Ivy's current location

The Ivy Bookshop, Baltimore, Md., is moving two blocks into much larger quarters that it will own, the Baltimore Sun reported.

More than three times the size of its current spot, the store's new location will be in the former Divine Life Church, a 2,700-square-foot property on 2.5 acres with "a meditation pathway and landscaped garden that the store has promised to maintain as a public green space," the newspaper wrote.

Noting this is the first time the Ivy Bookshop has owned its location, owner Emma Snyder said the move, expected to take place next spring, will put the store on better financial footing and allow expanded programming.

"We have loved living in Lake Falls Village for the past 18 years," Snyder told the paper. "We would have stayed if we didn't have the opportunity to own our own building. Sometimes successful bookstores end up closing down because of the vagaries of the commercial real estate market."

In its new location, Snyder continued, the store aims to be "a cultural center that's anchored by a vibrant bookstore." It will include its first coffee bar and a second-floor event space. Eventually Snyder wants to establish a writing residency at the store.

The Ivy Bookshop was founded in 2001. Snyder became the sole owner earlier this year.

Red Salmon Arts, the nonprofit behind Resistencia Bookstore in Austin, Tex., plans to reopen in its new Montopolis location in September, the Statesman reported. The nonprofit moved out of its former space on East Cesar Chavez Street at the end of July in response to a significant rent increase.

"Finding a place that was both affordable and felt like a warm casita within a poc/working class neighborhood was important to us," the organization noted on its website. "A sterile office space just didn't feel right and would stray us from our grassroots mission. Thanks to our board members and fellow community leaders, we found a place with immense potential."

The new location, a house at 2000 Thrasher Lane in Southeast Austin, has "both a front and backyard, an important feature for the nonprofit's outdoor community events and ceremonies," the Statesman noted, adding that the space may help expand the nonprofit's reach in the Montopolis community.

"We're going to make a big effort to let people in the neighborhood know who Red Salmon Arts is," said board president Gilbert Rivera. "We're about the community and for the community.”

Lilia Rosas, executive director of Red Salmon Arts, said that as families and small arts organizations get displaced, community members should "consider what kind of Austin is being refashioned and for whom. Is there a space for us as Latinx, Native American and Chicanx communities? It needs to move beyond a conversation and toward empowering solutions in the short and long term. This isn't just about us."

Adventure Bound Books, Morganton, N.C., which opened in June 2018, is moving later this month, the Morganton News-Herald reported.

"It's a bigger space, which is going to allow us to more comfortably host story-time, author events, book club discussions and things like that," owner Angela Shores told the newspaper. The new location has three times the space of the current site, including double the retail and event space and more room for storage.

"It was an opportunity that I felt like we couldn't pass up," Shores continued. "I hope that, in addition to giving us some more space, it will also allow for us to create a more attractive place for folks to come and hang out, sit and a read a while, or bring their work and have a quiet space to work or hang out downtown with groups of friends."

Among uses for the new location is providing "a space for conversations in the community for groups that are looking for a safe space to talk about something, plan something or launch a new idea," Shores added.

Foyles, whose flagship store is in London and is owned by Waterstones, has partnered with property developer Elysian Residences to create curated libraries in the developer's luxury retirement homes, the Bookseller reported.

In addition to book collections, the libraries will offer an ordering service, through which residents will have access to foreign-language books, music and DVDs. Residents will be able to place requests for specific titles, as well as purchase titles from Foyles and have them delivered. Foyles also intends to start hosting author events at these libraries, featuring writers such as Nigella Lawson, Andrew Marr and Kate Adie.

"We're pleased to announce this new partnership with Elysian Residences, in which we can draw on our collective bookselling expertise and the depth of our range to curate a library offer to inspire, inform and delight, situated in a stunning surround," said Foyles general manager Stephen Clarke. "This is a new and exciting venture for us, and we look forward to offering Elysian residents a service of the same high standard to which we hold each of our bookshops."

The first such library is scheduled to open in late 2019 in the Landsby development in North London.

