Deep Vellum Books, Dallas, Tex., will have its grand opening in September, according to D Magazine, which featured a q&a with Will Evans, founder of Deep Vellum Publishing, and his new partner in the bookstore, Anne Hollander.

Evans had a soft opening for the store last December and in June announced that he had spread himself too thin (Deep Vellum Publishing is a nonprofit that has published 19 books in just three years) and needed to have a partner to continue the bookstore venture. As D Magazine put it: "He met marketing expert Anne Hollander, and the new business partners immediately clicked."

As Hollander put it, speaking of their first meeting: "It was the weirdest thing. We articulated the same vision to each other, echoing each other, about what it is we wanted to do--what our vision is for this bookstore, and what our vision is for our place in the Dallas community. We both sat back, and I can't speak for Will about this, but we went 'Wow, this is real. This is so real and I am so in.' "

Asked about that vision, Hollander said, "By the people, for the people. We're really keen on embracing the cultural community here from all aspects. From low future to high culture, art to music to performance, books to everything in between. We want to wrap our arms around that community and we want to bring them all together."

Hollander has a marketing and technology background, working with "startups, Fortune 400 companies, groups with no idea how to embrace digital technology.... The idea of a challenge excites me. Here with the bookstore, it's a challenge of a lifetime."

The owners plan to hold a grand opening party the weekend of September 9, with some "lead-up activities" during the week.

Hans Weyandt, a former co-owner of Micawber's Books, St. Paul, Minn., has been hired as manager of Milkweed Books, the bookstore that Milkweed Editions is opening September 6 in Minneapolis.

Hans Weyandt

Weyandt, who is also the editor of Read This!, an anthology of independent booksellers' must-read lists and an ode to the art of traditional bookselling and independent bookstores published by Coffee House Press in 2013, said, "Since I left bookselling a little over three years ago, I've been asked, nearly daily, if I miss it. Of course, I missed it. I am very happy to say that I am teaming up with Milkweed Editions to help launch their new bookstore."

Daniel Slager, publisher and CEO of Milkweed Editions, called Weyandt "one of the best booksellers I've ever met, and we are honored and delighted to add him to our team. Hans was a fierce advocate for outstanding literary books at Micawber's, including some we published. Given that the primary objective of this undertaking is to expand audiences for the kind of books we and other independent literary presses publish, we're overjoyed to have him at the helm of Milkweed Books."

Milkweed Books will share offices with the Loft Literary Center and Minneapolis Center for Book Arts. About a quarter of its inventory will consist of Milkweed titles and the rest will come from other publishers, especially other literary presses.

As of yesterday's deadline for interested parties to indicate their interest in bidding for Hastings Entertainment, two possible buyers were named in a court filing, the Amarillo Globe-News reported.

The two interested parties, who might bid for either the entire company or its assets, are the Gordon Brothers Group and Bloomberg L.P. Under Hastings Entertainment's Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, two interested parties were needed for an auction process to continue. The auction may take place as early as tomorrow.

Among other services, Gordon Brothers Group provides debt financing and helps liquidate companies. (It was one of the two liquidators for Borders in 2011.) Bloomberg is Michael Bloomberg's data, news and software company.

Hastings, which has some 126 superstores in medium- and small-sized markets that sell new and used books in the multimedia mix, filed for bankruptcy in June.

More on the addition of an Amazon pickup location within the Illini Union Bookstore at the University of Illinois in Champaign:

Acknowledging that the idea of a partnership with Amazon is unusual, Tod Petrie, director of the bookstore, told the News-Gazette that the focus is on students and their needs. "They are ordering from Amazon already, so this will just make it easier," he said. "For the students, it's a win-win."

The agreement with Amazon is similar to ones the store has with Starbucks and TFC Bank, Petrie noted. Amazon will operate as a separate entity in its own space, pay rent and have its own employees. Petrie said he hopes the addition of Amazon will attract more people who wouldn't visit the store otherwise, as Starbucks did.

Petrie added: "It's different, but we have to adjust, we have to change. We have to evolve with the students."

Ian Stewart, the partner of children's author Helen Bailey, "has been charged with her murder after human remains were found at her home in Hertfordshire," BBC News reported. Stewart has also been charged with "perverting the course of justice and preventing lawful burial in April."

Helen Bailey

Bailey created the Electra Brown series for teenagers and launched the blog Planet Grief after her husband of 22 years drowned on holiday in Barbados in 2011. She was last seen April 11, walking her pet dachshund near her home.

The Guardian noted that Bailey's memoir of her grief, When Bad Things Happen in Good Bikinis: Life After Death and a Dog Called Boris, "was published last year, and recounts how she met Stewart, whose wife died in 2011, through a bereavement group."

