The weekend before last, Solid State Books, Washington, D.C., had a flood in its H Street location that has closed the store. The store noted, "While the damage wasn't completely devastating, there is still a fair amount of devastation, and we will be closed inside for a while." In a video update, owners Scott Abel and Jake Cumsky-Whitlock reported: "The books are okay, the bookcases took a hit, the rug, our drywall is gone.... We're going to do our best to get back open as soon as possible."

In the meantime, Solid State encouraged supporters to shop at its 14th Street location or on Bookshop.org; become a Solid State books member or renew membership; and purchase its flooded books edition T-shirt. The store has moved some events to other sites and cancelled a few. This coming week it's having sidewalk sales for several days, and offering window pickup for special orders and pre-orders on other days.

First Light Books in Austin, Tex., "is working its adaptive-reuse magic once again," CultureMap reported, noting that the Hyde Park bookstore, "which famously moved into a former post office, has confirmed plans to open a second location in fall 2027 inside Clarksville's former St. Luke United Methodist Church" at 1306 W. Lynn St. The congregation closed at the end of 2024.

First Light will convert the sanctuary into a bookstore and a cafe serving coffee, light fare, beer, and wine. The space will also host author events, book clubs, and kids' programming. The proposal from owners Taylor and Robin Bruce to rework St. Luke was the only one to offer preservation, their representative Graham Brown told the Planning Commission last March (via the Austin Current). Neighbors rallied behind the plan.

"At its core, First Light is about bringing vitality to a neighborhood," Taylor Bruce said in the St. Luke conversion announcement. "In our three plus years in Hyde Park, we've found that books, coffee and wine, a shady courtyard and a beautiful shop, can open real connections between people." While design details, broadly outlined in state filings, are still under wraps, general manager Breezy Mayo said First Light expects to share plans and renderings in early 2027.

The bookstore's Hyde Park location, which opened in 2023 "in a converted post office on Speedway that earned a 2025 Community Impact Award from the American Institute of Architects, has grown into a hub of neighborhood activity. The bookstore hosts more than 300 author events and community programs a year, from author signings and four monthly book clubs to children's story time, a Wednesday chess club, and weekday happy hours," CultureMap noted.

Hannah Harlow is the co-owner and day-to-day operator of the Book Shop of Beverly Farms, Beverly Farms, Mass., which she and her brother bought in 2020. Before that, she worked in publishing for many years, most recently at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She attended the Frankfurt Book Fair earlier this month thanks to a fellowship from Books Across Borders, the nonprofit organization that aims to connect booksellers to the international world of publishing. This is her report: 

Hannah Harlow

Working in a bookstore, I love the everyday conversations I have with the people who walk into our store. When I'm selecting books for our shelves, I think about the people who shop with us and the sense of self we've cultivated through the contributions of booksellers and patrons and historical data. And this is what makes indie bookstores so great: We each have our own personalities that reflect the identities of our communities.

This October, I received the Books Across Borders fellowship to travel to the Frankfurt Book Fair. Suddenly, I had the whole publishing world at my fingertips. And what a large world it is. I spent my first few hours there simply wandering from hall to hall, in an attempt to grasp the massive scale of the fair (4,000 exhibitors! 65,000 trade visitors from 130 countries!). Then I started talking to people--where did they come from, what did they publish, what did they hope to achieve at the show? I also attended programming--with 3,800 events across dozens of stages, I barely scratched the surface.

At a panel about the activities of the European Network for Literary Translation, an international nonprofit network of organizations that invests in literary translation support programs, one panelist said that, when selling a work of translation, they always ask: "How is this book extremely local and extremely universal?"

Later that afternoon, at a panel called "Saving the World Without a Budget," an editor at the Brazilian publishing house Pallas Editora, which produces internationally award-winning children's books, said their initial goal had been to serve the people of Brazil. Those books just happened to go on to find wider success.

These similar ideas stuck with me: What makes a story both local and universal? While meeting with a rights director at Europa Editions, I brought this up. "Well, of course," she said. "The human story transcends. Those are the stories that work locally first. In the end, we're all the same. So which are the stories that best get at the human experience?"

The next day, I stumbled upon a panel sponsored by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. Two translators were talking about the challenge of translating larger languages (Chinese, Korean) into smaller languages (Danish, in this specific case). They talked about how translating is community building and community building is activism. "Why do we translate poetry? Not because it's going to sell in big numbers, but because it's important. It conveys one culture to another."

From the personal to the universal and from the big to the small, I was starting to see a circular flow. Serving your own community must come first. Serving your own community also means bringing the world to your neighborhood because it's vital for us to understand other cultures. And to do so, we must occasionally step outside of our communities.

