"In the wake of Internet competition, bookstores have been feeling like publisher showcases and promoting ourselves as literary curators. But our true value may be as basic as this: often people come to us simply to talk to another human being. In a world that is more and more automated, computerized, Web-based, sometimes, someone just wants to tell their story to another human being, feel like someone heard them, and take away hope that things will change--hope in the form of a book."

In a major surprise, Mark Suchomel, the driving force in building Independent Publishers Group into one of the country's major distributors, has left the company. He had been president for 15 years and earlier was v-p, sales and marketing. In 1986, a year before Chicago Review Press bought IPG, Suchomel joined Chicago Review Press as sales manager.

"I'm proud of the fact that in the time I was at IPG, we didn't have a year when revenue didn't increase," Suchomel said yesterday. He noted, too, that during his tenure, IPG grew from a small operation employing about 10 people to a company with 175 employees.

Under Suchomel's watch, IPG bought Trafalgar Square Publishing, which imports books from U.K. publishers; Paul & Co., the academic book distributor now called River North Editions; and a majority interest in Triumph Books, the sports book publisher. He also launched Small Press United, which focuses on distribution of small presses; developed Spanish-language programs; started a line for the gift trade; and expanded the company's presence in Canada.

Suchomel and IPG were in the news in February 2012, when the company became the first major publisher or distributor other than one of the Big Six houses to refuse Amazon's demands to change terms. That led Amazon to stop selling all digital editions of books distributed by IPG, a widely reported impasse that lasted three months.

Throughout the period, Suchomel was forceful but diplomatic, acceding to Amazon's desire that he not discuss specific terms but making the facts of the situation known and suggesting ways that IPG publishers and consumers could continue publishing and reading e-books without Amazon. At the time, he spoke about the situation in a way that described his approach at IPG in general: "I've never encountered anything like this before. We're reasonable. We're helping publishers be better publishers and be healthy publishers. We're easy to work with. We perform a valuable service to both sides of industry."

In a "special alert" to IPG publishers yesterday, IPG CEO Curt Matthews, the majority owner of the company, announced what he called "an important change in IPG's senior management." He thanked Suchomel "for his years of thoughtful service. He certainly had a great deal to do with the growth and success of IPG and your publishing programs over many years."

Several IPG publishers yesterday expressed concern about the change, and appreciation of Suchomel's leadership at IPG, his business acumen, his concern for clients' needs and his deep involvement in all aspects of the company. Typical was this comment from MaryAnn F. Kohl, owner of Bright Ring Publishing, Bellingham, Wash.: "Mark Suchomel is the single finest man in the publishing business I have ever worked with. His integrity, management skills, and sense of the industry are unmatched. My favorite thing about Mark is this: if he said it, it was true, and if he did it, it was good, and if he suggested it, he was right. Mark's future is as bright as can be. I can't wait to see what's next for him."

Suchomel may be reached at MarkSuchomel4@gmail.com or 312-316-9618. --John Mutter

Effective immediately, Anne Messitte has been named executive v-p of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. She will also continue in her role as publisher, Vintage Anchor Books. Knopf chairman and editor-in-chief Sonny Mehta noted that "in addition to her leadership role within the group, we will also look to Anne to continue her editorial acquisition work for all of our hardcover and paperback imprints, adding to a list of bestselling writers that includes E.L. James and Paulo Coelho."

BookExpo America has named its selections for this year's Editors Buzz Forums. BEA will present three separate panels: Editors Buzz (adult) on Wednesday, May 29, at 4:15 p.m.; YA Editors Buzz on Thursday, May 30, at 10 a.m.; and Middle Grade Editors Buzz on Friday, May 31, at 11 a.m. The Buzz panel presentations will be supplemented with Author Stage appearances for the chosen authors. The selections for the Buzz Forums are:

BEA Editors Buzz
All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior (Ecco)
Knocking on Heavens Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death by Katy Butler (Scribner)
Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink (Crown)
The Affairs of Others: A Novel by Amy Grace Lloyd (Picador)
Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields by Wendy Lower (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
The Facades by Eric Lundgren (Overlook Press)

BEA YA Editors Buzz
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (St. Martin's Griffin)
Tandem by Anna Jarzab (Delacorte Press)
All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill (Hyperion)
Entangled by Amy Rose Capetta (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children)
If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan (Algonquin Books for Young Readers)

BEA Middle Grade Editors Buzz
A Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates #1: Magic Marks the Spot by Caroline Carlson (HarperCollins)
Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan (Dial)
The Fantastic Family Whipple by Matthew Ward (Razorbill)
Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab by Bob Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith (Quirk)
The Time Fetch by Amy Herrick (Algonquin Books for Young Readers)

Apple's latest iBooks update (version 3.1) now makes hundreds of thousands of books available for purchase in Japan and includes "a number of improvements for reading Asian language books," according to the company.

