"There's one thing Amazon can't give you that Common Good Books can: me."

Chester County Book Company, West Chester, Pa., is re-opening a week from today, on Tuesday, September 3. In an e-mail to customers, the store, which closed in February, wrote, "We can't wait to welcome you to our beautiful new store! Friends and loyal customers, we've missed you. We are located next door to our old space in the West Goshen Center."

Last year, Chester County Book & Music Company had planned on closing, but was encouraged by customers to move to a smaller location instead. At the same time, the store's music section was spun off and opened in April under the name Electric Avenue, in West Chester's Cambridge Square Shopping Center.

The store had been in a 28,000-square-feet space since 1987; its new space, "two doors down," is 6,000 square feet.

Store hours will be Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m., and Sunday, noon-5 p.m. Chester County Book Company is located at 967 Paoli Pike, West Chester, Pa. 19380; 610-696-1661.

All Things Fun!, the West Berlin, N.J., store that sells games, comics and "thousands of books and graphic novels," is opening an unusual branch: on October 1, it unveils a location at the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in the same retail complex as the McGuire AFB Commissary & PX.

Founded in 2004 by Ed Evans, former v-p of sales for Koen Book Distributors and international sales manager of Bookazine, All Things Fun! is looking forward to "providing our Armed Forces personnel who shop on the base a fantastic shopping experience," Evans said. "We'll be representing our entire breath of products at the new location."

The 2,500-square-foot West Berlin store has a 50-foot display of face-out comics, more than 1,800 board and card games and hosts more than 80 events every month.

In a court filing Friday, responding to the Justice Department's revised proposal suggesting a reduction in the length of a proposed injunction against Apple and other changes, Apple attorney Orin Snyder criticized the government for filing "a 12-page broadside masquerading as a brief" and accused it of "seeking a remedy that would give Amazon a significant competitive advantage over Apple."

Snyder also wrote that Apple would not approve of changes in the way it does business in the App Store, arguing that the proposal "introduces needless regulation and complexity to an evolving marketplace." While Apple agreed to staggered negotiations with book publishers, the company "wants to choose the order in which it negotiates with them, rather than adhering to the DOJ's proposed schedule," GigaOm noted. Apple and the DOJ are scheduled to meet with Judge Denise Cote today.

In the past week, Mitchell Klipper, CEO of Barnes & Noble's retail group, sold about two-thirds of his B&N stock, about 400,000 shares, for a total of more than $5 million, the Wall Street Journal reported.

A company spokesperson noted that senior B&N executives had been barred from selling shares during the company's strategic review, which began early last year. That process ended this month with no change in the company's structure.

Klipper had owned 622,000 shares, more than 1% of the B&N stock.

The Women's National Book Association of New Orleans is establishing two prizes for crime fiction to honor the late Diana Pinckley, longtime director of university relations at Tulane; founder of communications firm Pinckley Inc.; and for 23 years author of "Get a Clue!," a column about crime fiction, in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. She was also a founding member of WNBA-NOLA, which began in 2011.

The Pinckley Prize for Debut Novel will honor a debut novelist in adult crime fiction, and the Pinckley Prize for Achievement in Crime Fiction will honor an established writer who has created a significant body of work. The prizes will be presented for the first time at the 2014 Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, which will be held March 19-23.

Her husband, John Pope, commented: "Diana loved mysteries, and she loved talking to the people who write them, especially in the panel discussions she frequently led during the annual Tennessee Williams Literary Festival. But she also enjoyed finding talented fledgling writers, and she strove in her columns to draw attention to them. I think the Pinckley Prizes will not only shine the spotlight on these authors but also help support them as they polish their craft."

The achievement award will be selected by a jury; the debut novel prize judges are accepting submissions of first novels published in 2013. For more information, go to pinckleyprizes.org.

In an unusual program, riders on Shanghai's Metro Line 2 subway can borrow a book or magazine at one station and return it at some of the other stations--and don't pay a deposit or rent the items, according to China Daily. Instead, they are encouraged to donate 1 yuan (about 16 cents) to charity.

