"For years, Amazon.com has been the place to find the cheapest books and in the most convenient way. Now, Amazon is trying to emulate the neighborhood bookstores we adore with its new brick-and-mortar location in University Village.

"But places like Third Place Books, the Elliott Bay Book Company and my own place of work, A Book for All Seasons, can never be replaced. The experience of an indie bookstore just can't be bought.... People are unique. We don't want to feel like another data point, another sale in the machine that tells the company how many books to buy. Indie bookstores also use sales data, but we leave ample room for experimentation and improvisation. If I remember an amazing book from my childhood that I think we should carry, I can tell my boss. We have the freedom to experiment, which means our customers do, too."

Innisfree Poetry Bookstore & Café, Boulder, Colo., moved to a new location at the end of December. The Daily Camera reported that after "operating at 1203 13th St. on the Hill since its January 2011 opening, Innisfree moved to a slightly bigger space across the street, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave." The bookshop, owned by Brian Buckley and Kate Hunter--one of the few poetry-only bookstores in the country--celebrates its fifth anniversary this month.

Amazon.com will begin adding sales tax to purchases from Colorado consumers next month. The Denver Business Journal reported that Lynn Granger, director of communications for the state's Department of Revenue, doesn't know what prompted the online retailer's decision, since current laws and regulations have not changed: "That's something they would have to answer."

An Amazon spokeswoman would only say, "I can confirm that Amazon will be required to collect sales tax in Colorado beginning on February 1."

Noting the state "has wrestled with sales taxes on purely online purchases for years," the Business Journal wrote that last March Amazon bought a small Denver tech company called 2lemetry, but "would not comment at the time on whether the purchase would create legal nexus in the state and be a reason for it to start adding sales taxes on Colorado purchases."

In an unusual arrangement, Daunt Books, the highly regarded London bookstore company with seven shops whose founder James Daunt is managing director of Waterstones, is opening its first store outside London and using the name of a long-closed bookstore, the Bookseller reported.

Daunt Books plans to open a 1,500-square-foot shop in Saffron Walden, Essex, in April under the name Hart's Books. A shop named Hart's Books closed in 2007. Martin Turnbull, the managing director of W. Hart & Son, an office supply company, said, "I am delighted we have been able to help in the re-establishment of an independent bookseller in the heart of Saffron Walden. We were very sad with the closure of our bookshop in 2007, so it is very exciting to be able to witness the rebirth of a genuine bookshop."

Daunt also owns the Owl Bookshop in North London, an established store it bought in 2010 when the owner moved.

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At the same time, Foyles, another major London bookseller with several outlets, is opening a 4,300-square-foot store in Chelmsford, in Essex, its first bookstore in the east of England and the third outside London after Bristol, opened in 2011, and Birmingham, opened last year, the Brentwood Gazette reported.

The store will be in a John Lewis development and feature two floors with a café that will host events, children's creative activities, book clubs and live music. Like other new Foyles stores, it will "create a physical environment enhanced by digital technology," Foyles said.

Jacobsen's Books & More, Hillsboro, Ore., will be closing next month after five years in business selling new and used books. Owner Tina Jacobsen made the announcement recently, writing that it "has been a difficult journey, but I feel like the store has made an impact on the community, and I have mostly enjoyed it!... Thank you to all who have supported me, shopped here, promoted the store and become my friends. I truly appreciate you, without such great community support we could not have been here for this long."
 
Jacobsen noted that she has "a very loyal following but I also hear nearly every day people who say 'I'll just buy it online.' Please support, or continue to support your local bookstores, really all local small retail businesses!"

"Last year was our best year," she told the Oregonian. "But it's been a struggle every single year. It's never been lucrative. I don't think people own bookstores to get rich." While she had considered options other than closing the shop, including taking on a partner or selling the store, "Nothing made sense."

