Longtime booksellers Emily Russo and Josh Christie are opening PRINT: A BOOKSTORE in Portland, Maine, this fall. The 2,000-square-foot store will feature adult and children's titles, have an active author and local event series, and offer children's programming.

Emily Russo

Josh Christie

Emily Russo, the daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo, worked at the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, Mass., as events director from 2007 to 2010, and at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y., as the First Editions Club manager from 2011 to 2014. She moved back to her home state of Maine last year to open PRINT.

Josh Christie is a former manager and buyer for Sherman's Maine Coast Book Shops, most recently at its Exchange Street location in Portland; he started at Sherman's in 2004. He also served on the board of directors of the New England Independent Booksellers Association from 2010 to 2015.

"Our aim is to welcome readers and writers in Portland by carrying an interesting and diverse selection of books and by hosting known and debut writers in our store and other local venues," Russo said. "A thriving literary community has always been a big part of Portland's identity, and as Portland continues to grow, we're excited to add what we know and love about books to this great literary town."

Christie commented: "Maine has a long history of fantastic authors and illustrators, and it's a culture we're here to celebrate. Portland is a town where the number of writers, readers, and book events is quickly outpacing the number of venues. The East End and Munjoy Hill have changed and grown in exciting ways in the years I've been in Portland. I'm looking forward to partnering with our neighbors and businesses in the community, and for PRINT to be part of this renaissance."

Richard Russo, a longtime advocate for writers and indie booksellers, will interview first-time writers as part of PRINT's author series. "Years ago Maine welcomed me into its community of writers, and I look forward to returning the favor by helping to introduce Maine readers to the next generation of emerging authors," he said.

PRINT will be located at 273 Congress St. in the East End area and will join, said Russo and Christie, "a diverse group of East End businesses." It's less than a mile from Portland's historic waterfront district, the Portland Museum of Art and many of the city's popular arts and food destinations.

Kate Whouley, head of Books in Common, the independent bookstore consultant who among many other projects has designed Gibson's Bookstore in Concord, N.H., and Bunch of Grapes Bookstore on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., will design PRINT.

The store's building and opening can be followed via Twitter (@printbookstore), Facebook (facebook.com/printbookstore) and Instagram (@print.bookstore), as well as PRINT's e-mail newsletter (sign up at printbookstore.com).

Europa Editions is creating the Europa International Book Fair Scholarship, a program that will offer scholarships to allow U.S. booksellers to attend the world's biggest international book fairs, including the Frankfurt Book Fair, the London Book Fair and the Turin Book Fair. The scholarships will include travel from the U.S., accommodations, per diem allowances, entry to the fair and a customized itinerary of meetings and events. The publisher aims to offer one scholarship per year.

"Europa has always been about building bridges," Europa Editions editor-in-chief Michael Reynolds commented. "And booksellers have always been and will continue to be an essential part of that bridge-building. We want to give American booksellers more opportunities to cultivate deeper connections with the international publishing and bookselling community. More members of this community come together at the London, Frankfurt and Turin book fairs than anywhere else."

The first scholarship will be offered to Frankfurt in October and be linked to the November 1 launch in the U.S. of two new books by Elena Ferrante--Frantumaglia: An Author's Journey and The Beach at Night--and to the internationally focused Ferrante initiatives that will take place at Frankfurt. Still, Reynolds emphasized, "Going forward, the scholarship is designed simply to offer U.S. booksellers a chance to connect with the international publishing community and will be open to any bookseller who is keen to establish and foster this connection."

For this year's scholarship, one of the bookstores that hosts a #FerranteNightFever launch event during the week of October 31 will win a scholarship for someone on staff to the Frankfurt Book Fair, which will be held October 19-23. Stores need to confirm by July 30 that they will host a #FerranteNightFever event by writing to EIBS@europaeditions.com. The winning store owner or manager will be notified by August 15, and the choice of who will attend Frankfurt from the store is up to the winner.

By September 15, stores need to send details about their event and set up an event page on their website and/or create an event on Facebook so that Europa can link to it for its #FerranteNightFever interactive map. Europa will provide participating bookstores with an event kit with event ideas, discussion questions and A4 #FerranteNightFever posters as well as buttons and bookmarks. For details, write to EIBS@europaeditions.com.