Writer, editor and educator Lee Bennett Hopkins, "a devoted promoter of poetry for children," died August 8, the News-Press reported. He was 81. "Everybody in the world of children's literature seemed to know Lee Bennett Hopkins, the renowned Cape Coral poet and Florida Hall of Famer... His many friends included famous authors such as Judy Blume, Shel Silverstein, Lloyd Alexander, R.L. Stine and even the late Dr. Seuss (Hopkins called him 'Ted')."

Hopkins's interest in poetry as a classroom educational tool led to his work as a classroom resource coordinator. He was also an editor at Scholastic before becoming a full-time writer and editor of anthologies, compiling more than 100 anthologies of poetry for children.

His own poetry collections for children include Been to Yesterdays: Poems of a Life (1995), which won the Christopher Medal and a Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Golden Kite Honor Award; Alphathoughts: Alphabet Poems (2003); and City I Love (2009). In 2018, he collaborated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art on World Make Way: New Poems Inspired by Art from the Metropolitan Museum. He has two books coming out later this year, including one about diversity and another titled Blessings for Pets.

"How much everybody loved him!" said Hopkins's husband, Charles Egita. "Everybody loved him. And he helped so many people get started. I called him the Pied Piper of Poetry. Because that's what he was."

On the Horn Book blog, Roger Sutton wrote: "I was sorry to hear about the death this morning of Lee Bennett Hopkins. With his own work, his anthologies, and his nurturing of new poets, is there anyone who has done more for American children's poetry than Lee? A fuller appreciation of Lee's achievements will follow, but today I want to share with you a letter Lee wrote to the Horn Book back in 1990. He truly saw capital-P poetry as something for everyone and was a tireless advocate on its behalf. We will miss him."

California booksellers gathered in the desert over the weekend for their fourth annual Reading Retreat. They spent the days reading independently, while over cocktails and at dinners they discussed books and independent bookselling topics, including the benefits and challenges of a potential merger of the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association and the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. Pictured: (l.-r.) Ann Seaton, NCIBA operations director; Mary Williams, Skylight Books general manager; Linda McLoughlin Figel, {pages} a bookstore co-owner; Adrian Newell, Warwick's book buyer; Kristin Rasmussen, {pages} a bookstore general manager.

Airbnb magazine profiled Wendy Hudson, owner of Nantucket Bookworks and Mitchell's Book Corner, who decided four years ago "to take her love of literature to the next level--literally. She added an upper floor, turned it into an apartment with a tome-filled library... and opened it up to overnight guests on Airbnb. The self-­proclaimed geek reader since childhood had spent decades scouring thrift stores for titles, and now her collection lines the library shelves in size order, with a few horizontal, objet-topped stacks stylishly interspersed. Framed quotes from authors such as Roald Dahl and Toni Morrison dot the walls, and visitors frequently take home a free advance copy or two."

"That's their favorite part," she said. "I've hoarded books for as long as I can remember. Creating this space gave me a wonderful chance to see my old favorites again.... We really wanted this to be a destination rental. People don't have bookstores in their towns anymore, so we set up our space to remind them that reading is one of the best ways to spend your time."

"Because books are always the answer," Main Street Books, Mansfield, Ohio, posted on Facebook along with a photo of its latest sidewalk sandwich board message: "School is starting... Do you have your escape plan? A book I mean, naturally. Students & teachers get a 15% discount."

Barnes & Noble has picked 11 titles for the fall season for its Discover Great New Writers program. The books, which will be published between August and November, were selected by B&N booksellers for being among the best work this fall by writers who are not yet household names.

Miwa Messer, director of the B&N Discover Great New Writers program, said: "It's all here: the fantastic, the literary, the historical, the thrilling, and the thought-provoking."

The selected titles are:

Fiction:
The Chestnut Man by Soren Sveistrup
Cold Storage by David Koepp
The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal
A Particular Kind of Black Man by Tope Folarin
Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger
Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott
Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha

Memoir:
How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones
Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Diaz

Essays:
Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

The Wall: A Timeless Tale by Giancarlo Macri and Carolina Zanotti (Happy Fox Books).

Tomorrow:
The View repeat: Elisabeth Hasselbeck, author of Point of View: A Fresh Look at Work, Faith, and Freedom (WaterBrook, $23, 9780525652762).