Elisabeth Jacquette, executive director of Words Without Borders, said while accepting an award for innovation for her organization, "Literature in translation is not a genre in and of itself. It encompasses all genres. Let's just read good stories."

No matter where we are in the world, isn't that all any of us are trying to do?

I'm extremely grateful to Books Across Borders for offering the fellowship that allowed me to connect with publishers and booksellers from all over the world. It reminded me of the scale this industry is operating on and the important role each small community plays in its success.

Ryu Murakami, "the cult Japanese author and filmmaker whose subversive, blackly comic novels found millions of readers," died October 17, the Guardian reported. He was 74. Murakami "incorporated violence, explicit drug use and sex into stories that offered a sharp-eyed critique of Japanese and American culture."

Adam Freudenheim, publisher and managing director at Pushkin Press, which, along with Bloomsbury, publishes Murakami's works in translation in the U.K., said: "It has been a huge privilege to bring many of Ryu Murakami's strange, original and cinematic novels to an English-speaking audience..... All at Pushkin Press are saddened to hear of his death and extend our sympathies to his many readers around the world."

Murakami's first novel, Almost Transparent Blue (1976), was written while he was still a student and won the Gunzo prize for new writers as well as the Akutagawa prize. The Guardian noted that it is "narrated by a character called Ryū, and depicts the hedonistic lifestyle of a group of disillusioned, nihilistic young people." 

In 2013, journalist David Pilling pointed out the difference between him and his better-known--though unrelated--namesake, Haruki Murakami, writing that Ryu Murakami's books are "edgier and angrier.... If Haruki is the Beatles of Japanese literature, Ryu is its Rolling Stones."

Murakami published more than 40 novels and short story collections, including In the Miso Soup, Audition, Piercing, and Popular Hits of the Showa Era. His third, Coin Locker Babies, about infants abandoned in storage lockers, won the Noma literary new face prize. The novel is "a surreal coming-of-age horror story that runs wildly through the heights of love and superstardom, and the lows of insanity and murder," wrote Russell Thomas in the Guardian in 2020, selecting it as one of the best books set in Japan. "Murakami's stories never shy away from shining a light on the darkest corners of society," he added.

Many of his works, including Tokyo Decadence and Almost Transparent Blue, have been adapted for screen, either by himself or others. The best-known is Audition, directed by Takashi Miike, which features a widower holding fake movie auditions in order to find a new girlfriend. Writing about it in 2009, Irvine Welsh described the novel's prose as "elegiac and affecting, but it has the sharp, visceral feel of the butcher's knife or surgeon's scalpel."

Gentosha, his Japanese publisher, said (via the Japan Times): "We are deeply and unbearably saddened to learn of the premature death of Ryu Murakami, who spent his career continuously releasing shocking works meant for a younger audience.... We pray for the peace of Murakami, who raced his way through life as the frontrunner of an era."

To celebrate the launch of Everything New Again (Bloomsbury YA), author Renée Watson was in conversation with Kwame Alexander at Harlem School of the Arts in New York City, with books sold by Word Up Community Bookshop. (photo: David Flores)

"Get caught up in a spooooooky book!" Curious Iguana bookstore in Frederick, Md., shared a photo of the shop's Halloween-themed storefront window.  

"The day hath arrived: 20% off whatever you can fit in one of our black bags, TODAY! Treat yo'self, pick out some Christmas presents, or add some titles to your ever growing TBR pile. (Don't worry about Nick we gave him a cookie after this)," Off the Beaten Path Bookstore in Steamboat Springs, Colo., posted.

"Reading is in our bones." That was the seasonal sidewalk chalkboard message in front of Blue Couch Bookshop in Columbus, Ohio, which noted: "Another gorgeous Fall weekend ahead. Stop in to your neighborhood indie to find your next spooky or cozy read!"

Today:
CBS Mornings: Sophia Bush, author of And I Will Tell You Mine: Notes from a Life in Progress (Flatiron, $29.99, 9781250457899).

Good Morning America: Adrianne Calvo, author of Maximum Flavor at Home (Agate Surrey, $32, 9781572843721).

Today: Christopher Lloyd, author of In My Own Time: A Memoir (Grand Central, $32.50, 9781538776544).

The View: John Grisham, author of The French Illusion: A Novel (Doubleday, $35, 9780385550543).

WBUR's Here & Now: Emily Feng, author of Our Hearts Burned for Home: Uyghur Militants in Syria's Civil War (Columbia Global Reports, $18, 9781967190188). 