Quarto Publishing Group USA has bought the assets of Whitehorse Press, Center Conway, N.H., a publisher of motorcycle books that was founded in 1989 by Dan and Judy Kennedy. The company's motorcycle books encompass adventure travel, history, workshop manuals, travel guides and rider skills titles. One of the Whitehorse's first books, Motorcycling Excellence, produced in cooperation with the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, is one of the bestselling books covering motorcycle riding and safety skills.

The purchase adds two dozen backlist titles to QuartoDrives, which Quarto said improves the company's position as "a leading publisher of transportation titles for enthusiast markets." Whitehorse titles will now be published under the Motorbooks imprint.

The Kennedys said that "Quarto has served for many years as our exclusive trade distributor to bookstores and libraries in the Americas. Given the solid experience Motorbooks has with motorcycle publishing, and given Quarto's strength in marketing and distributing enthusiast books, we felt that we could not find a better 'home' for our authors and their books."

Motorbooks publisher Zack Miller commented: "Dan and Judy Kennedy are true motorcycling enthusiasts, a fact that has always been reflected in Whitehorse Press's publishing on the subject. I am pleased to add their excellent titles to Quarto and Motorbooks, and I am greatly looking forward to working with their authors."

Yesterday, Zhejiang Publishing United Group opened Moscow's first Chinese bookstore, Russia Beyond the Headlines reported, noting that Shans booku is located on Arbat Street and stocks more than 5,000 titles, with approximately 80% in Chinese, while the rest are Russian translations of Chinese books.

"This bookstore is a result of Sino-Russian cooperation in the field of book publishing," said Tong Jian, president of Zhejiang Publishing. "We can say that this opens up new opportunities for cultural exchange between the peoples of our countries."

Yves Bonnefoy, "who was generally regarded as France's pre-eminent poet of the postwar era, as well as its leading translator of Shakespeare and a wide-ranging art critic in the spirit of Baudelaire," died July 1, the New York Times reported. He was 93. In a statement, French President François Hollande called Bonnefoy "one of the greatest poets of the 20th century" and praised him for "elevating our language to its supreme degree of precision and beauty." 

The French Academy awarded Bonnefoy its grand prize for poetry in 1981, and in 1987 he received the Goncourt Prize for Poetry. His books include The Arrière-Pays; Ursa Major; New & Selected Poems, Second Simplicity: New Poetry and Prose, 1991-2011; The Anchor's Long Chain; In the Shadow's Light; The Curved Planks; The Act and the Place of Poetry: Selected Essays; and The Present Hour.

At ALA in Orlando, Fla., Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) and his wife, Lisa Brown (The Airport Book), hosted a celebration honoring Melanie Townsend Diggs of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library, winner of the 2016 Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity. The $10,000 prize, which is co-administered by ALA's Governance Office and the Office for Intellectual Freedom, annually recognizes a librarian who has faced adversity with integrity and dignity intact. Pictured: author Mo Willems, Townsend Diggs and Handler. Other notable attendees included Charlie Jane Anders, Sharyn November, Alex Gino, Ellen Oh and last year's winner, Scott Bonner of the Ferguson Library.

Nancy Olson

Nancy Olson, the late founder and owner of Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, N.C., is being inducted into the Wake County Public School System Hall of Fame, the News & Observer reported. Olson, who died in March, was cited for "sparking a literacy renaissance in North Carolina through the founding of Quail Ridge Books."

"Locals and tourists have been flocking to a new book shop-cum-cafe in a picture-perfect setting in Indian-administered Kashmir," BBC News reported in showcasing Gulshan Books: "Ringed by mountains and set on a tiny island in Dal Lake, which is often described as the 'jewel of Srinagar,' the book store has 80,000 titles on offer, including books on Kashmir's history, heritage, culture, travel, religion and literature.... Although it has only been a few weeks since it opened, Gulshan Books cafe has already had thousands of visitors."

"A lot of the youth can't afford to buy books because they are so expensive, so we are offering books that they can come and read for free," said owner Sheikh Aijaz, whose family runs one of Kashmir's oldest publishing companies.

