Barefoot Cowgirl Books, Flagstaff, Ariz., has been bought and renamed Bright Side Bookshop, according to Flagstaff Business News.

The new owners are Lisa Lamberson, who owns and operates Mountain Sports, a neighbor of the bookstore; her husband and business partner, Ben Shaffer; and Annette Avery, a businesswoman. The 1,750-square-foot store was founded two years ago by Nancy Nelson, who put the store up for sale in connection with a move away from Flagstaff.

"Independent booksellers across the country are multiplying and I think the pendulum is swinging," Lamberson told Flagstaff Business News. "What was old is again new."

Avery added: "The younger generation has hit a point where they are so taxed with electronics--they're on the phone, on social media, on the computer at school. Browsing in a bookstore allows them to unplug from something they’re plugged into all day long."

The new owners plan to expand the store's offerings, including more kids, YA, middle reader and local history selections as well as increase the number of activities the store hosts. "You need to have a place to gather for a slide show or a writing workshop or a Ukrainian egg dying workshop or a story time--things that might align with books and then things that are just kind of wacky and not in alignment with books," Lamberson said.

The trio is also hiring more staff and has been approached by customers who want to volunteer.

NewSouth Bookstore, the Montgomery, Ala., bookstore associated with NewSouth publishing, is renovating and expanding, the Montgomery Advertiser reported.

Among the moves: the hiring of Brandie Johnson to oversee the changes and run the store; a revamping of the building, including long-term expansion into some of the space used by the publishing company; the creation of a new children's area and events space; the addition of new books; and more sidelines, such as stationery. The store has long specialized in used books with a focus on the Civil War, civil rights, African-American, Native American and Southern history titles.

The changes are motivated in part by the closing of 65-year-old Capitol Book & News at the end of 2015. NewSouth partner Suzanne La Rosa said that after the store's shuttering, "We felt that not only was there an opportunity but we almost had a responsibility. A vibrant city deserves a bookstore."

BookExpo will host "An Evening with Hillary Rodham Clinton" at the show's main stage in the Javits Center in New York on Thursday, June 1, from 6-7 p.m. The event will be ticketed, with limited availability, and is open only to registered BookExpo attendees. Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

For anyone who has been in a coma for the past six months, Clinton lost the presidential election last November (although she won the popular vote by almost three million). On election eve, when she was leading in most polls, she had planned to hold a victory celebration at the Javits Center.

Besides being First Lady, Senator from New York and Secretary of State, Clinton wrote the memoirs Hard Choices and Living History and a book on children, It Takes a Village. This September, Simon & Schuster will publish a new book of personal essays by her, and It Takes a Village will be published for the first time as an all-new, full-color picture book by S&S Books for Young Readers.

Bradley Graham

Bradley Graham, co-owner of Politics & Prose, Washington, D.C., has been appointed to the board of the American Booksellers Association, filling a vacancy created by the election of Robert Sindelar of Third Place Books, with three stores in Lake Forest Park and Seattle, Wash., as ABA's incoming president. The association's bylaws consider the office of the president as separate from that of a board director. Thus, with Sindelar's election, his position as a board director has become vacant. Graham fills the vacancy until the next ABA board election in spring 2018, at which point he will be eligible to be nominated to run for the unexpired period of what would have been Sindelar's term as a board member.

The ABA noted that "since entering bookselling, Graham has been very active in ABA and the industry. He has been a member of both the ABA Booksellers Advisory Council and the American Booksellers for Free Expression Advisory Council and served on last year's Governance Review Committee. Graham has also contributed to ABA educational programming as a moderator and panelist at a number of events.

"Graham, who co-owns Politics and Prose with his wife, Lissa Muscatine, had a distinguished career with the Washington Post as a reporter and editor, focusing primarily on foreign and national security affairs. He is also the author of two books--Hit to Kill, an account published in 2001 of renewed U.S. efforts to build a national missile defense system, and By His Own Rules [2009], a biography of Donald Rumsfeld."

Incoming ABA president Sindelar said, "The ABA Board is pleased and grateful that Brad will be taking on this position. As his professional accomplishments make clear--both during and before his career in bookselling--he will bring to the board a commitment to inquiry and innovation that, we believe, will be of great service to ABA."