With Winter Institute kicking off in just a few days in Denver, Colo., Shelf Awareness concludes its four-part series on exciting books for 2016 with today's article on highly anticipated children's and early readers books. Put together with the help of independent booksellers from across the U.S., the preceding three parts featured fiction, nonfiction and YA and middle grade.

Up first today is Thunder Boy Jr.,author Sherman Alexie's picture book debut. Illustrated by Caldecott Honor-winner Yuyi Morales, Thunder Boy Jr. is about a young Native American boy who wants to find the perfect name for himself. His father is called Big Thunder, and the boy doesn't want to just be called Little Thunder. Father and son must work together to find the perfect name. Linda Marie Barrett, general manager of Malaprop's Bookstore and Cafe in Asheville, N.C., chose Thunder Boy Jr. as a picture book to watch out for. It will be available May 10 from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

Another picture book debut on today's list is Bethan Woollvin's Little Red, a retelling of the classic Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale. Due out on April 1 from Peachtree Publishers, Little Red redraws Little Red Riding Hood as a mischievous young girl capable of saving herself from the Big Bad Wolf just fine. Melissa Fox, the children's events coordinator at Watermark Books in Wichita, Kan., called Little Red a great new picture book.

The next picture book from bestselling children's author Alison McGhee is Tell Me a Tattoo Story. With illustrations by Eliza Wheeler, the book tells of a father who recounts the story behind each one of his tattoos to his young son. Among the father's tattoos are a heart filled with numbers, an ode to his favorite childhood story and another celebrating past travels. A story of family history and love, Tell Me a Tattoo Story will be out on April 12 from Chronicle Books.

Excellent Ed, written by Stacy McAnulty and illustrated by Julia Sarcone-Roach, is the story of Ed, a lovable dog who doesn't understand why he can't sit at the dinner table or lie on the couch with everybody else in the family. Worried that he doesn't belong, Ed's only desire is to prove himself to his family. Eventually, Ed realizes that his family loves him the way he is. Chosen by Suzanna Hermans, co-owner of Oblong Books & Music in Rhinebeck and Millerton, N.Y., as a great picture book for 2016, Excellent Ed is due out from Knopf Books for Young Readers on May 17.

On June 14, Newbery Medal-winning author and illustrator Lynne Rae Perkins returns with Frank and Lucky Get Schooled, about a boy, his dog and a homework-related catastrophe. Perkins's past work includes Criss Cross, for which she won the Newbery Medal, and The Broken Cat, which she wrote and illustrated. Frank and Lucky Get Schooled will be available from Greenwillow Press.

Written and illustrated by Caldecott Honor-winner Lane Smith, There Is a Tribe of Kids is another picture book generating quite a bit of buzz. Told through Smith's sponge-paint illustrations and inventive, whimsical dialogue, There Is a Tribe of Kids tells of a young boy who goes on a remarkable journey through the natural world, encountering elephants, penguins and much more, before returning home to his fellow "tribe." Another pick from Linda Marie Barrett of Malaprop's, There Is a Tribe of Kids will be out from Roaring Brook Press on May 3.

Sara Pennypacker, the author of the bestselling Clementine series, returns on April 5 with Waylon! One Awesome Thing (Disney-Hyperion). Illustrated by two-time Caldecott winner Marla Frazee, Waylon! is about a young science-loving boy named Waylon. Among his ideas for science projects are teleportation, breathing underwater and controlling gravity, but issues at home and at school are getting in the way of his scientific pursuits. He'll have to come up with a way to set things right so he can get back to work. --Alex Mutter

George Weidenfeld

Lord Weidenfeld, publisher and founder of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, the British publisher, died earlier today at age 96.

Weidenfeld and Nigel Nicolson founded Weidenfeld & Nicolson, or W&N, in 1949. It was bought in 1991 by the Orion Publishing Group, which has been owned by Hachette Livre since 1998.

In early years, W&N published Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and The Double Helix by James Watson as well as works by Isaiah Berlin, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Rose Macaulay, Mary McCarthy, Edna O'Brien and Saul Bellow. In 2013, W&N published I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb.

