"To all the bookstores around the world--We're all pieces of the same puzzle, working everyday to accomplish what we deem to be the impossible.

"We have to be reminded every once in awhile that what we're doing changes actual lives, even though we may not see it right now. Every book you sell to a child, a new reader, a soul looking for solace, is a voice that travels through time to meet them where they're at. And we're the messengers. 

"So Happy belated Independent Bookstore Day to all you who are still fighting the good fight. #independentbookstoreday."

Bookmark It, Orlando, Fla., which opened two years ago, will expand during the summer, moving its home location, and adding presences in two other locations. As owner Kim Britt said, the store "has grown from short story to novella, expanding our collection and services to meet the needs and requests of our authors and customers. And now we offer yet another plot twist... Bookmark It is becoming a series!"

On May 1, Bookmark It began offering a selection of titles at Infusion Tea, a College Park eatery and art co-op. On June 1, Bookmark It will move across the street in its home area of Audubon Park into the Lovely, an eclectic shop showcasing local artisans and vintage collectors. Then, in late summer, Bookmark It will open in the Gallery of Avalon Island, a contemporary art space in downtown Orlando. The store will continue to have a presence, too, at Local Roots, the local farm grocer and craft beer/wine purveyor in the East End Market, where Bookmark It offers a selection of cookbooks.

Each location will host a variety of literary events, from workshops and book club meetings to launch parties and readings, giving Bookmark It more opportunities to be a part of Central Florida's growing literary arts community, Britt said.

Among upcoming events are a new Author VarieTEA reading series at Infusion Tea that will showcase both local and visiting authors' works and a return of the Wine&Sign Fridays at the Lovely, "an informal meet 'n' greet," where locally published authors discuss titles in their genres and offer insiders' peaks into the writing process.

Also in Florida, Sally Bradshaw plans to open a bookstore in Tallahassee in November, according to Florida Politics.

The store will be called Midtown Reader, a place where book lovers can gather and share their love of reading. "My hope is we really provide a safe haven for critical thinking," Bradshaw told Florida Politics. "I think independent bookstores are places where people can read and think before they speak, where book lovers can gather and celebrate the power of reading and learning."

Bradshaw, who served as senior adviser to former Governor Jeb Bush during his presidential campaign, said that she decided to open a bookstore after reading that Tallahassee had been ranked the smartest city in Florida and one of the smartest cities in the nation but, as she put it, the Florida capital has "really never had a true independent bookstore."

The site wrote about Bradshaw: "While she might be a political junkie at heart, Midtown Reader's shelves won't just be stocked with books about politics and campaigns. She wants to offer a little bit of everything, focusing on Florida books and authors. Bradshaw said there will also be an emphasis on children's literature, and the shop will offer author readings and lectures. But, there's one book that probably won't be front and center. She said, 'I doubt I'll order extra copies of The Art of the Deal.' "

She added: "This political year is certainly evidence of the death of critical thinking. Some degree of rationality has to be resurrected."

A graduate of Paz & Associates' "bookstore boot camp," Sally Bradshaw is being helped by Donna Paz Kaufman and Mark Kaufman in her new campaign to open a bookstore.

For the first time, Scholastic is taking its annual Summer Reading Challenge campaign on the road, with a 10,000-mile Summer Reading Road Trip through July 31 that will include some 50 events in more than 25 cities coast-to-coast.

The Road Trip has two RVs that will visit bookstores, schools and libraries. At each stop, kids and families will be able to enjoy a day of free reading activities, including author visits and book signings; a tent offering reading activities and crafts; giveaway tables and prize wheel; animated "gif" photo stations featuring Clifford the Big Red Dog and Slappy from Goosebumps; picture stations for kids to show off their "reading muscles"; costumed characters; and local media interview opportunities with authors, illustrators and Scholastic representatives. To see the full list of free public events, click here.

Parents, family members and educators can follow the progress of the Scholastic Summer Reading Road Trip on social media via @Scholastic and #SummerReading, and on the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge website.

Ellie Berger, executive v-p and president of Scholastic Trade Publisher, said, "We are so excited to be working with booksellers, teachers, librarians, and our authors and illustrators nationwide, to encourage kids to have fun with reading this summer."

The Summer Reading Challenge is a free global online summer reading program that since 2009 has generated more than a billion reading minutes by kids. This year's theme, "Be a Reading Superhero," encourages kids to build "reading muscles" by reading more and logging their reading minutes, starting May 9, to earn virtual rewards. During the summer, kids will be able to unlock stories from 19 authors, who will share how they became reading superheroes. At the end of the summer, the school in each U.S. state, territory and in the District of Columbia that has logged the most reading minutes will be named "Best in State," and will be featured in the 2017 Scholastic Book of World Records and receive a commemorative plaque as well as an official Scholastic party kit to celebrate the achievement.