Bonnier Publishing released this statement: "We are all deeply saddened by Helen's death. Everyone that knew and worked with her at Bonnier Publishing found her to be a genuinely warm, funny and caring woman. Our thoughts go out to her family at this difficult time. We feel honored to have published her memoir and for her to have shared her story with us."

Aiming to capitalize on its promising debut last year, the Mississippi Book Festival will hold its "literary lawn party" on Saturday, August 20, on the grounds of the Mississippi State Capitol Building in Jackson, with some events in the Capitol, and Galloway United Methodist Church and the Foundery at Galloway. The program includes some 30 panels, book signings, a kids' corner, Capitol tours and a marketplace featuring booksellers and food trucks. Among the more than 150 participating authors are Richard Ford, Kate DiCamillo, Jon Meacham, Jesmyn Ward, Julia Reed, Rick Bass, Jacqueline Woodson, Robert Olen Butler and Ellen Gilchrist.

Last year, the festival featured 103 authors and 22 panel discussions and drew nearly 4,000 attendees and volunteers. The event was organized by a group that included representatives from local bookstore Lemuria Books, the University Press of Mississippi, the Mississippi Library Commission, the Mississippi Development Authority, the Mississippi Arts Commission and Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Members of the board of directors include John Evans from Lemuria; Richard Howorth, co-owner of Square Books in Oxford; Jamie Kornegay, owner of Turnrow Book Co. in Greenwood; and Scott Naugle, co-owner of Pass Books/Cat Island Coffeehouse in Pass Christian. The nonprofit festival aims to promote literature, libraries and literacy in Mississippi.

Victoria and Jonathan O'Brien "got together after Victoria took a shine to the person behind the tweets for a Waterstones bookshop account and got in touch," BBC News reported, adding that O'Brien "had built up a following with his humorous tweets for the store."

"It took a couple of months--Jonathan ignored my first tweet but the second had a typo and he picked up on that," she said. On Sunday, she tweeted a photo of her original 2012 message declaring her love for the (now former) @WstonesOxfordSt account manager, along with a "just married" pic and the famous line from Jane Eyre: "Dear reader, I married him."

Vintage News showcased a selection of "fascinating photos of American Bookmobiles in the past," noting that librarian Mary Titcomb, who launched the first bookmobile in the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century, had observed: "Any account of this first Book Wagon work, the first in the United States would be incomplete without the statement that this method of rural library extension has been adopted in many states in the Union, and that new book wagons are being put in operation each year."

At Politics & Prose:

Next month, Liz Hottel will become director of events, replacing Susan Coll, who is taking a leave of absence to focus on other projects. Hottel has been deputy director for more than two years and, before that, worked as a bookseller and supervised the store's offsite events.

Justin Stephani has been promoted to director of programs, responsible for developing the store's established classes and trips. He was previously a bookseller, programs assistant, editor of District Lines (the store's annual anthology), and most recently deputy director of programs.

Later, Gator! written and illustrated by Erik Brooks (Sterling Children's Books).

Tomorrow:
The View: Julianne Moore, author of Freckleface Strawberry and the Really Big Voice (Doubleday, $16.99, 9780385392037).

Dr. Oz: Lauren Imparato, author of Retox: Yoga, Food, Attitude: Healthy Solutions for Real Life (Berkley, $17, 9780425278505).

Rose Byrne (FX's Damages) will star opposite Oprah Winfrey in HBO Films' The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, adapted from the book by Rebecca Skloot, Deadline reported. Byrne will play the author/journalist. Veteran Broadway director-producer George C. Wolfe (HBO's Lackawanna Blues; Tony winner for Angels in America) wrote the adaptation and will direct.

Executive producers are Winfrey and Carla Gardini through Harpo Films; Alan Ball and Peter MacDissi through Your Face Goes Here Entertainment; and Lydia Dean Pilcher through Cine Mosaic Productions. Skloot is a co-executive producer. Consultants on the project include Henrietta Lacks's sons David Lacks, Jr. and Zakariyya Rahman; her granddaughter Jeri Lacks; and her grandchildren Alfred Carter, Jr. and LaTonya Carter.