ABA CEO Oren Teicher added: "Since Brad and Lissa became the owners of Politics and Prose, he has helped lead a team that has shown the great potential of integrating the best of our bookselling legacy with a commitment to evolution and positive change. ABA is grateful that he will be bringing just that insight and spirit to our governance."

Women's clothing retailer Talbots "has rolled out a give-a-book-get-a-book program to give shoppers yet another reason to visit its stores," Women's Wear Daily reported. Through the Talbots Summer Book Club, "customers are encouraged to drop off a favorite read that has impacted their lives, and in turn they can pick up another book that someone else recommends."

Bookplates referencing Talbots are being provided to customers so they can write a recommendation note in their copy before it is passed along to the next reader. The retailer hopes to have thousands of books in circulation in time for the summer book reading season, at the end of which any books remaining in stores will be donated to local organizations.

As of Memorial Day weekend, Talbots "will be expanding the Book Club through a partnership with Random House that will tout some of the publisher's leading writers." Each week, a different author will be spotlighted in stores and on a designated landing page. Showcased titles will include Elizabeth Strout's Anything Is Possible, Nancy Thayer's Secrets in Summer, Lisa Wingate's Before We Were Yours, Fannie Flagg's The Whole Town's Talking and Susan Elia MacNeal's The Paris Spy. Talbots has also recruited "some well-read influential women to help spread the word about their favorite books," WWD noted. 

Dick Van Dyke with Jack Weiner during the filming of The Morning After.

Jack B. Weiner, author of The Morning After and a series of highly popular recovery books, died on Monday. He was 88.

Under his own name, Weiner wrote the novel The Morning After, which was published in 1973 by Delacorte and Dell and made into a TV movie starring Dick Van Dyke. He also wrote the nonfiction book Drinking, published by Norton.

In 1989, Weiner was hired to write a book for Compcare called A Day at a Time, which was published anonymously and became one of the seminal books for the 12-step recovery program, selling many millions of copies in various formats and languages around the world. When Hazelden bought Compcare, it was the book that was mentioned as the heart of the Compcare publishing program. It remains in print.

With his wife Sandy, Weiner wrote several other recovery books published by Bantam and Plume under the pseudonym J.S. Dorian: A New Day, At My Best, Tranquility, A Time to Be Free and Above and Beyond, which was recently brought back into print by Central Recovery Press.

Weiner's son, Andy, handles national account and Western indie sales for Abrams. We send him our deepest condolences.

The Doylestown Bookshop in Doylestown, Pa., hosted the launch party for Marie and Baldev Lamba's debut picture book, Green Green: A Community Gardening Story (FSG), and a host of Bucks County book folk joined in the celebration, included (left to right) Cari Lamba (Doylestown Bookshop bookseller and literary agent), Damian McNicholl (author and literary agent), Lee Harper (author and illustrator), Marie Lamba (Green Green co-author and literary agent), Baldev Lamba (Green Green co-author and landscape architect), Glenda Childs (Doylestown Bookshop owner) and Laura Stevenson (the Bookshop's events manager).

Posted on Facebook yesterday by Midtown Reader, Tallahassee, Fla.:

"Summer is practically here! Who can name the book that we quoted on today's chalkboard?"

At the Experiment, Jennifer Hergenroeder has been promoted to publicity and marketing director. She was formerly publicity and marketing manager.

Stack the Cats by Susie Ghahremani (Abrams Appleseed).

Tomorrow:
The Real: Gabourey Sidibe, author of This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $25, 9780544786769).

Harry: Sarah Michelle Gellar, co-author of Stirring Up Fun with Food: Over 115 Simple, Delicious Ways to Be Creative in the Kitchen (Grand Central Life & Style, $28, 9781455538744).

Tonight Show: Derek Jeter, author of Fair Ball (Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman, $16.99, 9781481491488).

HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher: Annabelle Gurwitch, author of Wherever You Go, There They Are: Stories About My Family You Might Relate To (Blue Rider, $26, 9780399574887). See a trailer for the book here.