Award-winning children's author Larry Loyie, who "lived a proud and traditional Cree life which was later reflected in his books," died April 18, the South Peace News reported. He was 82. He his partner, editor and writer Constance Brissenden, formed Living Tradition Writers Group "and launched a 23-year adventure as co-authors and educators. Together, they gave more than 1,600 presentations in classrooms, libraries, at conferences and festivals across Canada," the South Peace News wrote. His books include When the Spirits Dance, As Long as the Rivers Flow, Goodbye Buffalo Bay, Gathering Tree, The Moon Speaks Cree: A Winter Adventure and Residential Schools, With the Words and Images of Survivors.

"It was a great honor to have been friends with Larry Loyie, and a treasure to have had him bring so many teachings to our museum, through his stories, his visits and his books," said Native Cultural Arts Museum curator Rachel Cripps. "We are dedicating our annual open house on Saturday, July 16, to Larry in honor of his memory."

photo: Jose Lopez

Last week, Henry Holt & Company celebrated its 150th anniversary with a gala party at the Morgan Library in New York City. Pictured: (l.-r.) Steve Rubin, president and publisher of Holt; Christine Bernstein; Holt author Carl Bernstein.

About 40,000 people gathered in Omaha, Neb., over the weekend for Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders meeting, which meant that the Bookworm's owners, Beth and Phillip Black, had "a lot of work to do," Quartz reported. As the exclusive book provider for the meeting, the bookstore sells Warren Buffett's annual selection of books about him, Charlie Munger and investment.

Beth Black estimated the store does a month's worth of business in a day at the event, adding that for new titles she orders between 500 and 800 copies to sell onsite. In January, Phillip presents a list of proposed books to Buffett, along with a sales report from the previous year, Quartz noted, adding that Buffett "approves every title that the store sells at the meeting."

Carrie Martin

Carrie Martin from Evers Park Elementary School in Denton, Texas, is the 2016 national winner and Teacher of the Year in the Barnes & Noble My Favorite Teacher Contest. Martin, a second grade teacher, was nominated by a former student, high school senior Tianna Bridges-Reed, and chosen from more than 10,000 entries at B&N stores nationwide.

Martin will receive $5,000 and be recognized at a celebration on May 6 at her school, which also will receive $5,000.

Bridges-Reed wrote, in part, "Mrs. Martin was the first teacher I can ever remember who put faith in me; I didn't even have faith in myself. She let me know I could do anything if I believed. As a dyslexic child, I never had that special someone.... Carrie Martin was the teacher whom I will never forget. She helped me to make sure I passed the math T.A.K.S. so I could go on to middle school. She helped me be the person I am today (besides my Mom). She is the one who inspired me to decide I wanted to be a teacher."

Chris Smith has been promoted to publicist for Viking and Penguin Books. He joined the Viking and Penguin Books publicity department in 2013.

Genius: The Game, a YA novel by Leopoldo Gout (Feiwel & Friends).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Joe Wicks, author of Lean in 15: 15-Minute Meals and Workouts to Keep You Lean and Healthy (Morrow, $24.99, 9780062493668).

Meredith Vieira: Arianna Huffington, author of The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time (Harmony, $26, 9781101904008).

Fox Business's Varney & Co.: Pete Hegseth, author of In the Arena: Good Citizens, a Great Republic, and How One Speech Can Reinvigorate America (Threshold Editions, $28, 9781476749341). He will also appear on Fox Business's Making Money with Charles Payne.

National Geographic Channel has given a straight-to-series order to Genius, a scripted series "telling the stories of the world's most brilliant innovators," Deadline reported, adding that the project "hails from Imagine TV, Fox 21 TV Studios, OddLot Entertainment and EUE/Sokolow." Ron Howard will direct the initial episode of Genius, whose first season focuses on Albert Einstein, based on Walter Isaacson's biography Einstein: His Life and Universe.

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The Weinstein Company "is behind an adaptation of Omerta," based on Mario Puzo's final novel, with Sylvester Stallone playing the lead role of mob boss Raymonde Aprile, Deadline reported. Antoine Fuqua (The Magnificent Seven) is directing from a pilot script and a bible "already in place by Justin Herber and Adam Hoff, and a writers room is quickly being assembled."