Tomorrow:
Today: Tony Shalhoub, co-author of We Thought They'd Never Leave: Musings on Food and Family (Gallery Books, $30, 9781668194584).

Also on Today: Esther Choi, author of Hand Taste: Cook Like a Korean Grandmother (Voracious, $40, 9780316582612).

The View: Ayesha Nurdjaja, author of Mediterranean All the Way: Bold Flavors, Built to Share: A Cookbook (Clarkson Potter, $45, 9780593799901).

Drew Barrymore Show: Stephen Graham, co-editor of Letters to Our Sons (Union Square, $32, 9781454968283).

Late Night with Seth Meyers: Jessica Tarlov, author of I Disagree: Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends (Random House, $30, 9798217154135).

These Summer Storms, a drama series based on Sarah MacLean's 2025 novel, is in development at Hulu from Erin and Sara Foster, showrunners for Netflix's hit series Nobody Wants This, Deadline reported. 

Written by Melanie Marnich (Apples Never Fall), the new series "follows Alice Storm who hasn't been welcome at her family's magnificent private island off the Rhode Island coast in five years--not since she was cast out and built her life beyond the Storm name, influence, and untold billions. But the shocking death of her larger-than-life father changes everything."

Marnich executive produces alongside the Fosters and Montana McBirney via Fatigue Sisters; Oly Obst via 3 Arts; and MacLean. The project is through 20th Television where the Fosters' Fatigue Sisters has an overall deal.

"I'm absolutely thrilled to be working with the Foster sisters, 20th Television and Hulu to bring These Summer Storms to the screen," MacLean said. "The team's vision for the show, combined with Melanie Marnich's brilliant writing, has made the whole project a dream come true. I cannot wait for the world to witness the delicious chaos of the Storm family in this new, exciting medium."

The winners of the 2026 World Fantasy Award (for work published in 2025) were announced at the World Fantasy Convention in Oakland, Calif.:

Life Achievement: Clive Barker, Joyce Carol Oates
Novel: Once Was Willem by M.R. Carey (Orbit)
Long Fiction: Psychopomp & Circumstance by Eden Royce (Tordotcom)
Short Fiction: "The Hungry Mouth at the Edge of Space and the Goddess Knitting at Home" by Renan Bernardo (Reactor, Aug. 27, 2025)
Anthology: Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology edited by Julie C. Day with Carina Bissett & Craig Laurance Gidney (Essential Dreams)
Collection: Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha (Undertow Publications)
Artist: Kathleen Jennings
Special Award, Professional: Jaymee Goh, Jill Roberts, and Jacob Weisman, for Tachyon Publications
Special Award, Non-Professional: Wendy Wagner, for Nightmare magazine

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

Top Pick
Captive Traitor King by Brigid Kemmerer (Avon, $32, 9780063391741). "Book 2 in the Braided Fate series finds Ky, Jory, and Asher in a high-stakes, fragile alliance where betrayal is lurking around every corner and dark secrets could tear them apart. Kemmerer delivers a sequel full of magic, royal intrigue, and love that will captivate her readers once again." --Sharon Layburn, South Huntington Public Library, N.Y.

Take My Word for It: A Memoir by LeVar Burton and Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts (Random House, $32, 9798217198276). "Actor, library advocate, and Reading Rainbow star Burton reflects on his life in this searingly honest memoir. From growing up in the Civil Rights era, to dealing with fame, Burton always kept family, his identity, and storytelling at the heart of his journey, making this a fascinating and moving book." --Mary McCullough, State Library of Kansas, Kan.

All the Little Secrets: A Novel by May Cobb (Sourcebooks Landmark, $28.99, 9781464239205). "This thriller should come with a 'May Day!' disclaimer! Hurricane May Cobb lands in Longview again with some of the scandalous characters featured in her best-selling first in the series, All the Little Houses. After that book's cliffhanger of an ending, this new one gives us even more sex, murder, and ambition, oh my!" --Carol Ann Tack, Merrick Library, N.Y.

Beneath a Midnight Moon by Catherine Cowles (Bloom Books, $19.99, 9781464264610). "After a traumatic night years ago, Aster and Maverick meet again, and their rivalry reignites. When Aster is in danger of losing her family ranch, Maverick does the last thing she expects: proposes. With a fake engagement, a killer on the loose, and the past threatening their present, this book is an exciting return to Starlight Grove." --Kyler Epstein, Abington Community Library, Pa.

The First Ladies' Guide to Murder by Amanda Flower (Kensington, $27, 9781496759528). "Following her divorce, Nellie Grant, daughter of President Ulysses S. Grant, returns to Washington, D.C., with her children. Whilst attending a dinner at the White House with her mother and the first lady, Frances Cleveland, a brooch disappears, and a mystery begins, which only the ladies can solve. An excellent story from a favorite author!" --JR Ring, Baltimore County Public Library, Md.