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, May 13
12 p.m. Jennifer D. Keene, author of World War I: The American Soldier Experience (Bison Books, $21.99, 9780803234871). (Re-airs Sunday at 12:30 a.m.)

12:53 p.m. Michael Neiberg, author of The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America (Oxford University Press, $29.95, 9780190464967). (Re-airs Sunday at 1:23 a.m.)

1:44 p.m. Robert Dalessandro, author of Over There: America in the Great War (Stackpole Books, $24.95, 9780811714853). (Re-airs Sunday at 2:14 a.m.)

2:45 p.m. David Barron, author of Waging War: The Clash Between Presidents and Congress, 1776 to ISIS (Simon & Schuster, $30, 9781451681970). (Re-airs Sunday at 3:15 a.m.)

4:45 p.m. Geoffrey Stone, author of Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America's Origins to the Twenty-First Century (Liveright, $35, 9780871404695). (Re-airs Monday at 1:30 a.m.)

7 p.m. Noam Chomsky, author of Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power (Seven Stories Press, $19.95, 9781609807368), at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass.

8:20 p.m. Alvin Felzenberg, author of A Man and His Presidents: The Political Odyssey of William F. Buckley Jr. (Yale University Press, $35, 9780300163841). (Re-airs Sunday at 5 p.m.)

10 p.m. Elisabeth Rosenthal, author of An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back (Penguin Press, $28, 9781594206757). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m. and Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m.)

11 p.m. Amy Goldstein, author of Janesville: An American Story (Simon & Schuster, $27, 9781501102233), at Hedberg Public Library in Janesville, Wis. (Re-airs Sunday at 3:30 p.m.)

Sunday, May 14
9 a.m. The awarding of the 2017 J. Anthony Lukas Prize, given by the Nieman Foundation and the Columbia University School of Journalism to a non-fiction book about an "American topic of political or social concern." (Re-airs Sunday at 7:45 p.m.)

1 p.m. Jennifer Earl, author of Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age (MIT Press, $24, 9780262525060). (Re-airs Monday at 1 a.m.)

10 p.m. Dean Buonomano, author of Your Brain Is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time (Norton, $26.95, 9780393247947).

The winners of the 2017 Indies Choice Book Awards and the E.B. White Read-Aloud Awards, voted by independent booksellers nationwide and sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, are:

Indies Choice:
Adult Fiction Book of the Year: The Underground Railroad: A Novel by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year: The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate--Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben (Greystone Books)
Adult Debut Book of the Year: Homegoing: A Novel by Yaa Gyasi (Knopf)
Young Adult Book of the Year: Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys (Philomel Books)

E.B. White Read-Aloud:
Middle Reader: The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill (Algonquin Young Readers)
Picture Book: Du Iz Tak? by Carson Ellis (Candlewick)

Indie Champion Award: Louise Erdrich

Picture Book Hall of Fame Inductees:
Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg (HMH Books for Young Readers)
Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow Books)
Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers)

All of the Indies Choice and E.B. White winners and honor recipients (who can be viewed here) will be invited to the Celebration of Bookselling and Author Awards Lunch on Wednesday, May 31, at BookExpo in New York City.

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The High Places by Fiona McFarlane has won the £30,000 (about $38,770) International Dylan Thomas Prize, awarded to "the best published literary work of fiction in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under," and given in partnership with Swansea University. The short story collection was published in the U.S. by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Chair of judges Professor Dai Smith of Swansea University said: "From an exceptionally talented shortlist of six works, after a great deal of vigorous discussion, the judges recognised the mastery of form which is present in Fiona McFarlane's unforgettable collection of stunning short stories. The High Places, the judges thought, was highly varied in tone and brought the reader to characters, situations and places which were haunting in their oddity and moving in their human empathy. This is a mature work by a young writer who exemplifies the international spirit of this prize."

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, May 16:

Papi: My Story by David Ortiz and Michael Holley (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28, 9780544814615) is the memoir of the former Boston Red Sox star.

New Boy by Tracy Chevalier (Hogarth, $25, 9780553447637) is a retelling of Shakespeare's Othello.

Secrets in Summer: A Novel by Nancy Thayer (Ballantine, $27, 9781101967072) is a beach book set on Nantucket.