Weidenfeld remained active in the house until his death, telling the Bookseller in 2009: "I couldn't just be playing golf. I would go mad. I have five or six major projects on the go and I would like to see them out. I have a three-year plan, and if the chairman of the board upstairs gives me another three years, I think I will."

Hachette UK CEO Tim Hely Hutchinson said today: "I first met George Weidenfeld in the 1980s and came to know him well and admire him enormously since that time. He was a brilliant publisher, a driving force in the careers of the many distinguished authors he published, taking a delight in ideas, and applying his boundless energy to the issues of the day. We will miss his wise counsel, his generosity, his brilliant publishing instinct and his great insight but there is consolation in the fact that he lived a long, wonderful and constructive life."

Born in Vienna, Austria, Weidenfeld left for Britain after the Nazi takeover in 1938. He worked during the war for the BBC. Strikingly, last year he helped fund the rescue of 2,000 Syrian Christians from areas controlled by ISIS as a way of "repaying his debts," he said at the time. According to the Daily Mail, he wanted to thank British Quakers and other Christians who helped refugees like him fleeing from the Nazis.

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George Jonas, a "prominent Canadian newspaper columnist whose controversial book about Israeli counterterrorists was the basis of the 2005 film Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg," died January 10, the New York Times reported. He was 80. His 1984 book, Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, "catalyzed a debate about the boundaries of nonfiction storytelling." Jonas wrote 16 books, including Beethoven's Mask: Notes on My Life & Times; and Reflections on Islam: Ideas, Opinions, Arguments.

Seattle-area booksellers gathered at chef Tom Douglas's Northern Italian restaurant, Cuoco, on January 15, 2016, to meet the vivacious author Emery Lord and to celebrate her new YA novel When We Collided, due from Bloomsbury on April 5. Pictured (l.-r.): Grace Rajendren, University Bookstore; author Emery Lord; Mel Barnes, University Bookstore; Wendy Manning, Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park; and Suzanne Perry, Secret Garden Books.

Northshire Bookstore, with locations in Manchester Center, Vt., and Saratoga Springs, N.Y., will be celebrating its 40th year in business in 2016. To kick off the festivities, the bookseller is hosting a T-Shirt Design Contest: "Show off your graphic design talents by creating a one-of-a-kind T-shirt that celebrates Northshire Bookstore, and your love of books." The winning design will be featured and displayed for sale at both stores as well as on the website, "and of course on the people that will be wearing them all over town!"

Northshire's staff will select three finalists, based on factors including style, originality, creativity and artistic quality. Entries are being accepted until midnight January 31, 2016. Winners will be announced February 5.

Independent Publishers Group and its subsidiaries have added 11 publishers:

Pelican Book Group, based in the Four Corners area of the U.S., founded in 2009. It publishes Christian fiction under its White Rose Publishing, Harbourlight, Watershed and Pure Amore imprints, including a new adult romance genre focusing on "sexual purity." Pelican was among the first providers of subscription-based e-books to the Christian market. It will be distributed by IPG effective January 1.


New publishers for IPG's Trafalgar Square subsidiary, distributed in the U.S. and Canada:

Top That Publishing, a U.K. publisher of books for children up to age 12, with 100 million copies of its books in print in 70 countries. Effective July 1.

Melbournestyle Books, Melbourne, Australia, specializing in contemporary culture and history, and children's books. Effective July 1.

BookLife, a one-year-old U.K. children's book publisher. Effective Fall 2016.

Jonnie Rocket, a small U.K. children's publisher founded by John Chapman, author of the four-book Jonnie Rocket series. Effective Fall 2016.


CAST Professional Publishing, founded in Massachusetts in 1984, is a nonprofit education research and advocacy organization specializing in post-graduate and professional education titles. It will be distributed by River North Editions, IPG's academic distribution arm, effective January 1.


