Chapter Twenty, a mobile bookstore built inside an 8-by-20 race car trailer, is bringing books and community to Denham Springs, La., and the surrounding areas. WAFB reported that the business was launched by Courtney DeGraw and Nikki Rowland, longtime friends for whom the idea was born "after DeGraw saw someone in another part of the country launch their own mobile bookstore on TikTok."

"I messaged her one night and was like do you wanna do this with me? And I said I looked at my husband and said can we do it? He said sure let's do it. It was overnight," DeGraw said.

After finding the trailer on Facebook Marketplace, they worked with DeGraw's husband to gut the interior and build shelves, flooring, and a custom door.

Rowland noted the business name reflects their connection: "We're almost at 20 years of friendship, so this is our next chapter."

The bookstore features historical fiction, romance, fantasy, and mystery novels, as well as a children's section. "We love having the kids come in and grab a book and read while their mommas and daddies shop," DeGraw said. The owners believe the physical book experience remains central to what they offer. "There's just something about holding a physical book in your hand… the smell, the feel," she added.

Community partnerships will be important. Rowland noted: "We wanted to be able to venture all around and partner with locally owned and small businesses. We love to bring attention to other smaller businesses. And it is paid back in our favor because those same small businesses have promoted us."

Chapter Twenty appears at community events and local markets across the area and is available for private events. The owners also run a book club. "Last month, we had 37 people show up, all ages and all very different personalities. It is the best," Rowland said.

Marigold's Bookstore will soon be moving to a new, larger location, Bartlesville Radio reported. Owners and sisters Kandelyne Wingate and Katelyn Taylor will be keeping the store in downtown Bartlesville, Okla., moving from its current home at 118 W. 2nd St. to 308 S. Johnstone Ave. The extra space in the new location will allow Taylor and Wingate to host more events, expand their inventory, and provide seating for customers.

The owners noted on Facebook that they are relocating not because of dissatisfaction with their current space, but simply because they've outgrown it. They thanked their original landlord and their customers for the support, writing: "We are endlessly grateful for the space that held our beginning, and deeply hopeful about the space that will hold our next chapter." 

Wingate and Taylor said they will announce a date for the grand reopening soon. Marigold's will remain open on 2nd St. until the move.

Peter Ogura, longtime owner of Black Sun Books in Eugene, Ore., "is hanging it up after decades at the helm," Lookout Eugene-Springfield reported, adding that new owner Kel Weinhold said she has thought for about 20 years that she'd like to buy the store someday, and has plans for a few changes, including a new name. Ogura, who owned the bookshop for nearly 34 years, will retire later this month, after which it will become Outliers Books, "dedicated to stocking marginalized writers with a renewed focus as a third space" under its new owner. 

Outliers Books will focus on bringing in undersung authors in a variety of categories, including a romance section focused on queer, Black, and brown love stories. Weinhold noted that the Black Sun Books inventory, with humanities-driven titles to fit a literary, university city like Eugene, has laid much of that groundwork.

"There'll be voices that come in that aren't here, but there's a lot of those voices already here," she said. "That's one of the things that I really respect about this bookstore. Find me a bookstore that has as much Japanese in translation, Spanish in translation, and voices of Black, indigenous, queer authors in the fiction section."

Black Sun started as a used bookstore, but expanded to include new releases after customers kept asking for them. Black Sun's "niche in the humanities deepened over the years as reader requests refined the catalog: foreign literature in translation, Continental philosophy, fine arts," Lookout Eugene-Springfield noted.

The store will close for two weeks as Weinhold prepares for the grand opening of Outliers Books on April 7. She said she had walked by Black Sun Books "endless times" over the years, often making the same remark for around 20 years: "I have said out loud to myself and to many people, 'I'd love to own that bookstore.' " 

Outliers Books is named after Outliers and Outlaws, a documentary from the Eugene Lesbian History Project focused on the influx of lesbians into Eugene from the 1960s to 1980s, and the resulting thriving community. 

"But changes are coming to the cozy store, with more spaces for hanging out and reading, a larger craft section, and, yes, romance books," Lookout Eugene-Springfield wrote. "While the store will stick to its intellectual roots, Weinhold said that levity and joy are critical to survival under tyranny."

Ogura advised Weinhold to listen to the customers: "It's so difficult to keep up with the thousands and thousands of new releases that happen continually," he said. "So often, I have never heard of a book until somebody says, 'Do you have this?' or "Can you get this?' It's a continuing education, every day."