Aijaz hopes to open similar bookstores in other tourist spots in the Kashmir Valley: "We've given a proposal to the state administration to allow us to open similar cafes in Gulmarg, Pahalgam and Sonmarg, places which attract thousands of tourists every year."

Miami New Times offers a cool slide show of the grand opening June 28 of the new, pop-up store Books + Books + Bikes + Lebo. The store is a joint effort of Books & Books, bike shop No Boundaries and artist Lebo.

Patricia Kelly is now general manager of Lonely Planet's Oakland, Calif., location, in addition to her current role as director of sales, Americas. She will be supporting and leading communication between the regional office and the global leadership team.

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At Regan Arts:

Kathryn Santora has joined Regan Arts as publicity manager. She was previously a senior publicist at Atria Books.

Breanne Sommer has joined the company as publicist. She was previously a publicity assistant at Artisan, a division of Workman Publishing.

Alexis Terrill has joined Regan Arts as publicity assistant.

IncrediBuilds: Star Wars: TIE Fighter Deluxe Book and Model Set by Michael Kogge is part of a new line from Insight Editions called IncrediBuilds, which offers 3D wood models and educational guidebooks featuring well-known characters, monuments and animals.

Today:
Fresh Air: Maia Szalavitz, author of Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction (St. Martin's, $27.99, 9781250055828).

Tomorrow:
MLB TV's MLB Now: Brian Kenny, author of Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution (Simon & Schuster, $28, 9781501106330).

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this weekend 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, July 9
5 p.m. Jessica Valenti, author of Sex Object: A Memoir (Dey Street, $25.99, 9780062435088), at BookCourt in Brooklyn, N.Y. (Re-airs Sunday at 8:15 p.m.)

5:45 p.m. Josh King, author of Off Script: An Advance Man's Guide to White House Stagecraft, Campaign Spectacle, and Political Suicide (St. Martin's Press, $27.99, 9781137280060), at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles. (Re-airs Monday at 1:30 a.m.)

7 p.m. A roundtable discussion on It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton (Simon & Schuster, $26, 9781416540649). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 a.m. and 10 p.m.)

10 p.m. Eric Fair, author of Consequence: A Memoir (Holt, $26, 9781627795135). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m. and Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m.)

11 p.m. Mary Eberstadt, author of It's Dangerous to Believe: Religious Freedom and Its Enemies (Harper, $25.99, 9780062454010). (Re-airs Sunday at 6 p.m.)

Sunday, July 10
12 a.m. Elizabeth Hinton, author of From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (Harvard University Press, $29.95, 9780674737235). (Re-airs Sunday at 1:30 p.m.)

A shortlist has been unveiled by the State Library of New South Wales for the A$25,000 (about US$18,765) National Biography Award. The winner will be announced August 8. This year's shortlisted titles are:

Battarbee and Namatjira by Martin Edmond
Comrade Ambassador: Whitlam's Beijing Envoy by Stephen FitzGerald
Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather by Karen Lamb
Mannix by Brenda Niall
Bearing Witness: The Remarkable Life of Charles Bean, Australia's Greatest War Correspondent by Peter Rees
Reckoning: A Memoir by Magda Szubanski

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A longlist has been released for the £1,000 (about $1,290) McIlvanney Prize for Scottish crime book of the year. The winner will be announced September 9. The 2016 longlisted books are:

The Special Dead by Lin Anderson
Black Widow by Chris Brookmyre
The Jump by Doug Johnstone
A Fine House in Trinity by Lesley Kelly
In the Cold Dark Ground by Stuart MacBride
Splinter the Silence by Val McDermid
The Damage Done by James Oswald
Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin
Open Wounds by Douglas Skelton
Beloved Poison by E. S. Thomson

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, July 12:

I've Got Sand in All the Wrong Places by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella (St. Martin's Press, $21.99, 9781250059956) is the seventh volume of collected true mother-daughter stories.

The Land of Stories: An Author's Odyssey (Book 5) by Chris Colfer (Little, Brown, $19.99, 9780316383295) is the fifth book of the Land of Stories series in which the twins try to restore peace in the fairy-tale world (ages 8 to 12).