Lund Humphries Publishers, a 75-year-old British art book publisher specializing in 20th- and 21st-century British and international art. In 2012, in association with Sotheby's Institute of Art, it launched a series about the art business, including International Art Business Handbooks. It will be distributed by Art Stock Books, IPG's distributor of high-quality illustrated books, effective Spring 2016.


New publishers for IPG Spanish Books, IPG's Spanish-language arm:
Plaza y Valdés, Madrid, Spain, an academic publisher with a 1,000-title backlist of humanities and social science books. Effective Fall 2016.

Editorial Alma, Barcelona, Spain, publishes nonfiction titles, gift books and coloring books. Effective February 1.

Primerapersona, Galicia, Spain, founded in 2000. It publishes educational children's and YA books in both Spanish and English. Effective Fall 2016.

Creotz, Pontevedora, Spain, also a bilingual children's publisher. Its titles focus on teaching moral values. Effective Fall 2016.

Elisa Gonzalez is promoted to executive director of trade sales from sales director of trade sales at Abrams.

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Jordan Rodman has been promoted to publicist at Knopf and Pantheon. She joined Pantheon in 2013 and besides working on a variety of book campaigns, she started (and now runs) the Pantheon Instagram account and helps support Pantheon's Twitter and Facebook pages.

One More Day, a novel by Kelly Simmons (Sourcebooks Landmark).

Today:
Fresh Air: Kevin Bales, author of Blood and Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World (Spiegel & Grau, $27, 9780812995763).

Tomorrow:
NPR's All Things Considered: John Donvan and Caren Zucker, authors of In a Different Key: The Story of Autism (Crown, $30, 9780307985675).

Live with Kelly & Michael: Daymond John, co-author of The Power of Broke: How Empty Pockets, a Tight Budget, and a Hunger for Success Can Become Your Greatest Competitive Advantage (Crown Business, $26, 9781101903599).

The Reading Room is partnering with the People's Choice Awards to launch a "Favorite Book" online vote, celebrating some of the best titles published in 2015 in six categories: fiction, nonfiction, crime & mystery, YA, fantasy and romance. Voting is now live, and a full list of nominees can be viewed at the TheReadingRoom.com as well as PeoplesChoice.com. Voting ends January 28

"This is the beginning of a great partnership that we hope will build year on year and be a great way for viewers and readers to discover new books," said Kim Anderson, CEO of the Reading Room.

People's Choice president Fred Nelson observed that the awards program "celebrates many genres of popular culture, so enabling fans to choose their favorite books is a natural extension for us. We're thrilled to partner with a curated book community like the Reading Room."

The Mystery Writers of America unveiled its nominees for the 2016 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction, TV and film published or produced in 2015. View the full list of Edgar finalists here. The Edgar Awards will be presented to the winners April 28 at MWA's 70th annual banquet in New York City.

photo: Lee Gillies

Mick Herron was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and now lives in Oxford. He is the author of the Slough House series (Slow Horses and the Gold Dagger-winning Dead Lions), and a mystery series set in Oxford. His work has been nominated for Macavity, Barry and Shamus Awards, and his latest thriller, Nobody Walks (Soho Press, 2015), has been shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger. His next book in the Slough House series is Real Tigers (Soho Press, January 19, 2016).

On your nightstand now:

Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train; Christopher Reid, The Curiosities; Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5; Scarlett Thomas, The Seed Collectors.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Though there was also a book whose title and author I don't remember, which featured a dog that grew a pair of wings, and was large enough to carry children on its back. At some point in the story, it gets shot down with an arrow. (Spoiler: it lives.) If I can boil that memory down to a pithy phrase, it'll provide me with a Rosebud moment on my deathbed.

Your top five authors:

Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Kate Atkinson, John le Carré, Philip Larkin.

Book you've faked reading:

There are some, sure, but if I provide details, I'll either give mortal offence to friends who are writers or produce litigious feelings in editors who've commissioned reviews.

