"lt would be easy for us to want to move on after Charlottesville. lt might even be understandable. lt would also be a mistake. Denouncing the KKK, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and individuals and organizations that advance and agenda of hate is an important gesture, but those words must be backed with action....

"At our bookstores, we do more than just talk about stamping out intolerance and championing inclusion--we act. Last year our Naperville Reads, a city-wide reading program, brought in diverse authors, illustrators, and books to reach nearly 7,000 first and second graders at an age when they are forming important, long-lasting values. We also brought in the youngest survivor of Auschwitz to speak to all of the 8th grade classes of District 203, providing an authentic, personal insight into what hate and intolerance yields. Because of our role in the community, we have a unique ability to reach young readers and their families on issues that are critical to all of us and we take that role seriously...."

Jennifer Bergstrom has been named senior v-p and publisher of the Gallery Books Group, succeeding Louise Burke, who is retiring August 18 as president and publisher of the Gallery Books Group after a 40-year publishing career.

"Those of us who have worked with Jen know her to be an unstoppable force," said Carolyn Reidy, president and CEO of Simon & Schuster, to whom Bergstrom will report. "Her energy, commitment and publishing savvy have been instrumental to Gallery's growth and success, and now she will be applying that formidable drive and knowledge to an even larger and more varied group of imprints and authors in the Gallery Books Group. It will be fun to watch the results."

Bergstrom joined Simon & Schuster in 1998 as editorial director for the launch of the Simon Spotlight imprint. In 2004, she helped create Simon Spotlight Entertainment. In 2009, she was named editor in chief of Gallery Books, when the imprint was formed. She was promoted to publisher in 2013. In 2015, she led the launch of Scout Press.

Louise Burke joined S&S in 2001 as executive v-p and publisher of Pocket Books and in 2009 led the launch of Gallery Books Group, which initially combined Pocket Books and Simon Spotlight Entertainment. She also added imprints, including Karen Hunter Publishing, Jeter Publishing, North Star Way, Scout Press and Threshold Editions.

Carolyn Reidy wrote in part: "While Gallery is well known for its strength in publishing popular culture, women's fiction and media properties, Louise's skills as a general interest publisher encompass a broad range of subjects and authors. Whether building an author's career from novice to bestselling veteran, publishing opportunistically to capitalize on topical events or to capture the momentary zeitgeist or acquiring previously self-published authors such as Lisa Genova and Christina Lauren, Louise's flexibility and strong sense of the publishing market have been the source of numerous long-running, fast-selling or career-making bestsellers. Louise's diverse roster of authors include 50 Cent, Kresley Cole, Catherine Coulter, Clint Hill, Mark R. Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Mary Alice Monroe, Karl Rove, Nikki Sixx and our newest #1 bestselling author, Ruth Ware. And no doubt the most highly ranked in Louise's personal pantheon of most-wanted authors, Derek Jeter!...

"Decisive and direct, Louise has been an outstanding colleague and team player and over the years has contributed mightily to the successes of others. We will miss her enthusiasm and clear-eyed publishing sense, but know that she leaves behind a team of knowledgeable and talented publishing professionals who are more than ready to carry on Gallery's mission of publishing high-quality, entertaining books for an ever-changing audience of readers."

Bookends on Main, the new and used bookstore in Menomonie, Wis., is for sale, according to the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association. Susan Thurin, who bought the store in 2009, wants to retire and "knows that the city is supportive of an independent bookstore and would like to see the business continue."

MIBA noted that Menomonie, home to the University of Wisconsin-Stout, has a year-round population of more than 16,000 with a student population of nearly 10,000. A hotel is opening this fall kitty-corner to the store, "showing the city's commitment to a rejuvenated downtown area."

The asking price of $74,059 includes new and used book inventory, non-book merchandising, shelving and fixtures, POS system, office equipment and miscellaneous items. The store is in leased space.

Interested parties may call 715-233-6252 or e-mail info@bookendsonmain.com.

Bookends on Main was founded as the Bookends by Harriet Christy in 2003. Thurin changed the name when she bought the store after retiring as an English professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. She is the author of Victorian Travelers and the Opening of China, 1842-1907 and Retiring Minds: Life after Work, the editor of Nineteenth-Century Travels, 1835-1900: The Far East and has published many articles about Victorian authors and travel.

Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti is the first university in the state to team up with Amazon for a pickup location, MLive.com reported. EMU has begun construction on the 3,250-square-foot space located within the current campus bookstore in the student center. It is expected to open by the end of October. Amazon agreed to invest $1 million in the package pickup location's construction, design, signage and fixtures.

Walter Kraft, EMU v-p for communications, said, "I think what we're seeing on campus is similar to what we've seen across the country. Online shopping is the fastest growing retail segment, and when you take into consideration a population like millennials, that's very much a part of (their interests). We see it as a benefit for our students."

Last December, Amazon announced plans to build a $90 million, one million-square-foot fulfillment center in nearby Livonia.

Sapna, one of India's largest book malls, plans to add another 50 bookstores across the country in the next five years, the Times of India reported. Sapna Group of India president Nijesh Shah said the company, which currently operates 15 stores, the majority of them in Karnataka, will open five stores in Tamil Nadu--two in Coimbatore, one each in Chennai, Erode and Vellore--within three years, along with franchisee models to cater to potential rural markets across India.

Tom Perrotta appeared at Politics & Prose, Washington, D.C., last week to promote his new novel, Mrs. Fletcher (Scribner). Pictured: Perrotta (front) with booksellers Isaac Stone, Katherine Willard and Matt Mangan.

Congratulations to the Book Beat in Oak Park, Mich., a new and used bookstore specializing in art, photography and children's titles that is celebrating its 35th anniversary August 27 with a party featuring "authors, music, food, book discounts and other fun."

Colleen Kammer and Cary Loren, who were locker partners at Berkley High School years ago, "have formed not only a lasting husband-and-wife relationship but also a successful business," the Daily Tribune reported, adding that Loren "opened this chapter of his life after working several years as an employee of a local bookstore. After learning the ropes, he realized 'we can do this.' "

"I was working in a bookstore in 1977-78 and we decided to open our own store," he recalled. "We got a little money from my parents to get us started and we liked the area, since we both grew up here. I knew we could make it happen."

Kammer added: "A few years after we opened, Borders opened their big store in Ann Arbor. We had to specialize in order to compete with them. If we were just a general bookstore trying to compete with Borders, we wouldn't be here today."

The Book Beat "hasn't changed its focus over the years. They continue to do what they know and what they know is to not change what they do," the Daily Tribune wrote.

"Some of the customers that used to go to the big stores now come here but we can't be everything to everyone," Kammer noted. "We can order things for people and get things they are interested in, but the reason why we are still here is because we focus on those specialized areas we have always focused on."

Loren said, "We don't worry about appealing to everyone. We have a lot of things that we think people might like and we make selections of books that we believe in and our staff believes in."

NPR's Morning Edition surveyed changes in bookselling, focusing on Amazon's bricks-and-mortar bookstore in New York City, Barnes & Noble's new concept store in Eastchester, N.Y., and Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y.

"In so many ways, we're in a different business," Greenlight co-owner Jessica Stockton Bagnulo said, referring to the new Amazon locations. "And it seems very much like those stores are trying to replicate the online business, and we are trying to do something completely different."

Rebecca Fitting, Greenlight's other co-owner, added: "People are starting to understand... that shopping in your community helps you feel more connected; it helps your tax base; it helps make your surroundings more interesting. And if you don't support that, it goes away."

Posted yesterday on Facebook by Phoenix Books, Essex & Burlington, Vt.: "Get Informed. Check Your Sources. Take a Stand."

The X-Files: Earth Children Are Weird: A Picture Book (Pop Classics) by Kim Smith (Quirk Books).

Today:
Fresh Air: Max Brooks, author of Minecraft: The Island: The Novel (Del Rey, $17.99, 9780399181771).

Tomorrow:
Last Call with Carson Daly repeat: Jay Chandrasekhar, author of Mustache Shenanigans: Making Super Troopers and Other Adventures in Comedy (Dutton, $27, 9781101985236).