The State Library of New South Wales announced that Behrouz Boochani's No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison won the AU$25,000 (about US$16,885) National Biography Award "for a published work of biographical or autobiographical writing aiming to promote public interest in these genres."

The judges praised Boochani's work for its poetic and epic writing, calling the book "profoundly important, an astonishing act of witness and testament to the lifesaving power of writing as resistance."

Behrouz commented: "I don't want to talk about literature, just I would like to say that I think the literature community as a part of civil society of Australia are part of our resistance in front of this system and I think it is very valuable, and I do appreciate everyone for recognizing my work.... I don't know what to say, just thank you very much. I think history will judge this generation and will judge all of us in this hard and dark period of Australian history. Thank you very much."

The inaugural $5,000 (about US$3,375) Michael Crouch Award for a Debut Work was presented to Sofija Stefanovic for her memoir Miss Ex- Yugoslavia, which the judges described as a "finely observed and ambitious debut memoir which is a thoughtful and tender addition to the genre of migration stories."

In A Song for a New Day, novelist and musician Sarah Pinsker (Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea) imagines a future where avoiding human interaction has become the norm. After a series of high-profile bombings and mass shootings leaves thousands dead, the United States government outlaws public gatherings altogether. These "congregation laws" begin as temporary measures, but, "in cascades and cataracts, the promises of temporary change [became] less and less temporary." Technology, including virtual reality hoodies, drones and driverless cars, allows people to live in their own homes where, they believe, they'll be safe. "The frequency of the attacks, and the randomness of the ongoing threats had left people genuinely scared."

The narrative moves between two voices. Luce is a musician who fronted the band that was the last major concert headliner before the congregation laws went into effect. At first, after concerts are outlawed, she's lost without the energy she feels from a live audience. She misses "the elusive collision of a song, a performance, a moment; the agreement that I would try to reach them, and they'd open themselves to being reached."

To her surprise she discovers an illicit network of live venues, held in basements, abandoned buildings and barns. As dangerous as it is to flout the congregation laws, because the government is ruthless in jailing perpetrators and destroying venues, she opens her own underground club called 2020 (the year the laws went into effect) and begins performing again.

Rosemary is a young woman who doesn't remember a time before gatherings were illegal. Her schooling, shopping and dating have all been virtual. "The thought of someone else standing next to her, even virtually, made her shudder." Her first experience at a virtual concert where everyone is an avatar, and where the artists and bands are streamed from a remote studio, is transformative. "She hadn't realized that music could reach inside you."

Rosemary becomes an artist recruiter for StageHoloLive, the company that organizes and sponsors virtual concerts and events. This necessitates actual traveling to find underground musicians in order to convince them to join the virtual world. Her initial anxiety and fear gives way to excitement, and she discovers places where people do, in fact, gather together. Her first major recruitment effort is to convince Luce to be a SHL entertainer, but their contact is a catalyst for the destruction of 2020. Rosemary's determination to right this wrong leads to a cautious collaboration with Luce, and they plan a subversive concert where, hopefully, the rallying cry of "Don't forget normal" will be heard.

The power of speculative fiction comes from the realistic depiction of future consequences of contemporaneous actions and beliefs. Pinsker uses the world of music, with its power to bring people together, as an urgent warning about the dangers of society withdrawing into itself. "Fear is a virus," says Luce. "Music is a virus and a vaccine and a cure." --Cindy Pauldine, bookseller, the river's end bookstore, Oswego, N.Y.

Shelf Talker: In this speculative novel, public gatherings are outlawed after massive, lethal terrorist attacks, but an underground musician helps keep hope alive for a resurgence of human connections.

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

1. Until December by Aurora Rose Reynolds
2. Do No Harm by Various
3. Break the Day by Lara Adrian
4. Lycos by Kris Michaels
5. Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins
6. Saving Runt (Cosmos' Gateway Book 7) by S.E. Smith
7. Two Hearts by Melody Grace
8. Perky by Julia Kent
9. The Best Thing by Mariana Zapata
10. Racing Hearts by Lauren Landish

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]