On Tuesday, a group rallied at the Book House, Rock Hill, Mo., to protest the landlord's plan to sell to a developer who wants to demolish the building and several neighboring structures and create a storage facility. At the beginning of the month, owner Michelle Barron was served an eviction notice, requiring her to move out of the store by the end of July.

Local station KSDK had a report on the rally, which was organized by Robin Tidwell, owner of the appropriately named All on the Same Page Bookstore in Creve Coeur, another St. Louis suburb.

Tidwell

On her blog, Tidwell outlined the issues, saying, "Why am I involved in this? Several reasons, as I'm a reader, an author, and a publisher. And a bookseller. But mostly because an attack on one indie bookstore is an attack on all--and make no mistake, this is an attack by the property owner, Rex Stahl."

Support for the Book House has been growing online. A crowdsourcing campaign aims to raise $50,000 to help the store find a new location, pay security and other fees, remodel and move its 300,000 books. "Ideally we would like to purchase the historic house and surrounding property, but realistically the funding we would require for that would be perhaps twenty times our set goal," the store noted.

There is also an online petition to the City of Rock Hill protesting "the tear-down and redevelopment of the Book House," which has gained more than 1,700 signatures.

For the past two weekends, New Orleans has been consumed by Jazz Fest, and Patti Smith, musician, poet, visual artist and author, was one of this year's major headliners.

Among the myriad performances and events, the festival features a book tent that is usually run, on a volunteer basis, by employees of local bookstores. Smith was scheduled to stop by the tent and sign copies of her memoir Just Kids, which documents her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

Patti Smith with Garden District Book Shop owner Britton Trice

"We were delighted to find out that she would sit in the book tent and sign books for an hour or so before her performance," said Susie Penman of the Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans. "We ordered several cases of Just Kids and prepared to deal with a deluge of her fans."

Unfortunately, Jazz Fest was beset this year by unusually cold and rainy weather, and Smith's signing was cancelled (although her performance would go ahead as scheduled). Having already ordered many copies of Just Kids in addition to widely publicizing the signing, the Garden District Book Shop asked Smith if she could do a short-notice signing at the store, which was across town from the festival location.

"We were absolutely thrilled when she agreed," said Penman. With less than 24 hours until Smith's visit, employees of the Garden District Book Shop scrambled to get news of the signing out via Facebook, Twitter and an e-mail blast. The next day, the store was inundated with fans.

"It was a wonderfully efficient signing," Penman related. After inscribing books for a multitude of fans, Smith signed the rest of the store's inventory of Just Kids, about 70 copies. "She left right on time, and when she performed two hours later, the sun came out for the first time all weekend."

Sony has opened an Australian Reader Store, joining its e-book stores operating in the U.S., U.K., Japan, Germany, Austria and Canada, the Australian reported. "Reader Store is a purpose-built e-bookstore that brings Australia customers a wide range of local and international eBooks, spanning best sellers, classics, new authors and more in eight languages," the company said.

"With the widely accepted, open ePub format and our focus on local Australian e-book selections, we believe Australians will be excited to choose Reader Store for any book they want to read," said Tad Kitsukawa, managing director of Sony Digital Reading Services.

Riffle, the long-anticipated and oft-delayed book discovery platform, left its closed beta last week and is now open to the general public.

Riffle's book suggestions are based, it says, on user recommendations rather than esoteric algorithms. Users can sign into Riffle via Facebook and Twitter, and can also directly follow each other. And although the feature is not yet live, users will eventually be able to rate and review books.

Following Amazon's announcement in March that it will purchase the hugely popular site Goodreads, some members of the industry have increasingly looked to Riffle as an independent alternative.

On Friday, May 17, at 7 p.m., the University Bookstore, Seattle, Wash., is hosting an "All for Boston" event to support the family of Adrianne Haslet, a Seattle native and Arthur Murray ballroom dance instructor in Boston who lost a foot in the Marathon bombing, as well as others affected. Donations of $5 are suggested and can be given either to Adrianne Haslet's personal fund or One Fund Boston. The store is offering snacks and wine, and 10% of all book sales will go to the two funds.

Four authors will appear at the event: Katherine Pryor, Kim Baker, Mary Jane Beaufrand and Laura Kvasnosky.

Ellen V. LiBretto died on Saturday, May 4, after a brief illness. She was 66.

After holding managerial positions in New York City libraries, coordinating Young Adult services, LiBretto joined Random House as library marketing manager for Ballantine Books, where she worked with such authors as Ray Bradbury, Elizabeth Berg, Anne Perry and Colin Powell. She later consulted on library marketing for several independent publishers.