Paula M. Krebs

Paula M. Krebs, the executive director of the Modern Language Association since 2017, plans to step down in 2027 after 10 years with the organization. The executive council will begin the search for her successor in the coming weeks with the help of an experienced search firm and aims to have a new executive director in place by the time of her departure.

"As a first-generation college student, I've always had a bit of an outsider perspective, and this organization welcomed that, allowing me to take some risks and try some new things," said Krebs. "But the biggest opportunities have been made possible by the amazing staff of the MLA. Every member of our staff works to support teaching and research in language, literature, writing, and culture and to support the humanities in our society. It has been an honor to work with them, with the executive council, and with our members to help to shape the ways we serve and expand our membership and promote the humanities."

Catharine Stimpson, former MLA president and current trustee, commented: "For the past decade, Paula Krebs has been a superb leader of the MLA. She has confronted myriad challenges--financial, cultural, and political. She has responded to them with keen respect for all MLA members and their needs, tireless work, courage, a collaborative spirit, and the capacity to translate new ideas into strong programs. The MLA and all of the humanities owe her an incalculable debt."

Friendly Book Store, a Christian bookstore in Quakertown, Pa., will close on Saturday after more than 85 years in business, the Morning Call reported.

Founded in 1940 by Reverend Linford Rotenberger, Friendly Book Store has resided at 224 W. Broad St. since 1961. Today it is operated by Rotenberger's family members, including his son-in-law, Jim Roberts, and Rotenberger's daughters Donna Roberts and Kathy Pickering.

The owners announced the closure in January and have been running a store-wide sale since. They have also sold the building. In February, Jim Roberts, who is 81, told the Morning Call that the decision to close came about due to multiple factors, including his age, declining foot traffic, and competition from online retailers.

McIntyre's Books, Pittsboro, N.C., hosted a full house for a Women's History Month panel "Hear Us Now: Acclaimed Women Novelists on the Erasure of Women's Voices," featuring Nell Joslin, author of Measure of Devotion (Regal House), Terri Lewis, author of Behold the Bird in Flight (She Writes Press), and Jill McCorkle, author of Old Crimes and Other Stories (Little, Brown). (photo: Caitlin Hamilton Summie)

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 there was one debut title:

Nonfiction
34. America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick by Bob Crawford (Zando).

"We are open!!" Cottage Books in Glen Arbor, Mich., posted on Instagram yesterday. "Thank you to everyone's efforts in getting town plowed and shoveled out! Hope to see everyone soon!"

Diana Arena has been promoted to assistant manager, independent retail sales at Simon & Schuster.

Tomorrow:
CBS Mornings: Demi Lovato, author of One Plate at a Time: Recipes for Finding Freedom with Food (Flatiron, $34.99, 9781250393449).

Sherri Shepherd Show: Melani Sanders, author of The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook: A Hot-Mess Guide for Women in Perimenopause, Menopause, and Beyond Who Are Over It (Harvest, $24, 9780063492639).

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, March 21
5:55 p.m. Jonathan S. Jones, author of Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America's First Opioid Crisis (The University of North Carolina Press, $39.95, 9781469689531).

Sunday, March 22
9:05 a.m. Cass R. Sunstein, author of Separation of Powers: How to Preserve Liberty in Troubled Times (‎The MIT Press, $24.95, 9780262051774), at Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, Mass. (Re-airs Sunday at 9:09 p.m.)

11 a.m. Erik Larson discusses storytelling and narrative nonfiction with Susan Orlean at the New Orleans Book Festival. (Re-airs Sunday at 10:58 p.m.)

12:35 p.m. Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. Rosenberg, authors of Feed the People!: Why Industrial Food Is Good and How to Make It Even Better (Basic Books, $30, 9781541603783).

1:45 p.m. Michael Kimmel, author of Playmakers: The Jewish Entrepreneurs Who Created the Toy Industry in America (W.W. Norton, $32.99, 9781324105282).

2:45 p.m. Laura Mauldin, author of In Sickness and in Health: Love Stories from the Front Lines of America's Caregiving Crisis--How Chronic Illness and Systemic Failure Strain Intimate Partnerships (‎Ecco, $30, 9780063339132), at Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C.

3:50 p.m. Chris Enss, author of Daughters of Daring: Hollywood Cowgirl Stunt Women (Lyons Press, $35, 9781493087860).

