart by Kara Thom (Candlewick, $18.99, 9781536239256). "Middle grade readers will find much to love about Halle and her beloved horse friend. Author Kara Thom sensitively portrays topics of grief, friendship, and family dynamics through the framework of both poetry and prose. Sweet, Tart is a blue ribbon read." --Pamela Klinger-Horn, Valley Bookseller, Stillwater, Minn.

Ages 14+
If We Never End by Laura Taylor Namey (Bloomsbury YA, $20.99, 9781547618057). "If you like a side of emotional damage with your romances, please cry about If We Never End with me. Sylvie is set to have another boring summer until a gold watch in a small-town thrift store sends her on a life-changing adventure. This book is a quiet mystery that builds to a gut-wrenching twist." --Becky Martone, R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, Conn.

[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]

Tessa Yang intricately explores human and aquatic relationships in her first novel, The Jellyfish Problem. For marine biologist Dr. Josephine Ness, "jellyfish were [her] first thought on waking and [her] last thought before falling asleep." For three years, she's been writing The Modern Medusa: A Jellyfish Primer with best (and only) friend Aldo, whom Jo met in grad school. Unfortunately, Aldo's been dead for seven months, after a scuba accident that Jo insists was her fault. She's been living "a stalled and hollow life since losing Aldo," existing between her bare apartment and her "fussy jelly babies in their polyp parlor at Seaheart," the small aquarium at the edge of Joshua Tree National Park, where she's currently underemployed.

Then Jo gets a call from Nadia, her "first real friend," whom she hasn't spoken to since their college graduation 11 years ago. Jo doesn't want to be "that most tragic of gay stereotypes: the pitiful lesbian pining after her straight best friend," but Nadia needs help only Jo can provide, because Shattering Point, the tiny Maine island Nadia calls home, is "having a really big jellyfish problem." The video footage may look fake, but this mysterious medusa is possibly the biggest in the world. Jo goes, not just for the chance to see Nadia, but because Aldo "would've loved the idea of [her] dropping everything and flying across the country to pursue a giant, probably mythical jellyfish." When she arrives, however, Nadia's gone missing, and her husband Roger's nonchalance over her not coming home the previous night is unnerving. Jo needs to meet the jellyfish--improbably named Clementine by a local child--and figure out who and what she is, and then somehow free the island from her luminous thrall. Jo's discoveries engender new relationships, particularly with innkeeper Tony and empathic artist Margo--exactly the connections she needs to solve this jellyfish problem.

Yang is a casual, intimate writer, drawing in audiences with dropped hints and slow reveals. She seems to imagine in extremes--a monstrous creature beloved by a small child, a dead man demanding release from an urn decorated with "that fucking sea turtle." She seamlessly blends detailed marine science and magical realism--all with welcome doses of well-timed humor--interweaving relationship drama, love (and hate) story, mother/daughter confrontations, corporate labyrinths, and a few pokes at the publishing industry. Glowing at the novel's core is the universal need for finding community. --Terry Hong

Shelf Talker: Tessa Yang's first novel, The Jellyfish Problem, intriguingly spotlights a marine biologist on the cusp of great discoveries, both professional and deeply personal.

Publishers love movies. Readers love movies, though often not quite as much as they love the books from which those films were adapted. I love books and I love movies. Sometimes I even love films based on books. I accept that adaptation is an inexact art; that the movie is not the book and vice versa. Oscar, however, really loves books, as last month's Academy Awards ceremony proved once again. And the book-to-screen path has a long tail/tale effect, as BookNet Canada showed in a recent report, "Must-watch, Must-read: The Oscars 2026 Effect." 

Bellflower Bookshop in Qualicum Beach, B.C., was certainly up for this year's Academy Awards celebration, sharing an Instagram reel showcasing the store's amazing Oscar display: "Read the red carpet. Come check out our newest window display if you're in Qualicum Beach."

Noting that it had "been a while since we've looked at book-to-screen adaptations," BookNet used the recent airing of the Oscars ceremony as inspiration to revisit the subject, especially "since this year, half of the 10 feature films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in 2026 were based on books."

BookNet explored the habits of Canadian book buyers and borrowers between 2025 and March 2026 "to see what, if any impact all this buzz around the movies might have had." The movies charted were based on Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell; One Battle After Another (based on Vineland by Thomas Pynchon); and Train Dreams by Denis Johnson.  

In an attempt to measure how the sales performance of these titles were impacted throughout the movie release cycle, BookNet noted three key dates for each of the movies; when the first teaser was released, the theatrical release date, and the date that the film was released for streaming. 

In terms of book sales, anticipation for Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein inspired "moderately consistent sales" from January to April 2025, with the initial key sales bump occurring on May 31, 2025 with the first teaser trailer's release. After a "huge spike," sales peaked in July, with a 5% increase over May before starting to decline at the beginning of fall. The next notable increase occurred October 17, with the film's theatrical release, followed by its global premiere on Netflix November 7. After this second peak, sales steadily declined back to near what they were at the beginning of 2025. 

Unlike the sudden sales jumps for Frankenstein, Hamnet "saw a steady climb as soon as the first teaser for Chloé Zhao's film was released on August 26, 2025," BookNet noted. The increase continued until November, when the movie had its theatrical release, sending sales to an all-time high in December. Overall, the title saw a 3,127% growth in sales between the release of its first teaser and the theatrical release. After this peak, sales headed back into a steady decline. Hamnet became available for streaming on March 6, shortly before the Oscars, but BookNet said it had yet to see the impact of that on sales. 

Does it help for a book and film to share the same title? "Perhaps due to the fact that the movie One Battle After Another, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, does not share the name of the book, sales for Vineland were not impacted by the release of the first teaser in March 2025," BookNet wrote. Instead, the title saw steady growth starting June 2025 as the theatrical release neared in September 26, 2025. 

Vineland's sales climbed to a first spike in October 2025 with a 1,913% increase in comparison to March 2025, when the first teaser was released. The title had its second spike and highest sales in December, when the film debuted exclusively on HBO Max. "As the sales began declining in 2026, there was another small increase in sales between February to March and, unlike the other titles, continued growing into March 2026," BookNet noted.

Book sales for Train Dreams began seeing a slow and steady growth starting July 2025, when the first teaser was released. After its theatrical release on November 7, and streaming release November 21, sales reached their highest point in December, with 2,161% increase. Even though sales declined in the first two months of 2026, BookNet saw another jump in March, around the time of the Oscars ceremony.

But what about the red carpet, you ask? To mark this year's Academy Awards festivities, Bolen Books in Victoria, B.C., opted for a bookish fashion show with its "Oscars looks as book covers!" and "Vanity Fair Oscar party looks as books!"

Media coverage of Hollywood's "most spectacular night," as organizers have modestly called their extravaganza, includes the endless red carpet refrain: "What are you wearing?" Interviewers never ask celebrities the question we really want answered ("Who are you reading?!!"), but the Oscars do remind us every year of the important role books play in the film business, whether the end results of adaptation are epic or empty. 

Walker Percy, who was a lot smarter than I am, sums it all up best in his novel The Moviegoer: "Our neighborhood theater in Gentilly has permanent lettering on the front of the marquee reading: Where Happiness Costs So Little. The fact is I am quite happy in a movie, even a bad movie."