"The Supreme Court's decision not to review Little v. Llano is a setback in timing, but not in justice. We are undeterred and remain committed to defending the freedom to read in courtrooms across the country, including our ongoing challenges in the Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits. This issue will return to the Supreme Court in the near future, and we are working to establish strong, constitutional precedents that counter the Fifth Circuit's ruling."

Lily Books & Café hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony last weekend to celebrate its opening at 127 Baltimore St. in historic downtown Cumberland, Md. WCBC Radio reported that the bookstore "carries a wide selection of books, including new and used titles and offers a variety of coffee, tea, and pastries."

Speaking about her plans for the shop, owner Lily Jackson said, "I think it's super fun! I think the books are a whole other thing that can bring people in but then our hours are going to be super unique to the other coffee shops around here so, if it's like 9 p.m. and you want to come down and get a coffee and a book and just hang out you can do that."

Describing the new business as "a community bookstore," Lily Books and Café's website notes: "A literary gathering place for individuals, groups and the Cumberland community which is partnering with the performance space Loft 129.

"We hope to provide residents of the Cumberland community a place to gather for the musical and literary arts. Following in the footsteps of Gayle and Lee Schwartz's beloved Book Center, we hope you will find a home to be nourished by good books, good coffee and tea, and good company. Be inspired for life at Lily Books!"

Bookstore and bar Afterword Tavern & Shelves, Kansas City, Mo., will close when its lease ends on January 31, KMBC 9 News reported. 

Afterword Tavern & Shelves has resided at 1834 Grand Blvd. since its opening in 2018. The store is closing because the building's new landlords are not renewing the lease. The team behind Afterword hopes to reopen in a new space eventually, but there is no timetable for doing so.

"There's a lot of people that are like, no, like what are we going to do?" general manager Kate Hall told KMBC 9 News. "This is like a neighborhood staple and we feel the same.... It's hard."

In an Instagram post announcing the closure, Hall wrote, "One more personal note: this has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and personally, I want to also say how much I treasure every single person that has contributed to Afterword staff--present and past. You all are the real ones. And you all should be proud of what you’ve built."

Afterword will host a "Last Hoorah" event on January 24.

The Book Industry Charitable Foundation will provide four scholarships--up from two previously--for comic store owners and their employees to attend the 2026 ComicsPRO industry meeting in Glendale, Calif., scheduled for February 18-21. 

The funds, up to $1,500 per scholarship, may be used for travel, lodging, and meals. ComicsPRO will cover the registration fee for the meeting. Scholarship guidelines and the application form are available here. The deadline to apply is December 31, at 5 p.m. Eastern. 

"We are proud to continue our support for comic retailers with this increase in the number of professional development scholarships we provide as well as doubling the amount available to cover increased travel costs," said Binc CEO Pam French. "Providing comic people access to networking and education opportunities is critical to strengthening stores and helping build sustainability."

Marco Davanzo, executive director of ComicsPRO, added: "We are thankful that Binc is providing four scholarships for the comic industry meeting. The scholarships will really help those retailers that wouldn't ordinarily be able to attend. Binc is an amazing organization, helping comic and bookstore owners and employees handle unforeseen emergencies. We are truly blessed to have them supporting the front lines of comics retail."

Prolific author Fern Michaels, "a mother of five in suburban New Jersey who responded to her husband's request to get a job by taking up writing, only to blossom into a bestselling author of more than 200 romances and thrillers," died on November 12, the New York Times reported. She was 92. Michaels began her career writing with a partner, Roberta Anderson, but took legal control of the pen name (her real name was Mary Kuczkir) in 1989 and adopted it as her public persona in interviews. 

Fern Michaels

She sold an estimated 150 million books, according to Kensington Publishing, her longtime publisher. Her work has been translated into 20 languages. She was best known for the Sisterhood series, a collection of 36 romantic thrillers that began with Weekend Warriors (2003), 

Michaels credited a steely resolve that allowed her to launch a writing career in her 40s: "When my youngest went off to kindergarten, my husband told me to get off my ass and get a job. Those were his exact words. I didn't know how to do anything except be a wife and mother.... Rather than face the outside world with no skills, I decided to write a book. As my husband said at the time, stupid is as stupid does. Guess what, I don't have that husband anymore." Although the couple never divorced, they separated in the early 1970s.

