The winners of the 76th National Book Awards were announced and honored last night in a gala event in New York City, hosted by Jeff Hiller and featuring musician Corinne Bailey Rae. (Hiller's comedic memoir, Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success was published this summer by Simon & Schuster, and Bailey Rae's children's book, Put Your Records On will be published by Rocky Pond Books on March 3, 2026.) The event was a mix of the usual celebration of reading and books and authors and the industry, as well as criticism of attacks on books, the anti-immigration wave in the U.S., and U.S. support for Israel. Watch the full awards program here.

The winners:

Rabih Alameddine

Fiction: The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine (Grove Press)

Alameddine started by saying he had seen two videos yesterday morning, one of an ICE agent who tasered a woman lying "on the asphalt" who was zip tied. "Then he carried her like garbage and threw her in the back of an SUV." The other video was of a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon that was bombed, killing 12 people. "Sometimes, as writers, we have to say enough," he said. "Enough."

Among the many people and groups he acknowledged, Alameddine thanked "independent booksellers. I would not have a career without their support. Algorithms do not like me, and the feeling is mutual."

Omar El Akkad

Nonfiction: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf)

"It's very difficult to think in celebratory terms about a book that was written in response to genocide. It's difficult to think in celebratory terms when I have spent two years seeing what shrapnel does to a child's body. It is difficult to think in celebratory terms when I know that my tax money is doing this and that many of my elected representatives happily support it. And it is difficult to think in celebratory terms when I have watched people snatched off the street by masked agents of the state for daring to suggest that Palestinians might be human beings... We have an obligation to stand in opposition to any force, including those enacted by our own governments, that, if left unchecked, would happily decimate every principle of free expression and connection that we come here to celebrate."

Patricia Smith

Poetry: The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems by Patricia Smith (Scribner)

Smith remembered her late mother, whose last words to her were "you ugly," and remembered spending much of her life as "a bona fide West Side Chicago colored girl" taught "that I had to escape my skin," what her mother called her "too black self... I was taught that I needed to escape the black that surrounded me, the black that kept me ugly and stupid and all the way down. I was nobody good, and I was nowhere good." But she "rose among storytellers" and last night happily imagined her mother and other late family members looking down on her at the National Book Awards, and the others saying to her mother, "That's your baby girl standing in front of all them folks. Child, look at where she is."

Robin Myers (l.) and Gabriela Cabezón Cámara

Translated Literature: We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers (New Directions)

Cabezón Cámara spoke in Spanish (translated by Myers), saying she was doing so "because there are fascists who don't like that." She thanked a group of people as well as "public free education in Argentina, which makes it possible for people from working class backgrounds like me to be here."

Myers noted that as she translated We Are Green and Trembling, "I thought a lot about the fact that my experience of translating it took place in two countries, Mexico and Argentina, where colonial powers sought to annihilate indigenous cultures and languages, and where those same cultures and languages continue to resist, and that [the book] has been published in my nation state of origin, this one where migrants are being persecuted and repressed, and where the government of this country continues to perpetrate and support the perpetration of the genocide of Israel against the Palestinian people."

Daniel Nayeri

Young People's Literature: The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story by Daniel Nayeri (Levine Querido)

Nayeri mused about luck, remembering that 10 years ago he worked as an editor on Varick Street in New York City overlooking the federal immigration building where "every day the line was around the block for asylum seekers." His own family had immigrated 20 years ago. "I didn't know how to express what it meant that I had somehow managed to be in the office and not on the street every day. Why should anybody be so lucky?" This, he continued, was a theme of The Teacher of Nomad Land, in which a young man "is trying to find some luck" for him and his sister, recently orphaned and in the mountains in Iran. "There is no accounting for luck."

Also at the gala, George Saunders was presented with the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and Roxane Gay received the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Both awards were announced in September.

(photos courtesy National Book Awards)

Following its debut as a mobile bookstore earlier this year, romance-focused bookstore Forced Proximity has opened a bricks-and-mortar location in Findlay, Ohio, the Advertiser-Tribune reported. 

Forced Proximity owners Ben and Brit Kirkwood.

