The New England Independent Booksellers Association met last week in Providence, R.I., in a show that received many rave reviews and drew 377 booksellers (up 4% over last year) from 100 stores (up 5% from last year)--and 634 people altogether. Among the standout events were some hilarious and heartrending talks at the banquet from prizewinners (fiction winner Ocean Vuong's serenade and talk brought tears to many people's eyes) and prize-givers, as well as powerful talks at the various author events (see story below). The trade show floor was busy and NEIBA had to turn away some vendors, so next year the organization may increase the amount of space it takes at the Rhode Island Convention Center.

NEIBA executive director Beth Ineson commented: "The conference has always been a joy for me, when I was on the publisher side and even more so now that I'm in a planning role. Having (nearly) everyone under one roof, wearing name tags(!) is so satisfying. This year I'm particularly pleased because the new things we tried worked, and anyone who runs events and changes things up year to year understands that you don't really draw breath until you've seen the results of new initiatives."

At the Author Cocktail Reception, retired longtime bookseller Suzy Staubach signed copies of her third book, A Garden Miscellany: An Illustrated Guide to the Elements of the Garden (Timber Press).

Show changes included having the winners of the New England Book Awards revealed at the banquet, Oscars-style, rather than in the weeks ahead; reviving editor buzz panels for adult and children's books, which were sold out; and holding the author reception in one room. In addition, panels and seminars addressed a range of issues in the industry (more about them tomorrow).

The association itself has been going through many changes in the last year and a half, and they'll continue. These include the retirements of executive director Steve Fischer and administrative coordinator Nan Sorensen and the arrival of Ineson and marketing coordinator Ali Schmelzle. At NEIBA's annual meeting, outgoing president Laura Cummings of White Birch Books, North Conway, N.H., joked, "It's not intentional, but it appears I presided over the wholesale turnover of NEIBA staff. Beth informed me that I'm not an agent of destruction but more an agent of change."

Among other changes: the NEIBA office is moving from dedicated space in Cambridge to a co-working space with many meeting rooms in Boston, which will cut the association's rent in half; NEIBA is installing a new CRM system that will improve communications, and lead to a new Web and e-mail look; and All About the Books will become a two-day event and move around New England (taking place in Portland, Maine, next April). The association is in solid financial shape. ("Steve [Fischer] did a wonderful job keeping the association financially sound," Ineson said.)

The password was "redrum." Collecting tickets at the banquet, where Stephen King won the President's Award, were incoming NEIBA president Beth Wagner and incoming v-p Emily Russo. Verdict: best association new heads intro ever.

A new group of officers were welcomed at the annual meeting: Beth Wagner of Phoenix Books Essex, Essex Junction, Vt., is the new president; Emily Russo of Print: A Bookstore, Portland, Maine, is the new v-p; and Emily Crowe of An Unlikely Story, Plainville, Mass., is the new secretary/treasurer.

At the annual NECBA meeting, NECBA co-chair Nicole Brinkley announced Windows & Mirrors Committee co-chair Clarissa Hadge as the incoming NECBA co-chair; the 2020 Windows & Mirrors committee co-chairs will be Tildy Banker-Johnson and Read Davidson. Brinkley pointed out some upcoming changes for NECBA, including a nomination process for the selection of co-chairs and a children's and YA-only All About the Books event to be held in January.

The NECBA Windows & Mirrors Committee announced its 2019 Windows & Mirrors book picks at the conference. The list, which included 31 picture book, middle-grade and young adult titles, uses "the concept of windows and mirrors popularized by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop to develop a thoughtful, inclusive reading list of well-written and well-illustrated 'diverse' books." --John Mutter and Siân Gaetano

This year's Heartland Fall Forum in Cleveland, Ohio, represented the "first year of taking the show on the road," said Larry Law, executive director of the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association, in his opening remarks last week at the book awards celebration. "Some of our goals for moving the show around were to get new booksellers to attend, and to shine a spotlight on different literary cities in our region. It seems to be working."

Midwest Independent Booksellers Association executive director Carrie Obry announced that HFF 2020 will be held at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis at The Arch, which she described as "almost under the arch; it's a really fun place to be."

By the numbers, HFF 2019 drew 216 booksellers and miscellaneous attendees and 186 exhibitor attendees, with 78 booksellers and 27 of the 105 participating bookstores attending for the first time. GLIBA members represented 64.5% of the attendees and 58.1% of the stores, while MIBA had 35.5% of the attendees and 41.9% of the stores.

"I’m so excited about the strides we made in taking our well-developed show into new environs," Obry noted after the show. "We’ve proven that the show exists of its own industry and literary merits, bringing in a wide array of new booksellers and new voices overall. I’m extremely excited about what lies ahead for us all."