She met Anderson, another suburban mother, while working part time in market research. They chose their pen name because Michaels liked the name Michael, and had a huge plastic fern in her living room. The Times wrote that "the duo worked odd jobs, including cleaning clogged drains and taking door-to-door surveys, before publishing the first Fern Michaels novel, Pride & Passion, in 1975.... Two years later, they achieved a commercial breakout with Captive Passions." 

"Fern's books became a safe place for women to find someone who not only understood what they were going through, but also celebrated them," said Esi Sogah, who edited several of her novels for Kensington. "She gave us a window into the world the way it could be, and showed us how to have a fun time doing it."

After she took over the pen name, Michaels continued her relentless pace for decades. Even into her 90s, she typically published four books a year. She recently embarked on a new series, Twin Lights, and published the first installment, Smuggler's Cove, in August. Code Blue, the 37th Sisterhood novel, will be published this month, and several more books are scheduled for publication in the coming year.

"Is Fern Michaels a great writer? No," she wrote on her website. "She is however, one hell of a story teller. When people ask me what I do, I say, 'I scribble and tell stories.' It's a great way to make a living."

Wild Rumpus Books, Minneapolis, Minn., put on a story time out in the 20-degree weather for a local holiday festival. Pictured: author Emily Kilgore reading her children's book The Christmas Book Flood (Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR) to the wintery crowd.

"We've had many amazing engagements here, but this one... hits different," Chicago's Volumes Bookcafe, which announced last week it will be closing in January, posted on Facebook. "Whitney and George met at one of our Totally Lit Speed Dating events and they are true book lovers and bookstore lovers. We were thrilled to help pull off this great surprise. Shout out to TJ Klune (a book that they talked about on the first night) and it held the ring! OMG it was the cutest and was so filled with laughs and joy. 10/10 engagement. I cried. We all cried. Congrats, you two!"

Ingram's Publishers Group West has added two publishers for distribution:

Crossed Hearts, which specializes in the distribution of Japanese manga, Korean webcomics, and East Asian novels to English-language markets, is making its worldwide print debut. Its publishing program features more than 30 series across more than 50 volumes. 

Danann Media Publishing, with headquarters in the U.K., publishes Danann Books and Sona Books, known for illustrated non-fiction titles. The catalog spans music, entertainment, sports, reference, craft, and more.

Amina Washington has joined Catapult/Counterpoint/Soft Skull as assistant publicist.

Wild Folk: Tales from the Stones by Jackie Morris, illustrated by Tamsin Abbott (Chelsea Green).

Tomorrow:
Sherri Shepherd Show: Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, co-author of The Accomplice: A Novel (Amistad, $18.99, 9780063312913).

Book-to-movie/TV adaptations scored high marks among the 2025 Golden Globe Award nominations, which were announced yesterday. The winners will be named during a live ceremony on January 11, 2026. The bookish nominees include:

Movies
One Battle After Another, loosely based on Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland: best musical or comedy motion picture; director, screenplay (Paul Thomas Anderson); female actor (Chase Infiniti); male actor (Leonardo DiCaprio); female supporting actor (Teyana Taylor); male supporting actor (Benicio del Toro); male supporting actor; (Sean Penn); original score

Hamnet, adapted from Maggie O'Farrell's novel: best drama motion picture; director (Chloé Zhao); screenplay (Zhao & O'Farrell); female actor (Jessie Buckley); male supporting actor (Paul Mescal)

Frankenstein, inspired by Mary Shelley's classic novel: best drama motion picture; director (Guillermo del Toro); male actor (Oscar Isaac); male supporting actor (Jacob Elordi); original score

Wicked: For Good, based on the musical adaptation of Gregory Maguire's novel: cinematic and box office achievement; female actor (Cynthia Erivo), female supporting actor (Ariana Grande); original song (2 nominations)

Other bookish films earning Golden Globe nominations are Little Amélie or the Character of Rain, based on Amélie Nothomb's The Character of Rain; Train Dreams, based on Denis Johnson's novella; No Other Choice, based on Donald E. Westlake's The Ax; Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, based on the book by Warren Zanes; and Die My Love, based on the novel by Ariana Harwicz

TV 
Slow Horses, adapted from Mick Herron's book series: best TV series drama; male actor (Gary Oldman)

All Her Fault, based on Andrea Mara's novel: best TV limited series, anthology series or motion picture made for TV; female actor (Sarah Snook)

The Girlfriend, based on the novel by Michelle Frances: best TV limited series, anthology series or motion picture made for TV; female actor (Robin Wright)

The Narrow Road to the Deep North, adapted from the novel by Richard Flanagan: male actor (Jacob Elordi)

Tom Paulin's Namanlagh won the PEN Heaney Prize, which recognizes a single volume of poetry by one author, published in the U.K. or Ireland, "of outstanding literary merit that engages with the impact of cultural or political events on human conditions or relationships." The award is presented by English PEN, together with Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann and the estate of Seamus Heaney.