GigaOm observed that the "small update... has some pretty big implications for Apple customers in Japan: with iBooks 3.1 they can now purchase e-books rather than just download free or public domain content."

The Next Web noted "this isn't Apple's first foray into the Japanese e-book market, initially unveiling iBooks in Japan in 2010. However, it failed to negotiate deals with Japanese publishers to sell their wares, hence it was restricted to content that was already in the public domain. Apple has now remedied that, it seems, having inked deals with Japanese publishers, and will go some way towards helping it compete with the likes of Kobo, Amazon and Sony, which are already active in the market."

Jenny Milchman, author of Cover of Snow (Ballantine), has embarked on what may be the longest author tour ever. This is the second installment of her notes from her trip:

Revision is the writer's lot, and I must now revise my mileage estimation from the first installment of these Posts from the Road. My husband/navigator/guy-who-passes-car-snacks-back figured we would be driving about 18,000 miles by the end of August. But with one month down, and 7,000 miles on the odometer of the all-wheel-drive for which we traded in our two cars, I think the figure may come closer to 40,000.

Where have we been since Asheville?

A great deal of this leg was spent amidst Southern hospitality and blizzards across the Central and Southern Plains. All-wheel-drive or not, when they close down Interstate 70 in Kansas... you don't want to be there.

The Bolling-Haxall House

One situation that booksellers have to deal with is event space. On-site or off-site? Kelly Justice of Fountain Books, Richmond, Va., took a lovely approach by pairing with Diane Beirne, executive director of the Woman's Club (and the sister of my own beloved editor), to host an evening at the historic Bolling-Haxall House, an 1858 Italianate mansion in Richmond. Kelly has quite a way with words. "I ate this book," she said of one title, which somehow sounds more rapacious than devour, doesn't it? Several loyal bookstore customers, women's club and book club members alike, as well as authors, came out for some book talk and a rendition of "Somewhere over the Rainbow" by mystery author and chanteur Brad Parks. The acoustics were unbeatable in that magnificent structure.

At The Booksellers at Laurelwood, Memphis.

Margot Sage-EL of Watchung Booksellers, Montclair, N.J., recently spoke at a panel about the continual effort by booksellers to "stay relevant." Her bookstore seems to be triumphing in maintaining relevancy, and it's something we've seen other bookstores tackling in creative ways as well. The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis, Tenn., deepens roots in the community through a give-back program, support of local charities and even a bistro where hungry browsers can eat. (Not to mention authors who arrive at the store mere minutes before their event). Bookseller Joanne Van Zant has a good portion of a wall devoted to her reading picks, and these seem to be some of the most pored-over selections in the store.

The aforementioned blizzard was coming, so we left Left Bank Books in St. Louis, Mo., where local author Susan McBride and I talked about pregnancies and babies--hey, it's not all books out here--and hightailed it for Denver, Colo. I could describe the intense admiration I felt for the truckers on the road as we completed nearly 900 miles in one day and arrived at the main bookstore in Denver, which is, of course, the Tattered Cover. This legendary bookstore manages to be both cozy and expansive. And the authors are treated like royalty--literally. Hosted by the courtly Derek Holland, they sit in a carved throne chair, drink water out of an honest-to-goodness goblet and at the end are presented with an engraved brass bookmark as a souvenir of their night.

Pearl the Buffalo, Full Circle Books

Oklahoma may not be the first state that comes to mind when you think of bookstores, but it boasts two dazzlers. The first is Full Circle Bookstore in Oklahoma City, a space that belongs on that gorgeous bookstores of the world page, is hosted by Jim Tolbert, one of the more genial men of books I've met, and has a highly informative, pearl-encrusted buffalo statue who underwent a gender transformation (don't ask, just go see her).

Our day in Tulsa proves that a debut author need not know anyone in town to have a rousing event. She just needs to know someone who knows everyone in town. My New York writer friend, Betsy Ross, who grew up in Tulsa, enlisted three generations of family and friends to come in waves to Steve's Books and Magazines. Because this bookstore started life in 1948 as a lunch counter, you can have an old-fashioned ice cream soda and egg salad sandwich as you peruse the selections.

That Bookstore in Blytheville--Arkansas, that is--may be the single most conclusive proof that bookstores are thriving place. Made famous by former ABA board member, Mary Gay Shipley, TBIB has handed over reins to Grant Hill, who at 22, could herald a whole new generation of bookstore owners. Grant's challenge will be to balance the good of the old with the possibilities of the new--but from our two stops there, he seems up to the task.