Defy the Dusk by Danielle L. Jensen (Del Rey, $36, 9780593975121). "Lirien avoids using her magic to cause destruction and the forced breeding program. When taken prisoner by the people whose world she destroyed, she doesn't expect to feel for them and their rebel cause. Forced to work with their leader, Vox, to clear tunnels full of rodent monsters, Lirien can't deny the attraction she feels. Book 1 of this new series gives off enemies-to-lovers vibes and solid world-building." --Kimberly McGee, Lake Travis Community Library, Austin, Tex.

Sunflower Season by Danica Nava (Berkley, $20, 9798217188550). "Fed up with her intense tech job, June decides to leave the city behind and buy a run-down sunflower farm. Her first love, Noah, is still living in town as a local firefighter. As they start crossing paths again, old feelings quickly resurface alongside plenty of unresolved drama. A delightful second-chance romance." --Alene Moroni, Forbes Library, Mass.

Milkteeth: A Novel by Caitlin Starling (St. Martin's Press, $29, 9781250340788). "As a broodmother, Beatrice must raise and care for two young vampires when she decides to take in a third with ghoul-like tendencies. As Beatrice becomes overwhelmed and her own body mutates and craves the forbidden flesh, she seeks help from a mortal OB/GYN. This unique vampire horror read is gruesome, thought-provoking, and unputdownable." --Kristin Skinner, Flat River Community Library, Mich.

When They Find Me: A Novel by Carter Wilson (Poisoned Pen Press, $18.99, 9781464272684). "Annie and her daughter live in a remote Colorado town. Living off the grid, they have a safe room and an escape plan. Their quiet life is shattered when an old motor home pulls into their driveway, bringing a trio hell-bent on revenge. This nonstop thriller is packed with powerhouse twists and surprising turns." --Magan Szwarek, LibraryReads Ambassador, Ill.

Love, Like Apples by Jeff Zentner (Grand Central, $19.99, 9781538773604). "A man recalls his part in creating an innovative 1970s puppet TV show. The novel is heartwarming as it explores love, friendship, and found family during the show's growing pains from breaking boundaries. The story gives hope to those who work to change the world one small action at a time." --Jennifir Huston, Boyden Library, Mass.

Åsne Seierstad (The Bookseller of Kabul) is one of a rare group of contemporary journalists who have the narrative instincts of a novelist, the scope of a historian, and the bravery to go to parts of the world in search of the day's most relevant and dangerous stories.

In Never Say War: Life in Russia Today, Seierstad returns to Russia, a country whose language she speaks, where she'd studied at university in what was then Leningrad, and about which she'd published an earlier work, The Angel of Grozny, that saw her run afoul of the Russian government. This time she's posing as a tourist, and undertakes four trips in the space of a year, looking to make sense of Russia's aggression against its neighbor Ukraine.

In the book, Seierstad's point of entry into the story of contemporary Russia is former soldier Andrey Medvedev, who flees from Russia to Norway across the frozen Pasvik River rather than re-up for another (mandatory, ever-lengthening) brutal tour of duty in Ukraine with the mercenary Wagner Group. Through recounting the arc of Andrey's life, Seierstad demonstrates the anatomy of a society that is at war, even as it's prohibited from using that very word. Instead, people simply use "before" when they want to reference how things had changed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. "The preposition had to say it all."

The book delves into details of the Wagner Group itself, which had the most success on the Russian side of the war, and the criminality of both its founder and the recruits it attracts through promises of wages far exceeding anything the soldiers might earn legally. Andrey had described seeing a number of people he knew from prison in his Wagner cohort: "There were several familiar faces. Most of them were like him, from children's homes, correctional facilities and asylums." Because, as the book repeats from time to time, "The best soldier was one nobody would miss." The chapter culminates with the ultimate rebellion of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who turned the company tanks toward Moscow in protest over a lack of provisions, supplies, and strategic direction.

Seierstad encounters no such direct defiance in the regions far from the capital, where many of the soldiers come from, in her travels through the glubinka (countryside), and visits with people from all walks of life, including members of Andrey's family. While there's a variety of opinion among the people she speaks with, she finds them resigned to the war to various degrees, having internalized much of the official propaganda. People are heard through their own words, and nothing and no one is treated with anything less than the empathy that has always characterized Seierstad's work. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.

Shelf Talker: Åsne Seierstad delivers essential reading about Russia's war on Ukraine and the impact that a steady diet of pervasive propaganda wreaks on a society.