The Black Widow by Daniel Silva (Harper, $27.99, 9780062320223) is the latest thriller with spy/art restorer Gabriel Allon.

All Is Not Forgotten: A Novel by Wendy Walker (St. Martin's Press, $26.99, 9781250097910) follows an assault victim given a new drug to erase memories of her attack.

Life Debt: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig (Del Rey, $28.99, 9781101966938) is the second book in a trilogy set in the Star Wars universe after Return of the Jedi.

The Last One: A Novel by Alexandra Oliva (Ballantine, $26, 9781101965085) follows reality TV show contestants contending with a possible apocalypse.

Soul Over Matter: Ancient and Modern Wisdom and Practical Techniques to Create Unlimited Abundance by Zhi Gang Sha and Adam Markel (BenBella, $24.95, 9781942952589) gives spiritual financial advice.

A Book About Love by Jonah Lehrer (Simon & Schuster, $26, 9781476761398) is a science book about love.

Paperbacks:
The Girl on the Train: A Novel by Paula Hawkins (Riverhead, $16, 9781594634024).

The Choices We Make by Karma Brown (Mira, $15.99, 9780778318934) follows a pair of childhood friends through parenthood and surrogacy.

Ms. Marvel Vol. 5: Super Famous by G. Willow Wilson and Takeshi Miyazawa (Marvel, $17.99, 9780785196112).

Housebroken: Admissions of an Untidy Life by Laurie Notaro (Ballantine, $17, 9781101886083).

All the Time in the World: A Novel by Caroline Angell (Holt, $15, 9781627794015).

Movie:
The Infiltrator, based on the memoir by Robert Mazur, opens July 15. Bryan Cranston stars as a U.S. Customs official who worked undercover against bankers laundering money for the Medellín Cartel. A movie tie-in edition (Back Bay, $16.99, 9780316077521) is available.

From last week's Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org, here are the recommended titles, which are also Indie Next Great Reads:

Hardcover
The After Party: A Novel by Anton DiSclafani (Riverhead, $26, 9781594633164). "The real star of The After Party is the novel's setting: 1950s Texas, where wealthy housewives and Junior League debutantes rule the social landscape. At the center is Joan Fortier, an unconventional bachelorette who is not content to sit on the sidelines--or to stay in Houston. Joan's attitude causes conflict with her childhood best friend, CeCe Buchanan, and their relationship falters, exposing insecurities in both women. Fans of DiSclafani's first novel, The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, will not be disappointed by this well-written, engaging new work." --Annie B. Jones, The Bookshelf, Thomasville, Ga.

Marrow Island by Alexis M. Smith (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $23, 9780544373419). "After an earthquake destroyed the oil refinery on Marrow Island and killed her father, Lucie Bowen left. Twenty years later, she returns to the Puget Sound and discovers her friend Kate is now living on this toxic island with members of 'The Colony.' Set in the Pacific Northwest, Marrow Island is a mystery/thriller that encompasses communal living, natural and man-made disasters, and what can happen when we tinker with the ecosystem and try to play a larger role." --Tracy Taylor, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, Wash.

Paperback
How to Start a Fire: A Novel by Lisa Lutz (Mariner, $14.95, 9780544705180). "How to Start a Fire integrates Lutz's trademark humor, quippy dialog, and quirky characters with a story of three college friends who meet in Santa Cruz in 1993. Readers will fall in love with these three women as they experience failed marriages, career decisions, and other significant life events. Those who are new to Lutz will gobble up this standalone entry and then race to their bookstore to begin reading about the Spellman family in her earlier bestselling series." --Terry Gilman, Mysterious Galaxy, San Diego, Calif.