The organizers of the project are the subway authority, online educational company Hujiang.com and the Aizhi bookstore, which has 20 locations at stations along Main Line 2.

China Daily said the program launched officially on August 18 and "has been a resounding success with office workers. Waiting lines have developed during rush hour."

One Aizhi bookseller said, "Most people returned the books after reading, and many left a coin for our charity initiative." Another commented: "Even if some books are not returned, we believe the overall benefit is worthwhile."

The books have green tape on the cover, which has information about the program and reminds people that the book is borrowed. Many of the books were donated by the public for the program.

Kaleido Books & Gifts, Perth, Australia, has some of the best signage we've seen. Check out the store's Facebook page for more examples.

From the Facebook page for Maria's Bookshop, Durango, Colo.: "Inspired by Tumblr's 'Bookshelfies' site, we at Maria's Bookshop are taking our own 'Shelfie' shots--self portraits with beautiful bookshelves in the background! Send your own Bookshelfie to bobbi@mariasbookshop.com, tell us about your favorite title, and we'll add you to our collection of shelfie shots. Because what's a better background (in photos, and life in general) than books?"

Josh Christie, of Sherman's Books and Stationery in Freeport, Maine, became a bookseller 10 years ago, not long after graduating from college, and has been a full-time bookseller for about five years. "When I started part-time, I think I did it for the reason that a lot of people do," he said. "I loved books. I grew up loving books. I thought it would be cool to be around them all day. And then I wanted to go in full-time because I fell in love with the community around indie bookselling."

Christie is active in several related online endeavors, including his website Brews and Books. As the title suggests, Christie writes frequently about the books he reads and the beer he drinks. He started Brews and Books about two years after graduating from college, as a way to keep his writing skills sharp and explore his hobbies.

"Writing was never my favorite part of being an undergrad, but it's certainly good mental exercise," said Christie. "I felt those muscles were kind of atrophying after college, so I started Brews and Books. It was exercise for me, examining things I really enjoy. I never really expected anyone else to read it."

In the years since, Christie's writing has grown substantially from just a personal project. He has written about beer as a freelancer, and takes turns with his father writing a weekly outdoors column in the Maine Sunday Telegram. In May, the History Press, an independent press focused on local and regional histories, published Christie's first book: Maine Beer: Brewing in Vacationland. The book explores the history of beer and beer brewing in Maine, starting with the formation of the state and continuing to the present day. Maine's first post-Prohibition brewery did not open until the 1980s, and Christie uses that brewery as a jumping off point for a survey of every brewery in Maine. In the year that he wrote the book, Christie visited nearly every brewery in the state.

His next big book project is a collection of the first three years of columns that he wrote for the Maine Sunday Telegram. Since 2010, Christie and his father have switched off writing duties every other week. During the season, they write about Maine's ski industry, while in the summer they write about hiking, biking and other outdoor activities.

Along with Jenn Northington of WORD, Brooklyn, N.Y., and Rebecca Schinsky of Book Riot, Christie is also co-founder and co-host of the Bookrageous podcast. Each episode of the (usually) twice-monthly podcast begins with a discussion of what books the hosts are currently reading, before segueing to broader book-related themes.

As if he's not busy enough being a bookseller, journalist, author, podcast host, brewer and outdoorsman, Christie is also a New England Independent Booksellers Association board member. He can be found on twitter and Brews and Books. --Alex Mutter

Lil BUB's Lil Book: The Extraordinary Life of the Most Amazing Cat on the Planet by Lil BUB (Gotham).

Tomorrow on PBS's Newshour: Taylor Branch, author of The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement (Simon & Schuster, $16, 9781451662467).

Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones) has joined the cast of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Parts 1 & 2, the Hollywood Reporter wrote. Based on the third novel in the trilogy by Suzanne Collins, the films will be directed by Francis Lawrence, with Mockingjay: Part 1 opening November 21, 2014; and Mockingjay: Part 2 on November 20, 2015. The second installment in the series, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, will hit theaters November 22, 2013.