She wrote the YA nonfiction book The General Slocum Ferryboat Fire of 1904 and the High/Low Handbook: Best Books and Web Sites for Reluctant Teen Readers and was in production on a documentary about her great-grandfather, sculptor and artist Frederick Ernst "Fritz" Triebel.

Author Daniel Wallace kicked off the tour for his new novel, The Kings and Queens of Roam (Touchstone Books), Monday at Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C. "We had a local (independent) balloon store create a backdrop for the talk--we gave them a picture of the book cover and they went wild!" said Flyleaf's owner Jamie Fiocco. "Daniel was interviewed by Alan Shapiro, local author and poet whose latest poetry collection [Night of the Republic] was a National Book Award finalist. We had 115 folks attend and it was a crazy evening. Daniel is famous for his fairy tales and myths so we thought the fantastical balloons suited the mood."

Congratulations to owners Terry Gilman, Maryelizabeth Hart and Jeff Mariotte! This Saturday, May 11, Mysterious Galaxy, San Diego, Calif., will celebrate its 20th anniversary with an all-day gala. The celebration will feature more than 20 authors--including Eoin Colfer and Jill McCorkle--in panels and spotlight sessions throughout the day. The festivities mirror the store's opening day celebrations on May 8, 1993, which included authors such as Ray Bradbury and Robert Wade, along with David Brin and Alan Russell, who are making encore appearances this Saturday.

Over the past 20 years, Mysterious Galaxy opened a second location in Redondo Beach, in 2011, and has frequently partnered with local schools, libraries, Comic-Con International and the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Last week, the Mystery Writers of America honored the store with the Raven Award, for Mysterious Galaxy's "outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside of creative writing."

Last Sunday, Quirk Books and Drexel University's Urban Playground and Dragon Jedi celebrated May the Fourth Be with You Day with a William Shakespeare's Star Wars flash mob on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The event included re-enactments of three scenes from Ian Doescher's upcoming William Shakespeare's Star Wars by (Quirk, July 2), accompanied by an inflatable R2D2, a number of weaponized baguettes and lots of curious onlookers.

Congratulations to Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, Ariz., "yet again" named "best bookstore" of 2013 by readers of the East Valley Tribune. Co-owner Gayle Shanks told the paper: "We never stop. We always want the next award."

Among the elements cited by the paper that have made the store a perennial winner: its work with and deep roots in the community, its 35-person staff and "a passion to keep books and reading alive," a schedule of 300-350 events a year and its partnership with the neighboring coffee shop.

The National Book Foundation announced the winners of its 2013 Innovations in Reading prizes, which are awarded "to individuals and institutions--or partnerships between the two--that have developed innovative means of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading."

This year's recipients are City National Bank for Reading Is the Way Up (Los Angeles, Calif.), which addresses "the plight of school libraries and the lack of current and compelling books available to students"; Little Free Library (Hudson, Wisc.), which was launched modestly three years ago and is now found in 42 countries, "from Ghana, Uganda, and Nigeria to Japan, Australia, Brazil and a dozen European nations"; The Uni Project, "a portable reading room for New York City"; Uprise Books Project (Vancouver, Wash.), which "was founded in 2011 with a very simple mission: to encourage underprivileged teens to read by providing them with new banned and challenged books"; and Worldreader (Seattle, Wash.), "whose mission is to make digital books (via e-readers and mobile phones) available to children and their families in the developing world."

Henri, le Chat Noir: The Existential Musings of an Angst-Filled Cat by William Braden (Ten Speed Press).

Today on NPR's Fresh Air: Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs (Knopf, $25.95, 9780307596901).

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Today on NPR's Talk of the Nation: Buzz Aldrin, co-author of Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration (National Geographic, $26, 9781426210174).

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Tomorrow morning on FOX & Friends: Teresa Giudice, author of Fabulicious! On the Grill: Teresa's Smoking Hot Backyard Recipes (Running Press, $20, 9780762449774).

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Tomorrow morning on the Today Show: Jimmy Connors, author of The Outsider: A Memoir (Harper, $28.99, 9780061242991).

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Tomorrow on the View: Steve Schirripa, co-author of Big Daddy's Rules: Raising Daughters Is Tougher Than I Look (Touchstone, $25, 9781476706344).

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Tomorrow on Dr. Oz: Chris Powell, author of Chris Powell's Choose More, Lose More for Life (Hyperion, $24.99, 9781401324841).

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Tomorrow on the Rachael Ray Show: Vanessa Williams, co-author of You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Hollywood, Love, Loss (and Each Other) (Gotham, $18, 9781592407590).

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Tomorrow on a CNN Special Feature with Fareed Zakaria: Mark Mazzetti, author of The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth (Penguin Press, $29.95, 9781594204807).