Milchman and Ed King at The Big Sleep

St. Louis was worth a second visit as soon we knew that Ed King, proprietor of one of the Midwest's (and perhaps the world's) great mystery bookstores, was willing to have us. The champagne tasting Mr. King offered attendees was mere bubbles compared to the conversation about publishing that took place. I will never miss a chance to visit The Big Sleep, which may have the highest great-books-to-space ratio we've seen so far.

In Oxford, Miss., there is a bookstore called Square Books. Actually, Square Books is three bookstores, arrayed around the Square, with its 1872 county courthouse.

One of the sites doubles as a sound studio and auditorium every Thursday night when roughly 200 people settle in to hear the house rockabilly/blues band called the Yalobushwackers, guest bands, a silver-tongued radio host named Jim Dees and... one very lucky author for Thacker Mountain Radio, a show and review that is somewhat reminiscent of Prairie Home Companion.

I might have been nervous, speaking live on this legendary show, except that booksellers and book lovers Richard Howorth, Lyn Roberts, Sally McLellan, not to mention the people of Oxford, are so warm and wise and welcoming. I almost forgot that anyone else was listening, besides those gathered in the space, who all seemed to be either rapt or smiling (either one was good). When books can bring a few hundred people together, feet pounding as the music plays, relevancy will never, ever be a concern.

"Were you wondering about the harsh conditions at the bookselling institute I attended in Kansas City? Well, here's a little taste," wrote Luan Stauss of Laurel Bookstore, Oakland, Calif., in her Facebook post announcing the release of Wi8: There & Back Again, an epically bookish video co-starring Stauss and Sally McPherson of Broadway Books, Portland, Ore.

World Book Night U.S. is hosting a celebration open to "all in the publishing, bookselling and library worlds" that will include the presentation of awards, the new books and "other cool announcements," executive director Carl Lennertz promises. Special guests are WBN's book printing vendors and Hillary Jordan, author of one of this year's picks, Mudbound. The celebration will be held Tuesday, April 9, 6-7 p.m. at the Association of American Publishers offices at 71 Fifth Avenue, Second Floor, in New York City. Wine and snacks will be served.

Yaddo, the legendary artists' retreat in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where authors ranging from Edgar Allan Poe to Amy Tan, Sylvia Plath to Langston Hughes have spent time, was officially named a National Historic Landmark on Monday, the Saratogian reported.

Since its founding, artists who have worked at Yaddo have collectively won 66 Pulitzer Prizes, 27 MacArthur Fellowships, 61 National Book Awards, 40 National Book Critics Circle Awards, 108 Rome Prizes, 51 Whiting Writer's Awards and a Nobel Prize in Literature (Saul Bellow in 1976).

"Saratoga's own Yaddo is a source of great pride and has a legacy of artistic tradition that sparked a century's worth of creativity that continues to enrich our lives," New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said. "To this day, Yaddo continues to house artists on the same grounds that were once home to some of America's most influential artists. This landmark status gives Yaddo the recognition it deserves in America's history, and can help attract more visitors and strengthen our tourism industry for years to come."

Bookmasters has signed an agreement to handle distribution of Mosaic Press printed titles in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand as well as the publisher's e-books worldwide.

Mosaic Press, Oakville, Ont., Canada, focuses on literature, the arts, social studies and international studies--a "mosaic" of themes and titles, including theatre, music, erotic fiction, thrillers, fantasy, Asian studies and business.

Bringing Mulligan Home: The Other Side of the Good War by Dale Maharidge (PublicAffairs), in which the Pulitzer Prize winner goes on a journey seeking to understand his late father's experience as a soldier in World War II.

This morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe: Eric Greitens, author of The Warrior's Heart: Becoming a Man of Compassion and Courage (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $16.99, 9780547868523).

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Tomorrow on KCRW's Bookworm: part two of a two-part interview with Luis Alberto Urrea, author of Queen of America (Back Bay Books, $14.99, 9780316154871). As the show put it: "Luis Alberto Urrea's new novel, Queen of America, completes the two-volume saga that began with The Hummingbird's Daughter. Together, both novels follow the journey of Teresita Urrea, a Mexican curandera who finds herself in America at the technologically miraculous turn of the 20th century. Urrea talks about the mystical and political border crossings the books required of Teresita--and him."

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Tomorrow on NPR's Diane Rehm Show: Taiye Selasi, author of Ghana Must Go (Penguin Press, $25.95, 9781594204494).

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Tomorrow on Dr. Oz: Sue Hitzmann, author of The MELT Method (HarperOne, $25.99, 9780062065353).