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New behind-the-scenes images have been released from Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, based on the book by Jordan Belfort and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Vulture reported that "Belfort's writing, alternately horrifying and hilarious, almost reads like a Scorsese movie."

"Marty directing was Jordan's dream scenario, absolutely," said DiCaprio, adding: "There wasn't anybody else who could bring the rawness and toughness, the music, and particularly the humor required to convey the excitement of these young punks--these robber barons--taking on the Wall Street system." The Wolf of Wall Street opens November 15.

Recently we reported that CBS had put in development Dorothy, a "medical soap based in New York City inspired by the characters and themes" of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Now NBC is developing its own peek behind the curtain with Emerald City, "an Oz-themed drama" from Matthew Arnold (Siberia) that "is described as a dark reimagining of the classic tale of Oz in the vein of Game of Thrones, drawing upon stories from Baum's original 14 books," Deadline.com reported.

In addition, there is "another Oz drama making the rounds from Heroes alums Adam Armus and Nora Kay Foster, with Heroes creator Tim Kring supervising. And just last month, Syfy picked up for development a miniseries titled Warriors of Oz from director Timur Bekmambetov, a fantasy-action reimagining of the classic story."

The longlist for the £10,000 (about US$15,581) Guardian First Book award includes five novels, five nonfiction titles and a poetry collection. The winner will be unveiled in November. The longlisted books are:

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan
The Hive by Gill Hornby
Money: The Unauthorized Biography by Felix Martin
The Society of Timid Souls: Or, How to Be Brave by Polly Morland
Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World by Shereen El Feki
10 Billion by Stephen Emmott
The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves by Stephen Grosz
The Shipwrecked House by Claire Trévien

Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward's novel about a pregnant 15-year-old girl in an impoverished Mississippi bayou town in the days before Hurricane Katrina, won the 2011 National Book Award. In Men We Reaped, Ward turns to memoir to understand the seemingly unrelated recent deaths of her brother and four other young men from her close-knit community. The result is a vivid and searing look at the legacy of racism in the U.S. by a writer with exceptional narrative gifts.

Starting with her own return to DeLisle, Miss., in the summer of 2004 after getting her creative writing MFA, Ward tells each man's story in chapters woven into her larger narrative. She cuts back and forth in time as she traces her parents' lives growing up in DeLisle, trying for a better life in California then returning to dwindling choices and a fracturing family. Through her eyes, we share her grief at the loss of these young men on the margins whose lives society does not value, and understand why she loved each of them--Rog, Demond, CJ, Ronald and finally, her brother, Joshua, killed by a drunk driver.

Ward ultimately sees these deaths not as random, but as the consequence of racism so ingrained it is almost unremarkable, though its expression is not. When poverty affects African-Americans in disproportionate measure and options become nonexistent, depression, recklessness and the abuse of drugs and alcohol can seem reasonable responses; when there is no margin for error, any risk is magnified. It is a testament to Ward's gifts as a writer that she makes this journey our own as she questions whether the forced fracturing of slave families may have a lingering effect or admits her own guilt over being the only one in her family to escape. In her hands, the cultural and personal are inseparable: the characters in her novels are failing because, she writes, "I wasn't pushing them to assume the reality that my real-life boys, Desmond among them, experienced every day.... I protected them from death, from drug addiction.... I avoided the truth."

Men We Reaped is a stunning look at racism, the people it marginalizes and how we are all implicated. It is moving, honest, compassionate and rigorous. It is loving and raw, full of grief and anger, personal and objective, shocking and inevitable. Ward stands alongside writers like Edwige Danticat, Alice Walker and Maya Angelou as a gifted chronicler of the crucible of an inequitable culture. --Jeanette Zwart

Shelf Talker: National Book Award-winning Ward's memoir is a searing look at racism in the U.S. today--and a loving tribute to a lost brother and four friends.