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this week 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, May 11
1:15 p.m. Publication Party for David Stockman, author of The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America (PublicAffairs, $35, 9781586489120). (Re-airs Sunday at 7 p.m.)

4:45 p.m. At an event hosted by the Book Stall at Chestnut Court, Winnetka, Ill., Steven Harper presents The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis (Basic Books, 9780465058778).

7 p.m. Thane Rosenbaum talks about his book Payback: The Case for Revenge (University of Chicago Press, $26, 9780226726618).

8:30 p.m. Google's Jared Cohen and Eric Schmidt discuss their book The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business (Knopf, $26.95, 9780307957139). (Re-airs Sunday at 10:45 a.m.)

10 p.m. After Words. Susan Glasser, managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine, interviews Christian Caryl, author of Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century (Basic Books, $28.99, 9780465018383). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m. and Monday at 12 a.m. & 3 a.m.)

11 p.m. Jack Fuller presents his book Restoring Justice: The Speeches of Attorney General Edward Levi (University of Chicago Press, $45, 9780226041315). (Re-airs Sunday at 3:45 p.m.)

Sunday, May 12
12:30 a.m. Michael D'Antonio discusses his book Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal (Thomas Dunne, $26.99, 9780312594893).

1 p.m. Robert Proctor presents his book Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition (University of California Press, $49.95, 9780520270169). (Re-airs Sunday at 10 p.m. and Monday at 1 a.m.)

2 p.m. At an event hosted by the Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative, Madison, Wis., Gar Alperovitz talks about his book What Then Must We Do?: Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution (Chelsea Green, $17.95, 9781603585040).

6:30 p.m. Richard Seymour presents his book Unhitched: The Trial of Christopher Hitchens (Verso, $16.95, 9781844679904). (Re-airs Monday at 2 a.m.)

7:45 p.m. Temple Grandin talks about her book The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28, 9780547636450).

10:30 p.m. Marina von Neumann Whitman discusses her book The Martian's Daughter: A Memoir (University of Michigan Press, $30, 9780472118427).

Author Elizabeth Spencer, executive producer Sharon Swanson and producer Rebecca Cerese spoke with WUNC's Frank Stasio about the new documentary film Landscapes of the Heart: The Elizabeth Spencer Story, which premiered last Sunday.  

The film offers "a window into an extraordinary author's life and work, viewed through the prism of her Southern lineage. It features archival photography and film clips, re-enactments and interviews with many of today's most important writers of the American South."

Finalists for this year's Anthony Awards, which are given at the annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, have been announced. Shortlisted for best novel are Dare Me by Megan Abbott (Reagan Arthur), The Trinity Game by Sean Chercover (Thomas & Mercer), Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Crown), The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny (Minotaur) and The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge). You can view the complete list of Anthony nominees here. Winners will be announced during Bouchercon XLIV, which will be held September 19-22 in Albany, N.Y.

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, May 14:

Little Green: An Easy Rawlins Mystery by Walter Mosley (Doubleday, $25.95, 9780385535984) sends Easy Rawlins on the trail of a missing acid tripper in 1960s Los Angeles.

The Outsider: A Memoir by Jimmy Connors (Harper, $28.99, 9780061242991) is the memoir of the champion tennis player.

Jewelweed: A Novel by David Rhodes (Milkweed Editions, $26, 9781571311009) returns to rural Words, Wisconsin.

The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 by Rick Atkinson (Holt, $40, 9780805062908) is the final book of the Liberation Trilogy.

Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight by M.E. Thomas (Crown, $25, 9780307956644) reveals the inner workings of a successful sociopath and attorney.

Tom Lichtenheld, the artist behind Steam Train, Dream Train by Sherri Duskey Rinker, just out from Chronicle Books, took some time out of his book tour to answer a few questions and draw a few pictures.

We understand that you've been drawing for as long as you can remember. Did you have a favorite theme in your early drawings? A favorite place to draw? Can you show it to us?

The first thing I remember drawing was a ship, and I recall drawing lots of cars (Mustangs and Jaguar XKEs, to be specific) during social studies class in eighth grade.

Of course, I do a lot of drawing in my studio, but there's another place I find strangely inspiring, which is everywhere except my studio. In particular, I like to doodle and work out story problems when I'm at some sort of public performance, like a concert or school play--and the more mediocre the performance, the better. There's something stimulating about having my attention divided. I think it's like drawing in your dreams, where your subconscious is allowed to wander on its own.

I drew this woman during a reading at my local library. The story being read was excellent but dark, so her expression reflects the mood in the room.