Law added: "We were excited to come to Cleveland but also a little nervous because it was a new city and a big change. That being said, as soon as the show started it felt electric and alive. The show floor was packed and energized. We are receiving glowing remarks about author events and education. This show felt like taking a big leap and booksellers were excited about that. This ended up being the highest attended Heartland Fall Forum ever of GLIBA bookstores. We can’t wait for St. Louis."

Happy honorees at the Heartland Fall Forum's book awards celebration.

Before the awards presentations began on opening night, retiring American Booksellers Association CEO Oren Teicher was honored. "Personally, I've looked up to Oren ever since I've been a bookseller," said Law. "With Oren at the helm, he tackled everything gracefully and thoughtfully, and you knew every issue would be examined from all sides."

Teicher observed: "I've often said there are a lot of cool things about my job, but for sure getting to know and to work with so many of you booksellers all across the United States has been extraordinary. You are a unique community of incredibly engaging people and to consider and have so many of you as my friends is extraordinary.... The one thing I know that I have every degree of confidence in is that whoever is standing here 30 years from now will have an opportunity to look out at another group of incredible independent booksellers. We're not going anywhere. We're going to be here and all of you are continuing to contribute to creating a far better place for all of us. So, I thank you."

Voice of the Heartland Award winner Binc Foundation, represented by (l.-r.) Kate Weiss, Kathy Bartson, Schuler Books' Tim Smith (presenter), Pam French, Lori Tucker-Sullivan & Sarah Bagby.

Danny Caine, owner of the Raven Book Store, Lawrence, Kan., was honored as Midwest Bookseller of the Year and the Book Industry Charitable Foundation received the Voice of the Heartland Award. The celebration also showcased the authors who won GLIBA's Great Lakes, Great Reads awards and MIBA's Midwest Booksellers Choice Awards.

The event was emceed by charismatic author and book personality Isaac Fitzgerald, whose upcoming book is How to Be a Pirate (Bloomsbury Children's Books, March 2020). "I'm not here as an author," he said. "I'm not here to push my book. I am here to celebrate the other authors in the room tonight. But the most important thing to me about being here is I'm here as a fan of all of you. So, I just want to give you guys a round of applause and I want to hear you give yourselves a round of applause because thank you for the hard work that you do as independent booksellers. Without you, stories wouldn't exist."

Note: More coverage of this year's Heartland Fall Forum will follow in upcoming columns. --Robert Gray

One of the first events of the show was a keynote conversation between Erik Larson and John LeDonne of Gibson's Bookstore, Concord, N.H., about Larson's upcoming book, The Splendid and the Vile (Doubleday, March 3, 2020), which he described as "the domestic saga of the Churchills and their circle in the midst of the bombing campaign by the Nazis"--a part of Winston Churchill's life that hasn't been told. He also called the book, which focuses on the year from May 10, 1940, to May 10, 1941, a "needed book."

John LeDonne (l.) and Erik Larson

He explained: "Even though I began the book in 2014, before the election when a certain individual became president, I began thinking that my book is about leadership, true leadership. We need to have a model of leadership we can look to." He imagined at least two movie campaign lines: "Escape to a time in which truth matters" and "It's one thing to carry on, quite another to do it."

Larson also gave a shout-out to booksellers, saying, "May I give a gigantic hug? I love independent booksellers. My wife and I love our local indie, the Corner Bookstore in Manhattan."

The other keynote, which concluded the show, was a conversation between Erin Morgenstern and Liberty Hardy about Morgenstern's new book, The Starless Sea, which will be published by Doubleday on November 5. Morgenstern noted that earlier in the week, she had  signed more than 12,000 ARCs in two days, all of which are going to independent bookstores, and "my only signing injury came from pushing books across the table top."

Liberty Hardy (l.) and Erin Morgenstern

Morgenstern said she didn't grow up wanting to be a writer and was more involved with theater. Then "I would think about writing and do a page or two." It wasn't until she tried National Novel Writing Month that she started working on a "long, book-shaped thing."

She added that her mother was an elementary school librarian, which is "possibly why I compulsively want to own books." She described a home full of books: "I don't read many books a year and I keep buying and want to have them.... I have more than enough reading material for the rest of my life."

The Children's Author and Illustrator Breakfast featured Kate Messner (Chirp, Bloomsbury), Jessie Sima (Spencer's New Pet, Simon & Schuster) and Renée Watson (Some Places More than Others, Bloomsbury). NECBA co-chair Nicole Brinkley of Oblong Books & Music in Rhinebeck, N.Y., introduced Messner, saying she had, at first, been nervous to read Chirp, which had been described to her as "#MeToo for middle-grade." But, Brinkley said, "if anyone can handle something with nuance and respect... it's Kate Messner." Messner spoke to the nature of her upcoming title, saying, "Curiosity does sometimes require courage." Courage for her came after seeing Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testify in front of Congress: "I had grown brave enough to get curious."