6 p.m. Wil Haygood, author of The War Within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home (‎Knopf, $35, 9780593537695).

The shortlist has been selected for the £20,000 (about $26,600) Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, which "recognizes exceptional literary talent aged 39 or under, celebrating the international world of fiction in all its forms including poetry, novels, short stories, and drama." The British Library will host a shortlist celebratory event on May 13, with the winner named during a ceremony in Swansea on May 14 (International Dylan Thomas Day). This year's shortlisted titles are:

To Rest Our Minds and Bodies by Harriet Armstrong (novel, U.K).
We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown (novel, U.K.)
Joy Is My Middle Name by Sasha Debevec-McKenney (poetry, U.S.)
Under the Blue by Suzannah V. Evans (poetry, U.K.)
Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt (novel, U.K.)
Borderline Fiction by Derek Owusu (novel, U.K.)

Chair of judges Irenosen Okojie MBE said: "This is a marvelous, galvanizing shortlist. We're thrilled by the scope, breadth and depth of these works across forms. These books have profound things to say about the ways we live, what it means to be human and overall are propulsive reads that imbue the writing space with new energies."

---

Shortlists have been selected for the James Tait Black Prizes, honoring "the best work of fiction and biography" and judged by University of Edinburgh scholars and literature students. Each winner receives £10,000 (about $13,300). Winners will be announced in May.

The shortlist for the fiction prize:

Big Kiss, Bye Bye by Claire-Louise Bennett
Darryl by Jackie Ess
On the Greenwich Line by Shady Lewis, translated by Katharine Halls
Sakina's Kiss by Vivek Shanbhag, translated by Srinath Perur
The Original by Nell Stevens

The shortlist for the biography prize:

The First and Last King of Haiti by Marlene Daut
Things that Disappear: Reflections and Memories by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Kurt Beals
The Cadence of a Song: The Life of Margaret Fay Shaw by Fiona Mackenzie
Oliver Twist & Me: The True Story of My Family and Charles Dickens's Best-Loved Novel by Nicholas Blincoe
Horace: Poet on a Volcano by Peter Stothard

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, March 24:

Python's Kiss: Stories by Louise Erdrich (Harper, $32, 9780063375000) collects 13 short stories written over the last 20 years.

Stand by Senator Cory Booker (St. Martin's Press, $29, 9781250436733) uses stories from American history to advocate for national unity.

The Night We Met by Abby Jimenez (Forever, $30, 9781538759226) is book two in the Say You'll Remember Me romance series.

Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories by Amal El-Mohtar (Tordotcom, $24.99, 9781250341006) contains 14 fantastical short stories.

Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher (Tor Nightfire, $29.99, 9781250829825) is a horror story set in the woods of 1899 North Carolina.

A Suit or a Suitcase: Poems by Maggie Smith (Washington Square Press, $25, 9781668090053) collects new poems.

How Flowers Made Our World: The Story of Nature's Revolutionaries by David George Haskell (Viking, $32, 9780593834961) examines the evolution and importance of flowers.

Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries by Nicholas Lemann (Liveright, $35, 9781631498411) is a family memoir about German Jewish immigrants in New Orleans.

Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West by Bart D. Ehrman (Simon & Schuster, $30, 9781668025031) explores altruism toward strangers.

The Heart of Our Home by Janelle Washington (Roaring Brook, $18.99, 9781250357366) is the author/illustrator picture book debut of the Caldecott Honor-winning and Coretta Scott King John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator of Choosing Brave.

Relic of Thieves by Shana Targosz (Aladdin, $18.99, 9781665957663) is the second book after River of Spirits in the middle-grade fantasy series The Underwild. 

Paperback:
The Dog Meows, the Cat Barks by Eka Kurniawan, trans. by Annie Tucker (New Directions, $14.95, 9780811239769).

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

Hardcover (An Indies Introduce Title)
Weavingshaw by Heba Al-Wasity (Del Rey, $30, 9780593982570). "Fantastic worldbuilding, a slow burn romance to die for, and a ghostly mystery. What more could you ask for? A STUNNING debut. The writing was superb." --Lauren Nopenz, Curious Iguana, Frederick, Md.

Hardcover
The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly (W.W. Norton, $22.99, 9781324117407). "Micro-memoir is my new favorite genre. Imagine the gut-punch and juicily crafted lines of poetry as the guiding template for the intimate disclosure of memoir. All I wanted to do with this book was savor it." --Mallory Moyer, Barrett Bookstore, Darien, Conn.