Michael Rosen and Sarah Crossan were named joint winners of this year's Center for Literacy in Primary Education Children's Poetry Award (CLiPPA). Rosen won for his collection A Great Big Cuddle (illustrated by Chris Riddell), while Crossan was chosen for her verse novel One. Chair of judges John Hegley said the five shortlisted titles "are an exemplary spread of what poetry can be. The winning poets both have their very different inspirations so meticulously architected on the page. As one of the judging panel remarked, together the books proclaim, 'it doesn't matter if you're 3 or 16, poetry, is for you!' "

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The finalists for the 2016 Southern California Independent Booksellers Association Book Awards are:

Glenn Goldman Award for Art, Architecture, and Photography:
Los Angeles Central Library: A History of Art and Architecture by Arnold Schwartzman (photography) and Stephen Gee
Mid-Century Modern Women in the Visual Arts by Ellen Surrey
Sam Maloof: 36 Views of a Master Woodworker by Fred Sutterberg

Adult Fiction:
Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley
Lost Canyon by Nina Revoyr

Adult Non-Fiction:
Little Flower Baking by Christin Moore
Thirsty: William Mulholland, California Water, and the Real Chinatown by Marc Weingarten
Woody Guthrie L.A. 1937 to 1941 by Darryl Holter and William Deverell

T. Jefferson Parker Mystery and Thriller Award:
Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz
The Promise by Robert Crais

Picture Books:
Be a Friend by Salina Yoon
Tell Me a Tattoo Story by Alison McGhee, illustrated by Eliza Wheeler
The Day the Crayons Came Home by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

Middle Grade:
Appleblossom the Possum by Holly Goldberg Sloan
The Toymaker's Apprentice by Sherri L. Smith
The Curse of the Boggin by D.J. MacHale

Young Adult:
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Unbound by Neal Shusterman
Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon

Awards will be presented during the SCIBA Fall Trade Show on October 22 at the Garland in North Hollywood.

After an 18-year career as a business reporter with the Washington Post, Frank Ahrens saw the writing on the wall for the future of journalism. In 2010, he quit the paper, married his girlfriend--who had recently gotten a job with the State Department at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul--and took a position as director of global communications at South Korean giant Hyundai Motors. Although words were his vocation, he came armed with a mechanical engineering degree and was a bit of a stick-shifting gearhead. A fresh location, a new wife and a key job at the fifth-largest car manufacturer in the world--what's not to like?

Seoul Man is Ahrens's story of what happens when a West Virginia-raised, born-again Christian newspaper guy with no Korean language skills walks into a rapidly growing, hierarchical family auto company, smack dab in the middle of one of the world's most chaotic big cities: "The noise, the crowds, the traffic, the powerful smells, the nonstop visual stimulation--the all-night partying, the street protests, the fistfights in Parliament." His first challenge is to overcome the big PR problem of a name no one can pronounce. In Korea it is "HYUN-day," in Thailand "Hee-yun-dee," in England "HI-yun-die," and in the United States it is "Hyundai, like Sunday." Then, of course, Ahrens has to transform third-generation heir vice chairman Chung Eui-sun's ambitious dream into reality: to put the Hyundai brand on the same level with Mercedes and BMW, and forever shed its reputation as "the sensible-shoes carmaker."

Like Mark Twain in The Innocents Abroad, Ahrens gets good mileage out of his many gaffes as a naïve American bred to act quickly, blunder through problems and disregard authority. When he breaks protocol to ask the vice chairman directly to rehearse an important speech for the Detroit Auto Show, his colleagues are stunned: "It was like I'd asked Confucius himself to drop and give me twenty push-ups." After his first hoesik (dinner with his PR team), he quickly learns to fake imbibing the many, many shots of soju, even though he is reminded by a staff member in the next morning's hangover smoking room: "Everybody same level of drunk, everybody same."

As he acclimates, Ahrens comes to understand that he is working in a "high-context culture--that how I said and did something was just as important as what I said and did." His reward comes when the 2012 Hyundai Elantra wins North American Car of the Year at the Detroit Auto Show, and the company's first luxury car, the 2013 Genesis, is a hit at the Frankfurt Auto Show, deep in BMW and Mercedes country. Not only a revealing personal odyssey, Seoul Man also looks into the history, culture, politics and business of the remarkable success story of modern South Korea. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Shelf Talker: Frank Ahrens leaves a satisfying journalism career for a position with Hyundai Motor Company in Seoul and discovers a baffling, amusing and rewarding new life.

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

1. Hitched by Kendall Ryan
2. The 20/20 Diet by Phil McGraw
3. Moonshot by Alessandra Torre
4. Say You'll Stay by Corinne Michaels
5. SEALs of Summer 3 by Various
6. Vodka on the Rocks (The Uncertain Saints Book 3) by Lani Lynn Vale
7. Accused (Scott Fenney Series Book 2) by Mark Gimenez
8. The Contract by Melanie Moreland
9. Requiem for Dragons by Daniel Arenson
10. Killer Beach Reads by Various

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]