"Why do we even bother going to bookstores?...

"So ask yourself some other questions. Why do we even bother going to movie theaters when it is so easy to stream films? Why do we go to ballparks when so many games are on television? Why do we go to taverns when it's so much easier and cheaper to drink at home?

"It all has to do with our inherent need for human contact in a world going increasing icy. It all has to do with the certain kind of magic that books can provide.

"Who needs bookstores? We all do."

Copperfield's Books, which has seven locations in Napa, Marin and Sonoma Counties in Northern California, plans a new store in downtown Novato, with a tentative opening date of December, the store announced. The 6,025-square-feet location--the retailer's second store in Marin County--will be in a new building, constructed from the ground up. The address is 999 Grant Avenue, at Redwood Boulevard.

"We've been thinking about opening a store in Novato for some time and finally found a great storefront in the heart of downtown that really excites us," said Copperfield's president and co-owner Paul Jaffe. "It's an aesthetically pleasing space, very open and with plenty of natural light from the many windows. Another factor was being directly across the street from the soon to be renovated Novato Theater which will add greatly to the community gathering places downtown."

Copperfield's aims to include the community in the store's creation, with a This Is How You Build an Independent Bookstore campaign. Readers will be able to track the progress of the Novato store at Copperfield's Books' Facebook page and on the store's website. They may also follow Copperfield's on Instagram or Twitter as each step in the creation of the store unfolds.

Established in 1981, Copperfield's last opened a store two years ago, in San Rafael.

Acorn Books reopened Saturday at its new location in Smyrna, Del. In May, the bookseller said it would be closing for good after three years in Dover unless an alternative space was found, but by the end of June, Acorn was able to announce the move to 2421 South Dupont Blvd. in Smyrna.

"We cannot wait to see you!" Acorn Books posted on Facebook Saturday morning. "We are still waiting on some inventory to roll in, but we are fully operational, and able to ring sales, take special orders, process prison shipments, and we have tons of books on shelves right now.... We are anxious to reunite with old friends, and are looking forward to getting to know our new community. Most of all, we are thrilled to be keeping books in Kent County. We hope you join us in our story, and allow us to become a part of yours. Thank you again for all the support."

At the new Revolution Books location.

Revolution Books in New York City, which lost its lease in May and had to vacate its 26th Street Chelsea location, is currently renovating a beauty parlor on 347 Lenox Ave. in Harlem and hopes to open by late September. DNAinfo reported that the store "has already started a Monday book club at Harlem YMCA, a Wednesday book table at Harlem Hospital and Friday meet-and-greet nights at Astor Row Cafe." Revolution Books has also launched an Indiegogo campaign to help raise funds for the transition.

"This is a place where people can come and find out why the world is the way it is and how they can radically transform it," said spokesperson Andy Zee.

"No tacos but we do have books! #booktavern #bookstore #chalk #signwriting," the Book Tavern, Augusta, Ga., posted on Facebook.

Maui Time profiled Awakening in Paradise Metaphysical Shop in Kihei and owner Judy Levy, who said, "It's Maui's only independent bookstore. I used to be a school teacher and books are passionately important to me. I believe they are part of our intellectual freedom in this world. I'm not a fan of that 'A' company. We call it that 'A' word in our shop. We are a healing center as well. We have got books and items for purposes of keeping the sacred at the center of life. All sorts of books for upliftment, improvement and health and permaculture. I'm also a farmer. I'm big on the sustainability issue on the island."

Gatsby, at the Book Man, Abbotsford, BC

"Natural good looks? Check. A way with customers? Check. Uncanny knack of laying down on the exact book you want to buy? And... check," CBC Books noted in showcasing "12 purr-fect Canadian bookstore cats' "

Married Sex: A Love Story (Open Road Media) is the first novel by book industry veteran and nonfiction author Jesse Kornbluth; it will be made into a film directed by Griffin Dunne and produced by Nick Wechsler (Magic Mike), Steve Schwartz and Paula Mae Schwartz (The Tree of Life).

Tomorrow on Live with Kelly and Michael: Jennifer Arnold and Bill Klein, authors of Life Is Short (No Pun Intended): Love, Laughter, and Learning to Enjoy Every Moment (Howard, $25, 9781476794709).

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Tomorrow on a repeat of the Talk: Rob Gronkowski, co-author of It's Good to Be Gronk (Jeter Publishing/Gallery, $26, 9781476754802).

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Tomorrow on Hannity: Mark R. Levin, author of Plunder and Deceit (Threshold Editions, $27, 9781451606300).