Eimear McBride has won the £10,000 ($12,960) James Tait Black Prize for Fiction for her second novel, The Lesser Bohemians, published in the U.S. by Hogarth. According to the Guardian, judge Dr. Alex Lawrie of the University of Edinburgh called The Lesser Bohemians, in which an 18-year-old Irish girl comes to London in 1990s and falls for an older actor, "astonishing" and "full of wit, energy and nerve, an extraordinary rendering of a young woman's consciousness as she eagerly embarks on a new life in London."

McBride's first novel, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Goldsmiths prize.

Laura Cumming has won the £10,000 ($12,960) James Tait Black Prize for Biography for The Vanishing Man, about Victorian bookseller John Snare, who believed he had found a lost painting by Velázquez. Dr. Jonathan Wild of the University of Edinburgh, a judge for the biography prize, called The Vanishing Man "a real gem of a book which fully deserves its place among the winners of this prize."

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The longlist of 17 titles for the £30,000 ($38,890) Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year has been released and can be seen here. The shortlist will be announced on September 19, and the winner will be named November 6.

George and Lizzie--a clever, inventive and funny first novel by "America's librarian" Nancy Pearl--examines what it takes for young lovers to finally come into their own, deal with their pasts and places in the world and solidify their relationship.

In the 1990s, George and Lizzie meet by chance: Lizzie--drunk on vodka, stoned and heartbroken over losing a guy she loved--is taken to a bowling alley by her college roommate, who longs to heal her friend and "mellow the sadness." In the adjacent lane of the Bowlarama is George, a dental student high on happiness while out to impress "the current woman of his dreams." The two pairs of strangers bowl side-by-side until Lizzie loses control of her ball, disrupting a potential strike for George and what could've been a stellar 200 game. The mishap sheds light on George's and Lizzie's respective personalities and launches a narrative imaginatively woven together through short episodes about the pair--who they were before their fateful meeting, the history and influences that shaped their lives and how they eventually evolve individually and, later, as a married couple.

Colorful yet perpetually cynical, secretive and regretful, Lizzie--Elizabeth Frieda Bultmann--is the literature and poetry-loving only child of respected and admired psychologist parents. They are behaviorists from Ann Arbor, Mich., who treat Lizzie more like a developmental psychology case than their own flesh and blood. Their detachment and inability to express love for Lizzie inspires her to act out in rebellious ways--most notably when she decides on a lark, as a high school senior, to sleep her way through the entire football team. Her conquest for meaningless sex with 23 young men is dubbed the "Great Game," and when her parents learn about it, they publish an article about Lizzie's adventurousness in Psychology Today magazine. This has far-reaching consequences and leads to a life-changing romantic heartbreak for Lizzie, who becomes emotionally paralyzed and robbed of happiness well into adulthood. Will Lizzie ever surmount her sordid past? In contrast, George Goldrosen is a softhearted optimist and "purveyor of happiness"--a good-natured, football-loving, endlessly forgiving dentist who had a wonderful childhood in Tulsa, Okla. His heart is untroubled outside of his aversion to pain, conflicted feelings toward his orthodontist father and idolizing his charming, good-looking older brother, Todd, who moved to Australia and renamed himself Kale.
 
Lizzie's and George's opposing views of the world, along with the opposites-attract nature of their decade-long romance--rife with complications and various references to literature and football--help them to grow in unexpected, often over-the-top ways. With humor and heart, Pearl mines the absurdities of life to great effect, while also unraveling a much deeper, moving love story that touches upon thought-provoking aspects of family, happiness and truth. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines.

Shelf Talker: A comic love story about how contrasting experiences of youth can define and shape lives and seep into the nooks and crannies of adulthood.

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

1. Delectable by R.L. Mathewson
2. What Do You Do With a Problem? by Kobi Yamada
3. Beautiful Mistake by Vi Keeland
4. The Sexy One by Lauren Blakely
5. Suitcase Girl (Abby Kane FBI Thriller Book 7) by Ty Hutchinson
6. Perilous Trust by Barbara Freethy
7. Enrage by Rachel Van Dyken
8. Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos
9. Your Fierce Love (The Bennett Family Volume 7) by Layla Hagen
10. Beard in Mind (Winston Brothers Book 4) by Penny Reid

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]