The bookstore opened in its new home at 11300 Hancock County Rd. 99 on November 1 and carries both new and used romance titles. Owner Brit Kirkwood fell in love with romance books a few years ago and, in 2024, following visits to the Ripped Bodice's Brooklyn, N.Y., location and to Grump & Sunshine in Portland, Maine, was inspired to open a bookstore of her own.

She and her husband, Ben, began with a mobile bookstore built from a 7'×14' trailer. It debuted at a local flea market on May 31, and the reception was "beyond my wildest dreams," Kirkwood told the Advertiser-Tribune. Eventually she started selling "blind date with a book" bundles at a business called Thistle Exchange, and in September, the team behind Thistle Exchange notified Kirkwood that an adjacent storefront was opening up and suggested she open a bricks-and-mortar space.

Initially Kirkwood didn't think she would be able to do it, as she had a full-time job, children, and needed health insurance. Thistle Exchange, however, offered to assist when Kirkwood wasn't there to run the store, and with her husband's encouragement Kirkwood decided to go for it. Once they got the keys to the space, they got the store ready to open in a matter of weeks.

Kirkwood said she was deeply moved by the amount of people who came from near and far to support the bookstore. "I think we are fortunate to have a really great community and really great people who want to make reading cool again."

The Lazy Daisy Bookshop in Jacksonville, N.C., has temporarily closed while it moves to a new, larger location, the Daily News reported.

Kristen Rochelle

The new and used bookstore, which made its debut in 2023 as a mobile bookstore, is moving from 521 Yopp Rd. to a larger space at 420 Chaney Ave. Owner Kristen Rochelle plans to make use of some of that additional space by creating a beverage bar called the Sip Shoppe. She intends to focus on non-alcoholic beverages like coffee, lemonade, and sodas at first, but may add wine eventually.

Rochelle closed the Yopp Rd. location for the last time on November 16. In a Facebook post discussing the move, Rochelle called it bittersweet. "While I can hardly contain my excitement for our new space, I have loved sharing this space with you all for the past 16 months. So many books and stories shared. So many new friends. So many successes. So many smiles. So much fun. But as with the mobile bookshop, this chapter has to come to an end in order to continue the story."

She told the Daily News she'd always planned to move to a larger space eventually, and when the Chaney Ave. location became available, she seized the opportunity. Rochelle hopes to open the bookstore in the new space by mid-December.

Jeanette Winter, with more than 65 picture books to her credit, died November 7. She was 86. 

Jeanette Winter

Her works include The Snow Man; The Little Owl & the Big Tree: A Christmas Story; Oil; The Secret Project; and Diego (all written by Jonah Winter); as well as her own books Follow the Drinking Gourd; The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq; Biblioburro: A True Story from Colombia; Nasreen's Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan; and Our House Is on Fire: Greta Thunberg's Call to Save the Planet, which has been translated into 21 languages. 

"Jeanette Winter was bold and fierce and yes, stubborn, and she was a visionary," said Allyn Johnston, v-p & publisher of Beach Lane Books and Winter's longtime editor. "I didn't know these things about her initially, but I had long admired her work from afar, and our shared love of Mexican folk art finally brought us together with her 1996 book, Josefina, about renowned clay sculptor Josefina Aguilar. We went on to do 25 more books together on real-world topics."
 
Johnston recalled that soon after their first project together, Winter stopped doing sketch dummies, feeling that they took the spontaneity out of her pictures. "So she would write and illustrate a whole book, and when she was done, a package would arrive with a manuscript and all of the gorgeous finished art inside," she said. "Inevitably, though, one image or another would not quite be working, and I would have to ask for revisions. This did not always go well because she had very strong feelings about what she had made, and because I often did not address the situation in a timely enough manner--eek. But eventually, book after book, year after year, we would push through our frustrations with each other--and figure it out together."
 