For Ages 4 to 8
Frank and Lucky Get Schooled by Lynne Rae Perkins (Greenwillow, $17.99, 9780062373458). "From the very beginning, readers understand that Frank and Lucky are the best of friends. And then we discover that there is so much more. Both are learning all sorts of things: Frank is good at reading and Lucky is even better at listening. Perkins gives young readers the story of a dog and his boy, and gives adults a terrific opportunity to show that you can learn things in all sorts of ways! This is a charmer!" --Margaret Neville, The King's English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, Utah

For Ages 9 to 12
Sea Change: A TOON Graphic by Frank Viva (TOON Books, $18.95, 9781935179924). "Eliot is pretty sure his uncle's house in Nova Scotia is the worst place to spend the summer, especially since he isn't much of a swimmer. Early mornings on a fishing boat, gathering maggots for bait, dealing with a local bully--it's certainly not idyllic, but there is more to Point Aconi than Eliot imagined, and slowly the place begins to work its magic on him. Plunge into this book and prepare yourself for a story that will leave you emotionally drained yet refreshed--just like a good day at sea." --Marika McCoola, Porter Square Books, Cambridge, Mass.

For Teen Readers
Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley (Dial, $17.99, 9780525428183). "Though Lisa's motivation in approaching Solomon, her reclusive former classmate, is suspect, there is nothing suspect about the friendship that she, Solomon, and Clark have together. Solomon's anxiety and agoraphobia are treated with sensitivity, and Whaley manages the near impossible by showing the unexpected humor and humanity of his character's situation. If only we all had a Lisa or Clark in our lives to help us get out of our heads, and if only the Lisas and Clarks of the world had a Solomon to teach them the empathy that comes with true friendship." --Jamie Thomas, Women & Children First, Chicago, Ill.

[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]

Take the underwater mortgages, unemployment, drought, wildfires, crime, landslides, maxed-out credit cards and power outages that have hammered Los Angeles recently and roll them into six months, and you get a feel for the desolation of Joe McGinniss Jr.'s second novel (after The Delivery Man). Carousel Court is the story of a young Boston family's search for the California dream at just the wrong time. Nick and Phoebe Maguire pack up their two-year-old son, Jackson, and meager belongings to drive their Subaru cross-country for Nick's new job with a boutique L.A. film production company, allowing some time off for Phoebe to be with Jackson. With their marriage on shaky ground after her affair with the uber-rich boss at her previous job, and a car accident that nearly killed Jackson, Nick and Phoebe have a plan: "secure an investment property to upgrade, flip for enough profit to secure their future." Acting quickly, they buy a ranch house on the suburban cul-de-sac Carousel Court. With an interest-only, zero-down, 125% renovation mortgage, they do the whole California remodel thing: "Granite countertops, double-ascending stairways.... And the pool: in-ground free-form hourglass with ice-blue Quartzon rendering, natural stone waterfall with solar heating."

Then comes the Great Recession. Nick's hip new job falls apart, and Phoebe starts selling pharmaceuticals for GSK and living on Klonopin to take the edge off. Desperate, Nick takes a job trashing out and painting foreclosed homes so banks can resell them--what his boss calls "clean 'em and green 'em." Working opposite shifts, they rely on their immigrant "viet nanny" neighbor to care for Jackson. The cracks in their marriage widen. Phoebe takes up again with her old boss via racy text messages and an occasional hotel rendezvous when he visits L.A. Nick hatches a Craigslist scam to rent the empty foreclosed homes he has cleaned. Wildfires smolder in the hills above Carousel Court, coyotes roam the abandoned houses in the neighborhood--some California fairy tale.

McGinniss writes with a keen feel for the contemporary zeitgeist, but he also might justly lay claim to being the ascending fictional Prince of Darkness. The Delivery Man was about a dangerous teen prostitution ring set amid the glitter of Sin City--a sort of Less Than Zero meets Leaving Las Vegas. His characters in Carousel Court move in a brutal world of broken personal connections, social unrest and financial desperation. Their world is sadly a modern one with which readers are all too familiar--talking by text, hustling to make ends meet, dodging extremes of weather, looking for that lost American Dream. Yet McGinniss opens a window of hope as Nick and Phoebe survive the mess they make of their lives and put their faith in Jackson. The novel ends with them watching him run laughing circles at daycare: "the beginning of something." --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Shelf Talker: In his tell-it-like-he-sees-it second novel, Joe McGinniss, Jr. captures the fate of a young Boston family that heads west to find the American Dream at the wrong time and wrong place.