Renée Watson

Stephanie Heinz of Print: A Bookstore in Portland, Maine, introduced Jessie Sima, whose mostly-wordless, mostly-black-and-white picture book is an "homage to silent films." Clarissa Hadge of Trident Booksellers & Café, Boston, Mass., invited the final speaker of the morning to take the podium: Renée Watson. Using a poem to introduce herself and Some Places More than Others, Watson expressed that, with this book, she had wanted to write a book in which being black and fat was "incidental" and that focused, instead on simply letting young people simply "live."

At the Author Breakfast on Friday, Aarti Namdev Shahani, author of Here We Are (Celadon), said that her book is "a very American story--I was the daughter living the American dream, thoroughly, and I saw my father lead the American nightmare, thoroughly." A reporter for NPR on Silicon Valley, she recounted her father's life as an immigrant and his arrest for selling watches and calculators to terrorists from his small shop in Queens, N.Y. ("he sold watches and calculators to anyone!" she added.). Encouraged to plead guilty for a "short" jail term to a charge he was innocent of, he learned, she continued, that "when you're struck by the long arm of the law, the definition of you changes for the rest of your life. He was a workaholic who couldn't find a job." A legal battle over deportation lasted 16 years. "I'm offering the reader a front-row seat... into what happened in the 1990s and the war-on-crime era."

Nikki Grimes, whose new book is Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir (Boyd Mills Press), talked about "my favorite bookstore in Harlem, the National Memorial African Bookstore" (owned by Lewis H. Michaux), which stocked "hundreds and thousands of books by people who look like me." Reading and writing were "my survival tools," she continued. "My life began with notebooks [whose] white pages were the only place I could make sense of my life."

Grimes also praised booksellers, saying to the audience: "What you do is sacred.... You handle the delicate treasure of words bundled in extraordinary packages called books. Most important, more often than you might imagine, the words you traffic in have the power to save lives. I should know. Words saved my life."

Samantha Power, author of The Education of an Idealist (HarperCollins), said that "as long as independent bookstores are alive and kicking and thriving in their way--and I know it's not always easy--it's a sign that facts and truth and story and empathy and civilization can persist. Thanks so much to independent bookstores. You've been a salvation in my life. You've been incredible."

She added that in her book she has a "lean-on chapter--not lean-in--because you can't do anything without a network of friends and family--and a network of independent booksellers."

Jon Clinch, author of Marley (Atria), said, "You and I are here in this room, on this plant, in the moment to share and advance our culture, our lives, our hearts, to have open minds, to protect ourselves and our children and our planet from people who would do us harm."

He called Marley "a book for people who love books. All of us are shaped by what we read, and every book draws on other books.... This book wouldn't exist if Dickens didn't write A Christmas Carol." --John Mutter and Siân Gaetano

When I recently asked people what it was that makes a bookshop, the same messages kept coming up again and again. They are different to other shops, they are relaxed, they're a place of calm and they are somewhere to talk and to hone ideas. You can easily while away hours in a bookshop, knowing that you aren't going to be rushed and that there are like-minded people around. That is what bookshops represent.

 

Bookshop Day, which was celebrated this past Saturday in the U.K. and Ireland, is the annual centerpiece of Books Are My Bag's nationwide campaign to highlight booksellers. More than a thousand bookshops held special events, created bespoke window displays and more. Shortlists for the BAMB Readers Awards, curated by bookshops and voted for by booklovers, were also announced. Participating booksellers were encouraged to share their enthusiasm on social media. Here's a sampling from 2019 #BookshopDay:

Books Are My Bag: "While you wait for the bookshops to open this morning, we recommend putting the kettle on and starting #BookshopDay right by reading this beautiful bookshop poem by @ImogenRW."

Mr. B's Emporium, Bath: "Morning! Every day is bookshop day but today is #BookshopDay so, if you can, be especially sure to pop in and hang out with your favourite welcoming book-loving booksellers, wherever they are; whichever high street they are breathing life into."

Gutter Bookshop, Dalkey, Ireland: "What a fantastic day for #Echoes celebrating work of Maeve Binchy and Irish Writers! Isabel is @dalkeycastle with @GutterDalkey's books, while Marta is back in the shop."

Canongate: "Artemis (a close personal friend of Canongate office dog Sylvie) guards the books at @Lighthousebks. Lighthouse is Edinburgh's radical bookshop, brilliantly representing LGBT+, political, intersectional feminist, environmental and revolutionary voices."