Last May, Winter completed and sent Johnston a new book inspired by the loss of her family's 89-year-old house in the Los Angeles fires "and a story I'd told her about the calla lilies that had reappeared in the burned garden only a few months after the fire," she said. "To her it was a story of hope, but I could barely face looking at it because it was so personal to me. It wasn't really written for children, and I didn't see a way to suggest revisions that would make it work as a picture book. I will always regret that we didn't do our usual thing and talk our way through it and figure it out together. But you can bet I am going to go back into that fire project of hers, in the hope that there is indeed a picture book waiting inside it, biding its time before bursting out into the world, like those stubborn and beautiful calla lilies that inspired it." 

Winter is survived by her husband of 65 years, artist Roger Winter; her children's book author and poet son, Jonah Winter (and his wife, Sally Denmead); and her poet and film critic son, Max Winter.

Publicists Angela Baggetta and Kathleen Carter from New York City, along with Los Angeles publicists Megan Beatie, Holly Watson, and Kim-from-L.A., hosted an old-fashioned meet-and-greet party at L.A.'s Angel City Brewery for journalists, reviewers, podcasters, and booksellers to celebrate their joint love of books and making great stories happen. Pictured: (from left) Holly Watson, Kim-from-L.A., Megan Beatie, Kathleen Carter, Angela Baggetta.

"I gots my own cascarone from the cultural crafts lady... thank you Stella Krznarich! You might be able to grab your own at my Block Party on December 6!" Stets at Copper News Book Store, Ajo, Ariz., posted on social media. 

In an Instagram reel, Wonderland Books, Bethesda, Md., showed how, "when the social media person needs content... everyone becomes an actor."

Common Disaster: Poems by M. Cynthia Cheung (Acre Books).

Today:
Fresh Air: Michelle Carr, author of Nightmare Obscura: A Dream Engineer's Guide Through the Sleeping Mind (Holt, $29.99, 9781250342720).

WCAI: Kate Whouley, author of The Maestro and Her Protégé (Blackwater Press, $19.99, 9781963614121).

Tomorrow:
Drew Barrymore Show: Samin Nosrat, author of Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love (Random House, $45, 9781984857781).

The View: Cynthia Erivo, author of Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They're Too Much (Flatiron, $28.99, 9781250428325).

Tamron Hall: Toni Chapman, author of Everything's Good: Cozy Classics You'll Cook Always and Forever: A Cookbook (Clarkson Potter, $35, 9780593800782).

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, November 22
9 a.m. Dan Wang, author of Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future (W.W. Norton, $31.99, 9781324106036). (Re-airs Saturday at 10 p.m.)

10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Coverage of the 2025 Miami Book Fair at the Wolfson Campus of Miami Dade College in downtown Miami. (Re-airs Sunday at 11:30 p.m.)

6:45 p.m. Coverage of the 76th annual National Book Awards in New York City.

Sunday, November 23
8 a.m. David Gelle, author of Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away (Simon & Schuster, $30, 9781668032268), at Book Passage in Corte Madera, Calif. (Re-airs Sunday at 8:15 p.m.)

10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m Continuing coverage of the Miami Book Fair. (Re-airs Sunday at 10:15 p.m.)

Troy Henderson won the 2025 Australian Fiction Prize for his unpublished crime thriller, River City, Books+Publishing reported. Presented by the Australian and HarperCollins, the award is open to all Australian writers for an unpublished, book-length work of fiction. Winners receive A$20,000 (about US$12,920) and a A$15,000 (about US$9,690) advance. River City is slated for publication in early 2027.

Judge Samuel Bernard said, "River City roars to life with the action, grit, and swagger of Brisbane's underbelly, delivering a cinematic crime story that never takes its foot off the accelerator. With razor-sharp dialogue, magnetic Aussie humor, explosive set pieces, and a thumping pulse, it announces a bold new voice in crime fiction."

HarperCollins fiction publisher Anna Valdinger commented: "This is exactly the kind of crime fiction that I love--propulsive, energetic, gritty and tremendous fun. With his ragtag cast of cops and criminals awash in banter, blood and betrayals, Troy Henderson has created a vivid world that will hook readers from the first page."

Henderson called the award "life-changing.... The years of writing and rewriting were worth it, and I'm so grateful River City resonated with the judges, giving me this opportunity to reach more readers and spend more time creating."