On Edge: A Journey Through Anxiety by Andrea Petersen (Crown, $27, 9780553418576) is a science writer's look into anxiety disorders.

So Good: 100 Recipes from My Kitchen to Yours by Richard Blais (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30, 9780544663312) contains new recipes from a Food Network star and Top Chef judge.

Master Recipes: A Step-By-Step Guide to Cooking Like a Pro by the Editors of Food & Wine (Food & Wine, $34.99, 9780848752248) gives steps to creating homemade ingredients like hot sauce, pasta and cultured butters.

The Great Treehouse War by Lisa Graff (Philomel, $16.99, 9780399175008) is a middle grade novel about a girl taking drastic measures when her parents' acrimonious divorce starts tearing her apart... in perfectly equal portions.

The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya (Viking, $16.99, 9781101997239) is a middle grade novel about a boy who inadvertently falls in love while trying to save his family's restaurant and their Miami neighborhood from a sleazy real estate developer.

Paperbacks:
The Girl in the Spider's Web (Millennium Series) by David Lagercrantz, translated by George Goulding (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, $9.99, 9780525434764).

A Girl Walks into a Book: What the Brontës Taught Me about Life, Love, and Women's Work by Miranda Pennington (Seal Press, $16.99, 9781580056571).

Movies:
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, based on the children's book series by Jeff Kinney, opens May 19. This tale of a road trip gone awry is the fourth Wimpy Kid film.

Everything, Everything, based on the novel by Nicola Yoon, opens May 19. Amandla Stenberg stars as a teenage girl who is allergic to everything.

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

Hardcover: An Indies Introduce Title
The Outrun by Amy Liptrot (Norton, $25.95, 9780393608960). "Escaping to London from her isolated Orkney Island home, Liptrot self-medicates through her 20s until she has lost her lover and most of her friends and belongings. She questions her sanity. From reflecting on her upbringing by a bipolar father and a very religious mother to the bitter and occasionally hazy kaleidoscope of events in London and the eventual need to search for healing, The Outrun is Liptrot's health and spiritual journey. Liptrot's voice is so strong and so true, it is impossible not to care about her. Stumbling to understand her alcoholic choices and looking for change, she returns to the isles. In The Outrun, which is part personal revelations, part Orcadian history, and part nature observations, Liptrot chooses a mostly solitary life, using technology to stay in touch and to explore the isles. The minute-by-minute struggle to stay sober counterbalances the ebb and flow of the ocean and winds and the passing seasons. This debut is striking and compelling. I was enthralled by Liptrot's descriptions of the islands, their history, geology, and living beings. I rooted for her recovery and personal discoveries." --Becky Milner, Vintage Books, Vancouver, Wash.

Hardcover
The Standard Grand: A Novel by Jay Baron Nicorvo (St. Martin's Press, $26.99, 9781250108944). "Jay Baron Nicorvo's novel envelops you in a world most civilians never know, where homeless veterans gather to work on regaining their hearts and minds. The reader is a listener, learning about these characters through each of their voices, accents, idioms, and military jargon--sometimes mean and ugly, sometimes only vaguely understood. Even in their hidden Catskills retreat, there is a realization that they are not beyond the reach of a sinister corporate world waging another, more personal war for oil. The Standard Grand is sculpture, a work of art with every word, every detail, perfect." --Diane Marie Steggerda, The Bookman, Grand Haven, Mich.

Paperback
Maestra: A Novel by L.S. Hilton (Putnam, $16, 9780399184277). "Get ready to tear through this hedonistic and refreshingly sex-positive thriller that hits all the right notes. Hilton sets her amoral heroine, Judith, amidst the shallow elegance of the European art world. While Judith is deeply enamored with the lifestyles of the rich and famous, she is also a razor-sharp critic of bad taste and human softness, sniffing out and exploiting male weakness with gusto. She is utterly void of empathy, yet oddly sympathetic. I'll be recommending this novel to everyone I know with a strong constitution and an appreciation for intensity!" --Seija Emerson, University Book Store, Seattle, Wash.