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Tomorrow on NBC's Rock Center with Brian Williams: Emily Rapp, author of The Still Point of the Turning World (Penguin Press, $25.95, 9781594205125).

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Tomorrow night on the Daily Show: Tom Coughlin, co-author of Earn the Right to Win: How Success in Any Field Starts with Superior Preparation (Portfolio, $25.95, 9781591846123).

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Tomorrow night on the Colbert Report: John Sexton, author of Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game (Gotham, $27.50, 9781592407545).

The fiction longlist has been announced for the 2013 Best Translated Book Awards, sponsored by Three Percent, part of the University of Rochester. Finalists in both the fiction and poetry categories will be named April 10, and winners will be honored at an award ceremony in New York City May 4.

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

Hardcovers
Schroder: A Novel by Amity Gaige (Twelve, $21.99, 9781455512133). "This deeply layered novel about an embattled father reclaiming his only joy drew me in with the intense beauty of its language and the doomed journey of its unreliable narrator. In Erik Schroder, Gaige gives us a character who should repel but whom I loved for his humanity and the way he expressed his love for his daughter and she, her love for him. Schroder takes the reader into the arrested heart of a foreigner whose need to appear American is ultimately his undoing. That we care about him is a testament to Gaige's skill and compassion." --Vicki DeArmon, Copperfield's Books, Sebastopol, Calif.

Calling Me Home: A Novel by Julie Kibler (St. Martin's Press, $24.99, 9781250014528). "Two women, one old and white, one young and black, make a cross-country journey that will create a bond between them stronger than age or race or family. Told from each woman's perspective, this is a look at race relations in this country in 1930s Kentucky. Isabelle, at the age of 17, falls in love with Robert, a year older, and a black man, whose mother and sister work for Isabelle's family. Their forbidden love will devastate their families, their own lives, and the lives of future generations. Dorrie, present-day Isabelle's hairdresser and friend, will learn about Isabelle's past while gaining help and insight into her own family problems. You will laugh and cry as you read this incredible story." --Karen Briggs, Great Northern Books and Hobbies, Oscoda, Mich.

Paperback
The Stonecutter: A Novel by Camilla Läckberg, translated by Steven T. Murray (Free Press, $15.99, 9781451621860). "Läckberg writes intricately crafted plots with prose that quickly draws you in. As this story opens, Detective Patrick Hedstrom is not having a good day as his new daughter is firmly against her parents enjoying a restful night. His day is about to get a lot worse. Tired and grumpy, he answers a call about a fisherman finding a body. The fisherman pulled up a child with his lobster pots, and the child turns out to be the daughter of Patrick's good friends. When it is determined that the child did not drown accidentally but was murdered, the tension mounts as it seems the village has disturbing secrets that go back generations. The latest work from a major talent." --Deon Stonehouse, Sunriver Books, Sunriver, Ore.

For Ages 9 to 12
The Bird King: An Artist's Notebook by Shaun Tan (Arthur Levine/Scholastic, $19.99, 9780545465137). "According to Tan, 'drawing is its own form of thinking.' The Bird King is an invitation from the Academy Award-winning artist to browse through his elegant, whimsical, and mysterious thought processes. Each page of this deceptively small collection will both capture you by providing a glimpse into the origins of Tan's previous works and bid you to create your own story to accompany his images. This volume is an attractive and key addition to the collections of aspiring artists, writers, and fans of graphic novels." --Kerri Poore, Politics & Prose Books and Coffee Shop, Washington, D.C.

[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]

Scott Nadelson grew up in northern New Jersey and has lived in Oregon for the past 16 years; he teaches creative writing at Willamette University in Salem. He has published three collections of short stories: Aftermath, The Cantor's Daughter and Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories, and is the winner of the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize, the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award and the Oregon Book Award for short fiction. His newest book, The Next Scott Nadelson: A Life in Progress (Hawthorne Books, March 1, 2013), is a comic memoir about love, literature and loneliness.

On your nightstand now:

Barry Hannah's Long, Last, Happy. It had been years since I'd read Hannah, and revisiting these stories and hearing his mad, wise, hilarious voice again has been pure pleasure. I'm just sorry he had to die for me to find my way back to his work. Also Shadow Man by Gabriel Blackwell; a wild, metafictional romp through the hardboiled world of Hammett, Chandler and Ross Macdonald, packed with the most outrageous similes you'll ever encounter. And, finally, Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Ann Porter, which I re-read every couple of years to remind myself how deeply into the abyss a piece of literature can take us.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Goggles! by Ezra Jack Keats. Not as well known as his sublime A Snowy Day but equally mysterious and beautiful. Keats made the gritty urban landscape as magical and strange as any fantasy world. I've been reading it to my two-year-old daughter, and she loves it as much as I did.