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, November 25:

Robert B. Parker's Showdown by Mike Lupica (Putnam, $32, 9798217045297) is book 53 in the Spenser detective series.

Tom Clancy Executive Power by Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson (Putnam, $32, 9780593718063) is the 26th Jack Ryan thriller.

Best Offer Wins: A Novel by Marisa Kashino (Celadon, $27.99, 9781250400543) is dark humor about a woman trying to buy a house before it's publicly listed.

As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel (Morrow, $30, 9780063418028) is romantasy about a witch and a demon set across multiple lives.

NYPD Red 8: The 11:59 Bomber by Marshall Karp (‎Blackstone, $29.99, 9798212876513) is the eighth NYPD Red police procedural.

Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor by Christine Kuehn (Celadon, $29.99, 9781250344465) reveals a family history of spying for the Axis powers during World War II.

Capitalism: A Global History by Sven Beckert (Penguin Press, $49, 9780735220836) chronicles capitalism's role in shaping the modern world.

Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle by Natan Last (Pantheon, $29, 9780553387704) fills in the history and continuing importance of the crossword puzzle.

A Knot Is Not a Tangle by Daniel Nayeri, illus. by Vesper Stamper (Knopf Books for Young Readers, $18.99, 9780593809693) is a picture book about an Iranian boy whose grandmother teaches him how to weave a rug.

The Christmas Sweater by Jan Brett (Putnam, $19.99, 9780593533918) is another picture book featuring the wonders of winter from the prolific author.

The Little Girl Who Loved Christmas by Betty K. Bynum (DreamTitle Publishing, $29.95, 9798218328870) features Mia, the lead character of I'm a Pretty Little Black Girl!, and includes recipes and DIY holiday decorations.

Sip & Feast: Family Favorite Recipes: From Our Kitchen to Yours by James Delmage and Tara Boerum (Sip and Feast Inc., $34.99, 9798992066708) shares Italian American recipes from a popular YouTube channel. 

Paperbacks:
Second Chance Romance: A Harlot's Bay Novel by Olivia Dade (‎Avon, $18.99, 9780063215979).

Death and Dinuguan: A Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery by Mia P. Manansala (Berkley, $19, 9780593549209).

The Memory Gardener by Meg Donohue (Gallery, $19, 9781668205396).

A Love Story from the End of the World: Stories by Juhea Kim (Ecco, $17, 9780063446397).

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

Hardcover
Sacrament: A Novel by Susan Straight (Counterpoint, $29, 9781640097131). "A portrait of a community in crisis and upheaval with a diverse, fully realized cast whose dignity and love for each other shines bright. Susan Straight has captured the sacrifices of COVID first-responders and proved there's beauty in our complex, contradictory humanity." --Luis Correa, White Whale Bookstore, Pittsburgh, Pa.

The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri (Orbit, $30, 9780316595087). "A beautiful novel full of (doomed?) romance, magic, and pageantry. Also a timely criticism about why stories matter: who gets to tell them, who gets to curate them, and what happens when we suppress them." --Keith Glaeske, East City Bookshop, Washington, D.C.

Paperback
Crawl: Stories by Max Delsohn (Graywolf Press, $17, 9781644453612). "Intimate, hilarious, both sexy and devastatingly un-sexy, and joyfully queer, reading Crawl feels like sitting down to gossip with your smartest and most interesting friends." --Madisen Gummer, P&T Knitwear Bookstore, New York, N.Y.

Ages 4-8
Don't Eat Eustace by Lian Cho (HarperCollins, $19.99, 9780063321847). "I laughed so hard at Don't Eat Eustace that I teared up. Then, I forced the very next person to walk into our office to sit down as I read the book out loud to her. She thanked me for doing so. A perfect example of elevated humor in children's books." --Sarah Bradley, The Library Shop, San Diego, Calif.