The CW network is teaming up with author Nicholas Sparks to develop a TV series based on his novel The Notebook, which was previously adapted as a movie in 2004, Entertainment Weekly reported. According to the network, the series "will follow the romantic journey of the two beloved central characters Noah and Allie, at the outset of their blossoming relationship as they build their lives and their future together against the backdrop of the racial politics, economic inequities, and social mores of post-World War II of the late 1940s in North Carolina."

The project is from Nicholas Sparks Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television, with Sparks serving as an executive producer along with Theresa Park. Todd Graff is the writer and producer.

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First photos have been released for season six of Downton Abbey. Deadline.com reported that with the franchise coming to an end, Carnival Films chief Gareth Neame hinted recently that a movie "might be a possibility. Neame did acknowledge that ending Downton with Season 6 set in 1925, rather than taking the series through the stock market crash of 1929 leaves 'a lot of rich territory' to explore if a movie 'ever happens.' He did note they 'don't have a script or plan yet.' " Downton Abbey Season 6 premieres January 3 on PBS.

The winners of the £10,000 (about $15,700) James Tait Black Prizes, announced last night at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, according to the Bookseller, are:

Fiction: Zia Haider Rahman, for In the Light of What We Know (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).
Biography: Richard Benson, for The Valley: A Hundred Years in the Life of a Yorkshire Family (Bloomsbury).

Shortlisted novels were:

Dear Thief by Samantha Harvey (Ecco)
Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson (Ecco)
We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas (Simon & Schuster)

Shortlisted biographies were:

In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile by Dan Davies (Quercus)
Eleanor Marx: A Life by Rachel Holmes (Bloomsbury)
Other People's Countries: A Journey into Memory by Patrick McGuinness (Jonathan Cape)

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Donna Janell Bowman, author of the picture book biography Step Right Up: How Doc and Jim Taught the World About Kindness (Lee & Low, 2016), won the 2015 Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Book Launch Award, which provides authors or illustrators with $2,000 in funds to supplement the promotion and marketing of newly published works for children.

Though The Grammar of God's ostensible subject is its author's initial encounter with the Hebrew Bible in translation--after a lifetime of reading that sacred text in its original language--readers don't have to be Jewish to appreciate Columbia College Chicago professor Aviya Kushner's first book. Instead, the willingness to engage with Kushner's "call for a conversation about how we read, and how we of the twenty-first century live with and live out those readings from centuries ago" is greatly rewarded.

Kushner's book had an unusual genesis, coming to life during the years she studied nonfiction writing with Marilynne Robinson at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. In Robinson's two-semester course on the Bible, Kushner encountered that work in English for the first time, an engagement that, with her teacher's encouragement, eventually grew into this book.

Focusing on a handful of well-known biblical tales, most of them drawn from Genesis and Exodus, Kushner thoroughly explores how "grammar affects key aspects of the Bible." In describing the creation narrative, the confrontation between Adam and Eve and God in the Garden of Eden, elderly Sarah's laughter at learning she will give birth to a child or the giving of the Ten Commandments ("sayings" or "statements" in Hebrew), Kushner, who's not a biblical scholar, discloses that even the most skilled translator time and again must make a judgment call. Those choices, even at their most elegant--as in the King James Bible, a work Kushner admits "both stunned and moved" her--foreclose some of the richness of interpretation that's available in the original.

Kushner gracefully weaves snippets of memoir into her account. Her upbringing as an Orthodox Jew (a relatively liberal one in the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Monsey, N.Y.) made her so uneasy about being seen with a copy of the Oxford Annotated Bible, the first English translation she owned, that she carried it around in a brown paper bag. She also shares the story of her agonizing year as an invalid, when she severely fractured her foot a few weeks after making the decision to leave a secure corporate job to write full time.

Citing the travails of declared heretics like William Tyndale and John Wycliffe, Kushner points out that the translation of this holy book often has been fraught with danger. While she doesn't face that kind of jeopardy, she's produced an enlightening, sometimes daring, work that will help its readers approach an ancient book with fresh eyes. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: In this thoughtful book, Aviya Kushner explores how biblical translations shape our views of the ancient text's meaning.

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

1. The Paper Swan by Leylah Attar
2. 12-Alarm Cowboys by Various
3. When an Omega Snaps (A Lion's Pride Volume 3) by Eve Langlais
4. Master No (Masters and Mercenaries Volume 9) by Lexi Blake
5. Indulge (Infinitus Billionaire Book 2) by E.B. Walters
6. First 100 Words by Roger Priddy
7. Dare to Rock (Dare to Love Volume 7) by Carly Phillips
8. People Tools for Love and Relationships by Alan Fox
9. Execution Style by Lani Lynn Vale
10. The Arrangement Vol. 20 by H.M. Ward

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]