The Next Chapter Book Club, which uses literature to build community and strengthen relationships for teens and adults with intellectual or mental disabilities, has won the National Book Foundation's annual Innovations in Reading Prize, sponsored by the Levenger Foundation. The prize carries a $10,000 award.

With headquarters in Burton, Ohio, the Next Chapter Book Club has more than 2,000 members who meet weekly at nearly 300 book clubs in the U.S., Canada and Europe. In addition to building literacy skills, the NCBC aims to provide members with a place to share their stories as well as their love of reading.

Dr. Thomas Fish, founder of NCBC and professor of social work at the Nisonger Center at the Ohio State University, said, "Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities love books for the same reasons non-disabled people do. They are transported to different worlds and exposed to exciting new people and ideas. I'm grateful that the National Book Foundation recognizes the importance of expanding opportunities for people with disabilities to experience the pleasure of books and friends in a community setting."

The honorable mentions for the 2016 Innovations in Reading Prize are the Harry Potter Alliance, Cranston, R.I.; LGBT Books to Prisoners, Madison, Wis.; Limitless Libraries, Nashville, Tenn.; and Traveling Stories, San Diego, Calif.

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Jenny Erpenbeck has won the €25,000 (about $28,975) Thomas Mann Prize. The author of many novels, stories, essays and plays, she was cited for addressing "the precarious political history of the 20th century as well as the burning questions of the present," according to Abendblatt.

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The shortlists in the 11 categories of the Australian Book Industry Awards have been announced and can be seen here. Winners will be announced at a gala ceremony on May 19.

The contentious presidential primary campaign season is entering its endgame, and publishers have books on the nominees-apparent ready to release throughout the general election and into early 2017. Most are about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump--a mix of attacks, exposés and straightforward reporting.

Bernie Sanders, in an echo of his primary campaign, has the fewest titles but the most grassroots fans. Independent booksellers have catapulted Bernie by Ted Rall (Seven Stories Press) to the New York Times bestseller list. Rall, a political cartoonist and opinion columnist, presents Sanders's early life and lengthy political career in a biography in graphic novel form. He did the same for Edward Snowden in 2015's Snowden and promises the same treatment in Trump: A Graphic Biography, coming July 19, during the Republican National Convention.

Here follows a partial poll of upcoming Clinton and Trump biographies and broadsides, organized by candidate and pub date:

The Global Hillary: Women's Political Leadership in Cultural Contexts, edited by Dinesh Sharma (Routledge, June 5), part of the Leadership: Research and Practice series, is a collection of critical essays examining Clinton's "smart power" leadership style, with a focus on her advocacy for international women's rights and the spread of democracy. The cover shows Clinton in the famous Situation Room photo taken during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency by Doug Henwood (Seven Stories Press, June 7) depicts Hillary giving a Dirty Harry-style stare down the barrel of a revolver on its cover, and claims Clinton's campaign promises carry little weight considering her long history of flip-flopping, hawkishness and embrace of the status quo. Henwood is a contributing editor at the Nation and author of Wall Street: How It Works and for Whom.

False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton, edited by Liza Featherstone (Verso, June 14), is a collection of essays from feminist writers arguing that, despite the embrace of Clinton by many mainstream feminists, she has a record of causing economic and social harm to woman and children in the U.S. and around the world.

Hillary's America by Dinesh D'Souza (Regnery, July 25), the bestselling author of Stealing America and Obama's America, offers an unflattering imagining of a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Inside the Clinton White House: An Oral History by Russell L. Riley (Oxford University Press, September 29), part of the Oxford Oral History Series, gives an oral history of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, among other President Bill Clinton moments, using 400 hours of interviews. More relevant for 2016 are the roles played by First Lady Hillary Clinton during her husband's presidency, like spearheading the Health Security Act of 1993.

The Making of Hillary Clinton: The White House Years by Robert McNeely (University of Texas Press, January 3, 2017), part of the Focus on American History Series, includes 100 previously unpublished photographs chronicling the rise of Hillary Clinton as a policymaking First Lady, with an introduction by presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. By the time The Making of Hillary Clinton is published, she may very well be president-elect.

TIME Donald Trump: The Rise of a Rule Breaker by the editors of Time (Time, April 29) is a 96-page special edition of the magazine chronicling the candidate's early days in real estate, his political rise and who his supporters are.

Assholes: A Theory of Donald Trump by Aaron James (Doubleday, May 3) brings the penetrating insights from the author's 2012 work, Assholes: A Theory, to bear on Trump. The book's flippant title belies the author's serious sociological chops--he has a Ph.D. from Harvard and is the chair of philosophy at the University of California, Irvine.