Paperback
Star Shipped: A Novel by Cat Sebastian (Avon, $18.99, 9780063429581). "I'm glad Cat Sebastian wrote a contemporary romance--the emotional depth of the characters and development of their relationship was just right! It's an especially great pick for people who like celebrity romances." --Kacey Hruby Wyttenhove, Cream & Amber, Hopkins, Minn.

Ages 4-8
Loops by Jashar Awan (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, $19.99, 9781665974943). "Being a Big Kid is a Big Deal, and tying shoes is one of the biggest Big Kid milestones. Cleverly illustrated and told from the kiddo's point of view, there are plenty of treats throughout the pages for discovery and delight." --Carrie Koepke, Skylark Bookshop, Columbia, Mo.

Ages 8-12
A Kid Like Me: A Graphic Novel by Norm Feuti (HarperAlley, $24.99, 9780063354111). "I loved so much about this story--Ethan's love for nerdy games, and desire to figure out who he is while navigating the struggles of middle school friendships and the comparison to his classmates. This one hits on so many important coming of age themes!" --Morgan DePerno, Bookmarks, Winston-Salem, N.C.

Ages 12+ (An Indies Introduce Title)
Meet Me Under the Lights by Cassie Miller (Viking Books for Young Readers, $13.99, 9798217038923). "A delightful YA romance featuring rival families, baseball, and theater. Eliza and Reed's families hate each other, but this summer, the pull between the two of them is too much. A much happier ending than Romeo and Juliet and a quick and fun read!" --Claire McWhorter, River & Hill Books, Rome, Ga.

[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]

Dominic Frisby regales readers with stories of mankind's pursuit of gold and how it shaped the destinies of notable figures in The Secret History of Gold: Myth, Money, Politics, and Power. Whether venturing to ancient gold mines in Macedonia or assessing the future of this "eternal metal" in the digital age, Frisby's entertaining narrative centers gold's enduring physical beauty and its dazzling impact on those who encounter it.

Someone who remains unimpressed by gold is Warren Buffett. He famously complained that the metal has "no utility" other than as wealth stored in a vault, which one has to pay people to guard; its industrial uses are few. As Frisby illustrates, gold's main purpose is to "display prosperity" in the form of jewelry or currency, a purpose that "transcends culture and time." Alexander the Great depleted his gold reserves to pay his armies, while a 2024 Daily Telegraph headline reported that Russia paid Iran in gold for "drones used in attacks on Ukraine."

A finance writer and comedian, Frisby (Bitcoin: The Future of Money?; Daylight Robbery: How Taxes Shaped Our Past and Will Change Our Future) is a gifted storyteller with a flair for the whimsical. Although troves of gold artifacts remain intact, many ancient treasures were melted down so it is entirely possible, Frisby posits, that our gold trinkets may have once "adorned the head of a pharaoh or the neck of a hominid hunter gatherer." This intriguing thought points to gold's indestructibility. Life is temporary but gold will outlast both humans and bitcoin (often called gold 2.0 or digital gold).

Scattered throughout this lively and informative book are examples of how mankind's attitude toward gold is governed not by logic but by emotion. It was a golden apple, after all, that led to the Trojan War, while gold's irresistible draw almost doomed the mythic King Midas. Literature associates gold with goodness in phrases such as "golden ages" and "hearts of gold."

It is, as Frisby posits, a "deeply political metal." While Frisby is a firm believer in "the discipline of the gold standard," he doesn't expect Western governments to surrender their power to create money at will. A cutting-edge use of gold comes from the Canadian company Totenpass, which has constructed a digital storage drive from solid gold to permanently store data.

Frisby's fourth book, the first comprehensive history of gold, offers readers a thorough and fascinating immersion into the ancient role and modern function of a metal globally revered for its gleaming beauty, stability, and opulence. --Shahina Piyarali

Shelf Talker: In this lively and informative book, a finance writer and comedian regales readers with stories of mankind's pursuit of gold, including its place in mythology and the digital age.

"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."

--William Shakespeare's The Tempest 

That word dream is the lifeblood of bookselling. Everyone who opens a new bookstore describes the experience as the fulfillment of a lifelong dream ("watching this dream come together is pure magic"). Enter "bookstore dream" in Facebook and watch the tote board light up. Readers fantasize about owning a bookshop, and novelists write about the dream. Even bookstores being put up for sale still hold onto the vision ("a dream of ours from the beginning"). Buzzfeed just featured a pop quiz: "Build Your Dream Bookstore Café and We'll Reveal Your Personality Archetype."