For Ages 4 to 8
The Chupacabra Ate the Candelabra by Marc Tyler Nobleman, illustrated by Ana Aranda (Nancy Paulsen Books, $17.99, 9780399174438). "Oh boy, is this going to be a hoot and a half to read aloud! While children are giggling during story time, they'll be soaking up wonderful new words like candelabra, cucaracha, and chupacabra. This is a delicious read-aloud that will keep kids on the edge of their seats, but in a most benign and silly way." --Kathleen Carey, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.

For Ages 9 to 12
Chester and Gus by Cammie McGovern (HarperCollins, $16.99, 9780062330680). "This is a book that everyone can appreciate. Chester, an aspiring service dog, takes us through his journey of living with Gus, an 11-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder. The typical 'man's best friend' bond is frequently tested and takes more time to build, helping Chester and the reader better understand the challenges and wonders of living with autism." --Colleen Regan, An Unlikely Story, Plainville, Mass.

For Teen Readers
Goodbye Days: A Novel by Jeff Zentner (Crown, $17.99, 9780553524062). "I read this book too quickly the first time, so I immediately picked it up and read it again. Nothing beats the lives of Zentner's Southern teens. My heart ached for Carver Briggs, who is saddled with the unwieldy responsibility of maybe, possibly accidentally murdering his three best friends. The beautiful, difficult expressions of grief from all the people whose lives were touched by the three boys are significant and nuanced. As ever, Zentner taps into the minds of teens with aplomb. Goodbye Days is an incredible follow-up to The Serpent King--it does not disappoint in the slightest." --Demi Marshall, BookPeople, Austin, Tex.

[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]

"Little stars, big stars blowing through the night./ And we're lost out here in the stars." The poignant song by Maxwell Anderson and Kurt Weill could be a soundtrack for Anne Corlett's debut novel, The Space Between the Stars. Jamie Allenby feels lost in the universe after a swift-acting virus has wiped out most humans on Earth and its colonized planets. "Zero point zero zero zero one." Jamie repeats this number like a mantra. Zero point zero zero zero one percent might have survived. The dead turned to dust, "the sheets gray with it.... There wasn't much. Not when you thought of the measure of a person." The living--10,000 possible survivors across 300 worlds. Thirty-three per world. Maybe.

Months earlier, Earth-born Jamie had migrated to Soltaire for a job as a veterinarian. She was mourning a miscarriage and seeking solitude, leaving Daniel, her partner, on the planet Alegria. She knew he had been headed for Earth before the virus struck. Had he survived? They used to joke that in case of a zombie apocalypse, they'd meet on a certain beach in Northumberland. Now all she has is despair mixed with faint hope, and two other people--Lowry, a clergyman, and Rena, a research scientist. They've sent up a distress signal; Rena believes they'll be saved, and then "it will begin"--a new world formed by God, "speaking through the space between the stars."

As they fantasize about where to go if they get off Soltaire, their longing solidifies Earth as their destination. A trade clipper piloted by another loner, Callan Jacobs, picks up the signal, and then the trio. After a few stops on the way to Alegria, Callan agrees to fly to Earth. Jamie, though, realizes she isn't ready. "She needed more time out here, between the unknowing stars." On Alegria, Jamie is stunned to find Daniel--she thought he'd be headed for Northumberland, as they had promised each other. Instead, he is now part of the new administration, with draconian rules in aid of repopulating the worlds, or at least the Alegrian world. Callan Jacobs manages to get them, and a young man named Finn, back into space and headed toward Earth, now the unknown.

Anne Corlett has taken the themes of apocalypse, people attempting to create Utopia but unleashing Armageddon, population engineering and breeding programs, and put her particular stamp on the familiar. The Space Between the Stars is a sci-fi story laced with homey details like e-readers and jigsaw puzzles--there are no esoteric descriptions of warp drives or biodomes or aliens. But there is adventure, there is romance, there is self-discovery. Jamie looks at a blue sky, which "felt like a lie, after so much time spent up above it, in the black of space. It was just something to hide beneath, to avoid seeing how wrenched and scattered among the stars they all really were." But she finds, in this intriguing and wise story, what can fill the space between the stars. --Marilyn Dahl, editor emerita

Shelf Talker: Anne Corlett's debut novel portrays a universe after a virus has wiped out most of the people, as a few survivors search for a new home.