Your top five authors:

Five is tough, but here goes: Isaac Babel, Franz Kafka, Eudora Welty, Peter Taylor, Leonard Michaels. Apologies to all those I've left out.

Book you've faked reading:

William Burroughs's The Soft Machine. I was in college, trying to impress a girl in the library smoking lounge (can you believe college libraries used to have smoking lounges?). All the cool kids read Burroughs back then. I kept scanning the same page, waiting for her to look up and notice me. When she left, I tossed the book aside and never picked it up again.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer. One of the funniest books I've ever read, and also one of the smartest: on the surface, a book about not writing a book about D.H. Lawrence, it's really an exploration of procrastination, obsession, and the ways in which art can give us meaning. Also, Paula Fox's spare, gorgeous memoir The Coldest Winter, about her time as a journalist in Europe immediately following World War II.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Let Me Be the One by Elisabeth Harvor. I'd never heard of Harvor when I picked it up and have since become a big fan. The cover has an evocative photograph of two young women dressed up for a dance--white gloves, layers of lace--watched over by an matronly figure in a fur coat. All three are looking at someone off camera, the two young women with interest, the mother with skepticism, or maybe protectiveness. It didn't hurt that the cover also mentioned the book had been shortlisted for the Governor's General Award. I'm a sucker for Canadian short story writers.

Book that changed your life:

For me it's not a book but a short story, one that does in 30 pages what few novels can do in 300: "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin. I read it during a moment of post-adolescent despair, and it taught me everything I needed to know about how to live in a world of suffering, how to enter the darkness to discover the light, how to turn struggle into something beautiful.

Favorite line from a book:

From Flannery O'Connor's story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find": "'She would of been a good woman,' The Misfit said, 'if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.' "

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Beryl Markham's West with the Night. A friend had given it to me, and I started it without much expectation. But within a few pages, I was reading with my mouth hanging open; I couldn't believe what Markham did with language, how she played with form, how she balanced lyricism and narrative. Surprises on every page. I would love to experience the sense of discovery and revelation of that first read again.

Jennifer Yerkes's debut picture book stars a white feathered hero who feels invisible, until he discovers that what he thought was a drawback is, in fact, an asset.

The story line may not be new, but the artwork is fresh and innovative. Yerkes takes "white space" to a whole new level, outlining the bird through inference, with a swash of color at the neckline or a hint of shadow under the wing. The eye of the onlooker connects the dots. Readers see the little bird most fully on the dedication page, which hints at what's to come. The bird appears as proud as a peacock in profile, his carrot-colored beak raised, and eyes elongated in a self-congratulatory squint, while an array of unique feathers, leaves and fronds form faux plumage.

"Once there was a funny little bird," the tale begins. The feathered hero looks alert; a full, round eye peers out at readers as he stands firmly on his purple feet. He is as invisible to other birds as he is to readers. However, "when he was seen, others made fun of him." A path of wet footprints prove he's left the scene. When a "magnificent bird" ignores the hero, it leaves behind some red curling feathers. The invisible hero gets an idea, and begins to create a makeshift costume of that red feather, snap pea–green curling vines and other attractive accoutrements: "The world is full of beautiful things, he thought." But when he starts to be admired, the formerly invisible bird begins to "show off." His preening attracts a fox. Yerkes depicts the predator entering from the left-hand side of the illustration, unbeknownst to the bird. When the bird does notice, Yerkes heightens the tension. She depicts the fox in midair, all mouth and airborne front paws, and the bird's eye resembles a spiral, while feathers, wings and legs go akimbo. Without his makeshift costume, the bird is once again invisible, though readers will detect his eye and beak. A mongoose threatens, and the bird discovers he can camouflage his friends like an invisibility cloak. As the bird shields a mouse, all readers see is its curling tail.

Yerkes reveals signs of seasonal change to mirror her hero's metamorphosis: a butterfly emerges from its cocoon, and a squash ripens, as the bird finds a way to express himself in his own unique way. --Jennifer M. Brown

Shelf Talker: An author-artist turns invisibility into an asset in this remarkable debut picture book.

The following were the most popular book club books during February based on votes from more than 80,000 book club readers from more than 35,000 book clubs registered at Bookmovement.com:

1. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
2. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
3. What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
4. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
5. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
6. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
7. The Round House by Louise Erdrich
8. Defending Jacob: A Novel by William Landay
9. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
10. The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Rising Stars:

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Math

[Many thanks to Bookmovement.com!]