I have, though, owned a copy of Nabokov's Ada for more than 20 years without ever getting past page 3. Which is strange, because I devoured his other books.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World. Sheer madcap brilliance, defying categorization.

Book you've bought for the cover:

I'm almost sure I've never done this. But I'll think of dozens of examples just as soon as I've returned the questionnaire.

Book you hid from your parents:

Another tricky one. But I remember reading Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer in my teens, and I don't suppose I left that lying around.

Book that changed your life:

It would be whichever of the Dick and Dora series that was the first book I read by myself. (NB: You might want to be careful Googling these.)

Favorite line from a book:

"George, you won," said Guillam....

"Did I?" said Smiley. "Yes. Yes, well I suppose I did."

--Smiley's People by John le Carré (Another spoiler. Sorry about that.)

Five books you'll never part with:

Philip Larkin, Collected Poems; Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire; Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park; Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers.

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

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

The above question that would elicit the same answer from you on a different day:

None of them.

In all of Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo's middle-grade fiction (Flora & Ulysses; The Tale of Despereaux), it's the emotional undercurrents that carry the story. In Raymie Nightingale--the author's most autobiographical novel to date--one powerful undertow is 10-year-old Raymie Clarke's determination to bring her errant dad back home.

Raymie is taking baton-twirling lessons for one reason only: she wants to win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest. If she does win, her father, who ran off with a dental hygienist ("like the dish ran away with the spoon," she thinks), will see a photograph of her newly crowned self in the newspaper and promptly return to her and her mom.

Two contest competitors are in Raymie's class: the gruff Beverly Tapinski, who is not to be messed with, and the dreamy Louisiana Elefante, who is sick with "swampy lungs" but sings like an angel, especially the song "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head." (This is the summer of 1975.) They have contest agendas, too. Louisiana wants the prize money so she and her tiny grandmother can stop stealing food and "never be terrified again." Beverly wants to sabotage the contest because she hates "spangly things" and is sick of her mother forcing her to perform in endless competitions.

On the Little Miss contest application, the girls must list any good deeds they might have done. Raymie can't think of a thing, so she asks her ancient neighbor Mrs. Borkowski, who's known for dispensing wisdom, such as the notion that most people waste their souls by letting them shrivel. ("Phhhhtttt" is evidently the sound soul-shriveling makes.) Unfortunately, Mrs. Borkowski is no help at all. Raymie turns next to Mrs. Sylvester, her father's secretary, who recommends reading "a suitable book" to the elderly as a possible good deed.

Raymie chooses a dull-looking library book about Florence Nightingale and ventures forth. Golden Glen Nursing Home is a nightmare. Like a character in a campfire ghost story, one of the elderly residents repeatedly screams "Take my hand!" Raymie dares to enter Room 323 of the terrible voice, but as the woman reaches for her, she jumps and drops her library book. She is too traumatized to retrieve it... and runs.

Desperate to get the book back, Raymie enlists the help of the fearless Beverly, and then Louisiana, who suddenly decides their baton-twirling trio should be called the "Three Rancheros." "We'll rescue each other," Louisiana says.

The Little Miss contest does take place as scheduled, but by that time Raymie Nightingale has become the buoyant, poignant story of how three heavy-hearted girls band together to help each other with their respective, ever-evolving missions. DiCamillo's fabulous cast of eccentric characters--including Mrs. Sylvester, who talks like a cartoon bird and believes in candy corn, feeding swans and happy endings--makes for a hugely entertaining parade.

From start to finish, Raymie feels her soul alternately shrinking and expanding like an indecisive balloon as she and her new entourage navigate the waters of friendship and heartbreak, love and loss, life and death. Most of the characters in this fine, funny, meticulously crafted novel live life "wishing for things that are gone," but there's certainly no chance that Raymie's lovely and large soul will ever completely shrivel with a "Phhhhtttt." --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness

Shelf Talker: Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo's seventh novel stars 10-year-old Raymie, whose plot to get her father back yields surprising results.