The Truth About Trump by Michael D'Antonio (Thomas Dunne, May 31) is an updated and re-titled paperback release of 2015's Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success, now with a more ominous picture of Trump on the cover.

Trump and Me by Mark Singer (Tim Duggan, July 5) comes from a New Yorker writer whose scathing 1996 profile of the real estate mogul created lasting animosity between the two. Singer calls Trump's campaign "performance art," among other accusations.

A Child's First Book of Trump by Michael Ian Black, illustrated by Marc Rosenthal (Simon & Schuster, July 5) is a parody picture book for children and their baffled parents, with a Dr. Seussian creature on its cover and similar lyrics inside ("The beasty is called an American Trump. Its skin is bright orange, its figure is plump. Its fur so complex you might get enveloped. Its hands though are, sadly, underdeveloped."). Michael Ian Black is a bestselling author, comedian, actor and TV/screen writer.

Trump Revealed by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher (Scribner, August 23) is a biography based on the reporting work of two dozen Washington Post journalists, including co-authors Michael Kranish, an investigative political reporter, and senior editor Marc Fisher. This paper-wide production is headed by executive editor Martin Baron, who, in 2013, moved to the Post from the Boston Globe, where he oversaw the Pulitzer Prize-winning Spotlight team that revealed sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the subject of the Oscar-winning movie Spotlight. --Tobias Mutter

Allison Amend's Enchanted Islands is based on the life of a woman named Frances Conway, who lived with her husband, Ainslie, on the Galápagos Islands for several stretches in the 1930s and '40s. Aside from her memoirs, which reveal only the day-to-day mechanics of her life, little is known about her. In Amend's imaginative, richly detailed novel, Frances comes from a large, poor family of Polish Jewish immigrants in Duluth, Minn., where her lifelong friendship with a girl named Rosalie begins. The girls are in many ways opposites: Rosalie is from a relatively well-off family of better-established German immigrants; she is coddled, sexually precocious and selfish. As teenagers, the two run away together to Chicago, where a serious betrayal causes them to part ways.

When they reunite in middle age, Rosalie is married to a wealthy man and has a mansion filled with sweet children. Frances has recently married the tall, handsome, charismatic Ainslie Conway, but it is an arrangement orchestrated by Naval Intelligence, their shared employer. Ainslie is being sent to the Galápagos to keep an eye on suspected German spies, and Franny is part of his cover. The falsehood of their relationship pains Franny, and Ainslie has more secrets than just the nature of his profession. Still, the years on Floreana Island--one of the Islas Encantadas, as the Galápagos were once called--are the happiest of her life.

"You're not allowed to read this--I'm not even really allowed to write it," begins Enchanted Islands, Franny's fictional third memoir. In her own words, she tells her life story with emotional resonance: confusion at Rosalie's behavior as a teenager, bitterness and jealousy at her cruelties, a quiet if resentful acceptance of an unexciting life, and then exhilaration as she discovers Ainslie and stimulating new work, and rediscovers her old friend Rosalie. The narrative is colorful and sensually bursting, from the wet laundry that dominated her childhood home to the creatures and climate of Floreana, a changeable, isolated place both tropical and desert. These details are engrossing and lush, while the realities of World War II are recalled in dreamier terms; Franny is either far away on the island for much of it, or back at home in San Francisco feeling detached and lost without Ainslie. Her no-nonsense voice--by turns aggrieved, resigned, distraught, clever and wise--is the perfect foil to the fantastical nature of her life.

Amend offers strong, nuanced characters and a potent backdrop. Her prose is lovely without being overbearing, and her dialogue is impeccable, effortlessly evoking the characters' lovable eccentricities and less lovable faults. With a wide-ranging, adventuresome plot and a humbly engaging protagonist, Enchanted Islands is a gorgeous piece of historical fiction. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: A woman with a modest past turns unlikely spy in the Galápagos in this evocative fictionalized history.

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

1. Stuck-Up Suit by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward
2. Bounty (Colorado Mountain Series Book 7) by Kristen Ashley
3. River of Love by Melissa Foster
4. My Favorite Rogue by Various
5. Twenty-Nine and a Half Reasons by Denise Grover Swank
6. Fortune Hunter (A Miss Fortune Mystery Volume 8) by Jana DeLeon
7. Right by Jana Aston
8. Deep Under by Lisa Renee Jones
9. Slow & Steady by Kendall Ryan
10. First Kiss (The Ghost Bird Series #10) by C. L. Stone

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]