Ages 6-9
Night Chef: An Epic Tale of Friendship with a Side of Deliciousness! by Mika Song (Random House Graphic, $20.99, 9780593303153). "Fans of Ratatouille and Wild Robot, step right up! Night Chef is your next beloved read. Following one misfit raccoon who has big dreams of being a chef who embarks on a journey to get a baby crow back to its family, this story is one of perseverance, community, whimsy, and of course, food." --Allie Cesmat, Changing Hands, Tempe, Ariz.

Ages 12+
The Secret Astronomers by Jessica Walker (Viking Books for Young Readers, 19.99, 9780593692677). "The Secret Astronomers is more than a deeply-felt story of an unlikely, unique high school friendship between two fully-realized characters, more than a slow-burn mystery reaching for answers from a loved one who's passed. It's a wildly impressive and completely immersive reading experience." --Meg Willing, Devaney, Doak & Garrett Booksellers, Farmington, Maine

[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]

Susan Wise Bauer's The Great Shadow is an informative and lively survey of the history of illness and of humanity's attempts to combat it. Though much of her account traces the progress that's been made from times when sickness was thought to be a punishment from angry gods, and when society was essentially helpless to fight deadly diseases, embedded in that story is a serious cautionary tale that will temper one's enthusiasm for the belief that medicine can cure what ails us.

Bauer (The Story of Western Science), who holds a PhD in American Studies and taught for 18 years at the College of William & Mary, is a fluid writer who brings to this project the useful background of an intelligent, curious generalist. The Great Shadow proceeds in roughly chronological fashion, launching most chapters with well-chosen, attention-grabbing stories, like a description of Edward Jenner's daring first smallpox vaccination or an account of the death from typhoid fever of Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, to set the stage for a discussion of broader developments in science and medicine.

The task of recounting the history of more than 12 millennia of humanity's struggle with serious illness and death, including the terrifying stories of pandemics that outstrip Covid-19 by many orders of magnitude, is daunting, but Bauer handles it skillfully. She organizes her book around a central theme--the tension between the Hippocratic model of medicine that arose in Greece in the fifth century BCE and the halting journey toward what became germ theory of disease in the 19th century. The former focused not on the illness as such but on the "experience of the patient," while the latter recognized that sickness "was carried by a whole army of microorganisms, each distinct, each causing one particular type of illness" and thus "made sense of contagion."

If Bauer had written her book 50 years ago, it almost certainly would have ended on a note of triumph, hailing the arrival of an arsenal of antibiotics that virtually eradicated a host of deadly infectious diseases. But as she explains in her concluding chapter, with the rise of a new category of antibiotic-resistant infections, the "Great Mortality Transition"--an "unprecedented lengthening of lifespan in the first half of the twentieth century"--was "quick, dramatic, and ridiculously fleeting." What's also disconcerting is that many of the responses--including vaccine skepticism and irrational fear of the "other"--to the Covid-19 pandemic, a contemporary version of a dreaded "plague," mirrored those of earlier, far less enlightened eras. With the enlightenment it offers, The Great Shadow will help anyone gain perspective on some of the critical public health challenges of the 21st century. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: Historian Susan Wise Bauer offers a fast-paced survey of sickness and humanity's search for its causes and cures.

"It used to be madness," Dominick Reuter wrote in a recent Business Insider piece headlined "16 photos show how unhinged Black Friday shopping used to be." He recalled that just a few years ago, Black Friday shopping "was practically synonymous with sleepless nights, shivering shoppers, and more than a few emergency response calls. Urged on by retailers, U.S. shoppers used to go truly wild for Black Friday, with mega deals that had people lined up outside for hours after (or instead of) having a turkey dinner with their loved ones."

The craziness was reaching a fever pitch until the Covid pandemic shut down the mob scenes in 2020. Black Friday never quite recovered its old mojo, with "the rise of e-commerce and deals that seem to start in September" (or even earlier) making holiday sales and shopping "more subdued and drawn out," Reuter noted.

At Mitzi's Books

For indie booksellers, it's more complicated, but in a good way mostly. Even 25 years ago, our bookstore's sales were often higher on Christmas Eve than Black Friday. Now Indies First/Small Business Saturday has become the focus, expanding the weekend so that Black Friday is just one part of a celebration that also includes Plaid Friday, Cider Monday, and Giving Tuesday.