You've done two books with Sherri Duskey Rinker that are home-run themes with children--construction sites and trains. What is it like to collaborate with her? Is there a give-and-take?

With the first book, there was more back-and-forth with the editor than Sherri, but we collaborated quite a bit on the second one. Sherri's an artist as well, so we speak the same language, and she's very open to my spin on things.

"I heard about the Newtown shootings while sitting in a coffee shop. Like everyone else, I was filled with sadness and anger, so I did this drawing as much for therapy as anything else."

What is your process when you're working on a book?

If I'm considering a manuscript from someone else, the first thing I do is quickly doodle in the margins of the manuscript. If a few good images come to me quickly, I know the book is clicking with me, so I sit down and spend a few hours on loose sketches. This initial work is very important because it tells me if I'm excited about the book. Then I paginate the story a few different ways; not for technical reasons, but to see if I can bring some rhythm and dynamics to the idea. Eventually, the entire book gets sketched out into a storyboard and the real illustration work begins.

"I drew this in church, where I do a lot of 3/4-from-behind drawings. It's here I realized that ears are really funny-looking."

Which artists have most influenced you?

My artist and illustrator heroes are a diverse bunch because I know just enough about art to understand the genius behind what artists do, but lack the talent to do most of it myself. Fundamentally, I admire great drawers, great painters and artists who do great goofy stuff.

A few of the great drawers I admire are Peter de Seve, Eric Rohmann and Marla Frazee.

I'm more of a drawer than a painter myself, so I'm in awe of painters like John Singer Sargent, Grant Wood, and Winslow Homer.

In the goofy category, I love everything done by Oliver Jeffers. He's more witty than goofy, but his work makes me smile, and he's also a fabulous painter. My go-to goofy artist is Delphine Durand, whose book My House is an endless source of inspiration.

"This was drawn at a local film festival, while waiting for the projectionist to figure out the new-fangled digital projector. When in doubt, draw a dog."

What are your favorite things to draw when you're not working on a book project?

Mostly people, but I also like to draw animals and simple objects. When I worked in advertising, I drew a lot of feet because it was the only part of people I could draw during meetings without them noticing.

This is one of hundreds of drawings I've done of shoes while sitting in boring meetings about advertising. No, I don't have a foot fetish, it's just the only thing I could look at without getting busted for not paying attention.

What are your favorite things to do when you're not drawing?

Talking with other book creators, goofing off with nieces and nephews, riding my bike, eating chocolate.

"I can't remember where I drew this, but I know it wasn't in my studio or I wouldn't have used a dried-up brush pen--yet it's so much better this way."

I'll Be Seeing You is a gem of an epistolary novel celebrating the friendship of two women who have never met in person. Suzanne Hayes (The Witch of Little Italy) and Loretta Nyhan (The Witch Collector) should know their topic well--like their lead characters, these two best friends have never met in person, composing their novel solely through e-mails.

In January 1943, as World War II rages in Europe, Rita Vincenzo tends her Iowa garden and worries about her two men in uniform: her husband, Sal, and 18-year-old son, Toby. In New England, Glory Whitehall tends to her toddler son and awaits the birth of her second child while her husband, Robert, fights overseas. Both women enter a pen pal program for wives of enlisted men, not knowing what to expect. Certainly, the level-headed professor's wife and the bubbly young homemaker aren't prepared for the friendship that will take root in their hearts and ultimately save them both from the unexpected turns of life in wartime.

In the absence of their loved ones, the women struggle. Rita finds herself saddled with the girlfriend she didn't know Toby had--a poor, spineless, uneducated slip of a girl she considers completely unsuitable for her son. Meanwhile, Glory turns increasingly to her childhood friend Levi for relief from her loneliness, and in the process finds remaining faithful to Robert difficult. Letter by letter, the two women not only commiserate about rations and recipes, they unfold the secrets of their hearts.

Hayes and Nyhan glide through three years of two families' struggles with a tone that generally remains light and playful but is flexible enough to accommodate the depths of grief and to respect the vast love and support of female friends. While Rita and Glory's relationship certainly forms the story's support, girl power is not the sole message here. The authors explore many aspects of human love, be it the love of mothers and children, husbands and wives or star-crossed sweethearts. The darker side of human nature makes an occasional appearance as well, but Glory and Rita give each other the encouragement, unconditional love and brutal honesty each needs to stand firm and find the right path.

This inspiring depiction of the power of friendship begs to be shared between girlfriends as well as mothers, daughters, and sisters, and it's the perfect pick for women's book clubs. Hayes and Nyhan are a winning team. --Jaclyn Fulwood

Shelf Talker: An epistolary novel about two women in World War II America who become close friends through a pen pal relationship, written by two real-life pen pals.