But what about the other bookstore dreams, the scary ones?

"Did anyone else have a nightmare or weird dream last night? It's gotta be the moon, right?" Anthology for Books, Geneseo, Ill., posted on Instagram Tuesday, sharing a text exchange in which someone had written: "Last night I had a nightmare you closed the bookstore. Don't do that." Anthology's reply: "I have no intention of doing that. I had a nightmare too."

Most of my bookselling memories are pleasant and nostalgic, even as I recall "the grind" of everyday bookstore work. But nearly two decades after leaving a great bookshop ("This Massive Three-Story Bookstore in Vermont Is a Readers Dream"), my recurring dreams can be stressful: 

Black Friday at Between the Covers, Rigby, Idaho

The sales floor is chaotic, with customers packed in the aisles grabbing books, and massed around the information desk firing questions at us like biblio-inquisitors. We triage, giving quick answers to the easy questions (Where's the history section? Do you have Stephen King's new book?) just to get those people out of the way, while simultaneously sorting out individuals from the crowd to answer their tougher queries like a bookish emergency room ("I only have one customer at a time" is our mantra). The demands keep coming at us, though. 

The Latest Dream
My post-bookselling career dream recurs in different incarnations: I've forgotten my cash register code. I don't know where the sections are anymore. Younger booksellers don't see me as "on my game." Long-dead, but somehow still devoted, customers ask if that book they ordered from me ever came in. There's also a whole subcategory set at book industry conferences. Here's the most recent dream, from Monday night:

I've been away on vacation and they replaced the old computers with an entirely new system, hardware and software. As is often the case with computer changes in retail, everybody's learning on the fly, though my colleagues have a head start. I feel lost every time I try to look something up. I'd ask for help, but everybody's out straight as it is. 

The new computers are on trollies, so they can be rolled to various locations in the store. They have keyboards, but the screens are detachable like tablets and have POS as well as touchscreen capabilities. Curiously, they have to be plugged in to an outlet once they are moved. And every time I go to use one, it's gone and I have to hunt for it, the customer I'm helping in tow, impatient. Once I find a station, I fumble with the system, trying desperately to be functional, polite, patient, and at least present the illusion of calm.

Strangely, the information desk still has terminals for our original computer system, from back in the early '90s. The screens are dark gray and the type eye-numbingly bright. While they are still functional, some key things are missing, including the ability to look up titles in inventory. A colleague about my age reassures me that I'll get the hang of it quickly. 

Noah Wyle, The Pitt (credit: Warrick Page/HBO Max)

What Bookselling Dreams Are Made On
All the ingredients for this one were readily available in my subconscious. I've been watching the second season of The Pitt on HBO Max. If you're not addicted to it already, the short version is that each season chronicles a 15-hour shift in the emergency room at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. The Pitt's creators are obsessed with accuracy, which can lead to viewer exhaustion and TV-PTSD. 

A specific bit of inspiration for my latest dream is that the hospital has been hit by a cyberattack this season, so the computer system is shut down ("We're about to go analog!"). And it's the Fourth of July. The staff is forced to go hyper "old school," frantically gathering a giant whiteboard for patient tracking, paper and clipboards for reports, a long-abandoned fax machine, "runners" to convey prescriptions and other orders/requests elsewhere in the hospital, and much more. 

The Pitt's Katherine Lanasa and Sepideh Moafi (credit: Warrick Page/HBO Max)

Bookstore as ER? Go figure. Just so you know, however, I don't always dream about bookselling. In recent years, a recurring feature has been cameos by celebrities offering cryptic wisdom. In one I wrote down afterward, a car idles on a dark country road, with Jon Voigt at the wheel. Christopher Walken strides away, waving his arm in disgust. Across the road, Steve Buscemi fumbles with some small branches, and Voigt yells at him: "It's just a bunch of sticks, Steve!" Perspective.

On the same night the Anthology for Books customer had a nightmare about the store closing, I dreamed that my wife and I were in the backseat of a car driven by Willie Nelson, who told us: "Predestination ain't what it used to be."

But bookstore dreams still dominate my sleep patterns. I've long believed that once you have been a bookseller, you're a bookseller forever. And that seems to be the case, even in my dreams.