Festivities prep actually begins much sooner, as Mitzi's Books, Rapid City, S.Dak., noted earlier this month: "Small Business Saturday is only 3 weeks away but it's never too early to support local businesses!"

The Well-Read Moose in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, has come up with its own solution to the day after Thanksgiving: "Join us for Moose Friday & Small Business Saturday! We're celebrating the start of the holiday season with TWO days of deals, prizes, and fun!... Come shop small, support local, and find the perfect gifts for everyone on your list. We can't wait to see you this holiday weekend!"

And the Book Nook, Menominee, Mich., advises: "Skip the Chaos--Join Us for NOT Black Friday!... No crowds. No stress. No 5 a.m. alarm clocks. Just cozy bookstore vibes and amazing deals."

At Booksmart Eastridge

But before Black Friday, we have to get through Thanksgiving, of course. Indie booksellers are checking in with their pre-season preparations, including BookSmart Eastridge, San Jose, Calif. ("The #turkey isn't quite done yet but... the twinkle lights are already warming up.") and A Book Place, Riverhead, N.Y. (Thanksgiving inspo all around the shop!").

And while Black Friday may not be the frenzied day-of-all-sales-days it once was, it still marks an unofficial start to the holiday season. Other booksellers getting ready in their own ways include:

Our Town Books, Jacksonville, Ill.: "Pardon the mess! We are going full Clark Griswald in here with a little Charles Dickens so you know... it's a Christmas mess."

Coal & Finn, the bookseller cats at From My Shelf Books & Gifts, Wellsboro, Pa., have been "resting up before the Christmas season. It's not too early to start."

And Highland Books, Brevard, N.C., posted: "Out with the old and in with new. We are gearing up and starting to install our new holiday window!"

At the Book Lounge

Folks at the New Romantics Books, Orlando, Fla., are "praying for the store stress to go away.... Here's to a stress free holiday season (ft. our favorite UPS driver Brian)."

One sign of the season hasn't happened yet, but I suspect it will within the next few days: that first sighting of an SUV with a Christmas tree strapped to the roof rack.

I have, however, seen my first book trees of the year, at the Book Lounge in St. Petersburg, Fla. ("It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at The Book Lounge.") and Cottage Books, Glen Arbor, Mich. ("Holiday Children's Book Drive Begins Today!... join us in spreading joy through the gift of reading.") 

Chatham Bookstore

For most booksellers, this is also the season of giving. Chatham Bookstore, Chatham, N.Y., noted: "As the holiday season approaches, we feel compelled to speak out for and assist our neighbors in need--in the wealthiest country in the world, no one should go hungry. For the entire month of November, we're donating the profits from cookbook sales to local organizations that feed our community. So if there's a cookbook on your holiday gift list, this is a great time to come by the store and pick it up."

Book Culture in New York City is "partnering with the Interchurch Center Holiday Toy and Book Drive! Choose an ornament from our giving tree at 112th and find the perfect gift that matches! Then leave it with us and we'll donate. Do it for the kids!!"

Community shelf at the Folded Leaf

My favorite Thanksgiving story this year comes from Cedar, Mich., where Rachel Zemenek opened the Folded Leaf bookstore last spring. It has since "become a hub for community support, offering new and used books, art, music, and a 'community shelf' stocked with essentials like food, toiletries, and hygiene products," UpNorthLive reported.

Zemenek said that as much as she loves books, she wanted the store also to serve the community. With Thanksgiving approaching, she reached out to local schools to identify families in need of a meal. Out of those conversations came a three-day Thanksgiving Meal Box Program cook-a-thon, with plans to serve families with pre-cooked, portioned meals. In addition to the meals, each family will receive a bag of groceries.

"There are now 65 families on the list for the Folded Leaf to feed. So that's about 325 people, which is overwhelming, but amazing," said Zemenek, adding that she believes in the power of community and the lessons found in books: "There are lessons in every single book, even if it is some crazy out of this world fantasy, there's always a lesson that you can learn from a book on how to be a better steward of love and relationship and community."