The judging panel said: "Tom Paulin's Namanlagh is beautiful and moving. One of the poems is called 'Spare Room' and spareness is at work throughout--often the poems are a single stanza with relatively short lines. It's as though nothing is to be falsely embellished and yet the language sings 'like the real hard stuff'--even through depression, as history echoes with the present and small resistances speak up."

Paulin commented: "I am hugely grateful to the judges, honored and delighted to be awarded the PEN Heaney Prize, which places social engagement at its core. It also embodies a cross-cultural alliance. The prize is particularly special to me because of its association with Seamus Heaney. His poems of sublime beauty have brought a depth of concern and an unfalteringly humane perspective to the conflict in Northern Ireland, and added immensely to the imaginative wealth of Ireland and the world beyond."

Elaborate conspiracy theories abound in Mohammed Hanif's darkly satirical Rebel English Academy, a high-stakes historical drama of "dangerous love" and subversive politics set in Pakistan.

Hanif's cleverly plotted fourth novel opens in 1979 at the inauspicious moment Pakistan's former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is executed on the orders of the military. The country erupts in protests and celebrations, depending on political affiliations. When a distressing trend emerges of people lighting themselves on fire to protest Bhutto's hanging, Captain Gul of the military's Field Intelligence Unit is dispatched to OK Town to investigate. A mustached heartthrob with "unruly" sideburns, he is captivated by Sabiha, a young woman on the run after her husband's herbal medicine clinic burns down under questionable circumstances. Sabiha, a champion athlete and daughter of imprisoned Bhutto loyalists, takes refuge at an English-language academy run by Baghi, a teacher and former revolutionary. Baghi's school is situated within the local mosque, along with a lawyer's office and a palmist.

This is a wildly entertaining drama brimming with opportunists, including Molly, the overly pious head of the mosque, who's eager to make Sabiha his second wife, and the fearsome police officer A.D. Malang, who learned the "Queen's English" at the academy. Hanif's authority figures are only superficially interested in the travails of their constituents and only if it serves their own interests. The military execution of Bhutto, a devastating blow to democracy forever etched in Pakistan's psyche, is a provocative backdrop for Hanif (Red Birds; A Case of Exploding Mangoes) to explore power dynamics across society. Sabiha and Baghi are cogs in a system not designed for the ordinary person to succeed, while Captain Gul represents its overzealous core.

Captain Gul chases Shahid, a local shopkeeper intending to set himself on fire, and Sabiha hires the mosque's beeri-smoking lady lawyer to find her parents. For Baghi, prone to searching for lovers during afternoon matinees, harboring the fugitive athlete is just one reason to avoid his former student. Then there is the videotape of "such indignities, such filth" whose discovery raises troubling questions.

In OK Town, falling in love is not for the fainthearted. Sabiha foils her suitors, yet her own heart is destined to be broken. Even as the authorities close in on their prey, Hanif--ever the satirist--recruits small-town heroes to administer their own absurdist version of justice in a finale superbly fitting for such an unsettling period in Pakistan's history. --Shahina Piyarali

Shelf Talker: Dangerous love and subversive politics collide in this cleverly plotted, darkly satirical, and wildly entertaining historical drama set in late 1970s Pakistan.

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

1. Delivering the Wow by Richard Fain
2. Fourth Wing (Wing and Claw Collection) by Rebecca Yarros 
3. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros 
4. Insatiable by Leigh Rivers
5. Bad Bishop by L.J. Shen
6. Sweet Addiction by Bella Matthews
7. 25 Days by Per Jacobsen
8. Sleigh Bells and Snowstorms by Claire Kingsley
9. Yours for the Season by Uzma Jalaluddin
10. Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]