Sam Read Bookseller, Grasmere: "We've done the customary #BookshopDay alethiometer reading, which predicts smiling, busy bookshelves for those booksellers who *might* spend a tenth of their time today giving directions..."

Broadhursts #BookshopDay window

Broadhursts Bookshop, Southport, launched a celebratory Twitter thread with these words: "It being #BookshopDay has been making us think--to all you booksellers (& ex-booksellers) out there, what are your favourite things about working in a #bookshop?"

Griffin Books, Penarth, S. Wales: "Thank you for all of the wonderful messages we have received today. We feel very lucky indeed and walked (more like floated) home with a lovely warm glow this evening. We really do believe that 'a town without a bookshop is a town without a soul.' "

Harris & Harris Books, Clare: "At the end of another #BookshopDay I pause to observe the now empty basket of smashing orangey snacks, the empty #snifter glasses, depleted #bamb bags, gaps on the shelves, I rejoice in the happy customers today--THATS why I do what I do."

The report last week that books were included in the new tariffs on E.U. products imported to the U.S. was inaccurate. In fact, books will not be included in the $7.5 billion of tariffs, which are being imposed after the World Trade Organization ruled last Wednesday that the U.S. could tax $7.5 billion of E.U. goods to recoup damages after the WTO had determined in May that the E.U. illegally subsidized Airbus.

Still, according to the Bookseller, tariffs are being imposed on "unbound books and some printed items" along with many other non-book items, including a range of food and drink and airplanes. The Publishers Association of the U.K. warned that "the U.S. government can decide to amend the list, adding to or expanding the exact products included within that code prior to implementation".

At the New York launch of Norwegian novelist Vigdis Hjorth's Will and Testament on October 3 at McNally Jackson, Hjorth (right) was joined in conversation by Nicole Krauss, author of Forest Dark. Will and Testament (Verso Books), which was recently longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature.

"We're so honored to be named both Staff Pick & Readers Choice for 2019 Best Bookstore by the Riverfront Times! Thank you, St. Louis!" Left Bank Books tweeted last week.

"When Left Bank Books was established 50 years ago, there was no need to distinguish it as an 'independent' bookstore, because there were no behemoth chains to compete with," the Riverfront Times wrote in its citation. "But even so, the shop arrived with a radically independent spirit befitting its name: it foregrounds authors from the cultural margins, be they gay or female or minority or socialist or just uniquely insightful and original.

"Times have gotten a hell of a lot tougher for bookstores like Left Bank, which makes its survival all the more significant and its presence in St. Louis all the more dear. Left Bank is responsible for the majority of author readings and signings that happen in our city, and they have provided a crucial lifeline to the international literary community for half a century now....

"This anniversary year is a great excuse to put your local values into action and get yourself in the Left Bank Books storefront doing what you know you love to do: browsing the shelves, falling into conversations about beloved authors, sitting down for a reading and just reveling in the analog glory of books and the people who have committed their lives to bringing great books into your life."

Busboys and Poets, 450 K St., in Washington, D.C., shared this photo of its Halloween-themed chalkboard, created by store supervisor Kelsey Norris: (BOO)KS!

At HarperCollins Children's Books:

Jacquelynn Burke has been promoted to associate director, publicity.

Lindsey Karl has been promoted to senior manager, conferences and conventions.

Talia Chaves has been promoted to marketing associate. She was formerly coordinator on the marketing operations team.

Tyler Breitfeller has been promoted to marketing associate.

Mimi Rankin has joined the company as manager, school & library marketing. She was formerly with Myrick Marketing & Media/Publishers Spotlight.

Catastrophe by the Sea by Brenda Peterson, illustrated by Ed Young (West Margin Press).

Today:
Good Morning America: Eve Rodsky, author of Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (Putnam, $26, 9780525541936).

Also on GMA: Megan Phelps-Roper, author of Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27, 9780374275839).

Today Show: Cleo Wade, author of Where to Begin: A Small Book About Your Power to Create Big Change in Our Crazy World (Atria, $23.99, 9781982138790).

Also on Today: James B. Stewart, author of Deep State: Trump, the FBI, and the Rule of Law (Penguin Press, $30, 9780525559108).

Daily Show: Chanel Miller, author of Know My Name: A Memoir (Viking, $28, 9780735223707).

Tonight Show: Lupita Nyong'o, author of Sulwe (Simon & Schuster, $17.99, 9781534425361).

Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Neil deGrasse Tyson, author of Letters from an Astrophysicist (Norton, $19.95, 9781324003311). He will also appear tomorrow on CBS This Morning and the View.

Also on the Late Show: Susan Rice, author of Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For (Simon & Schuster, $30, 9781501189975). She will also appear tomorrow on the Daily Show.

HBO released the official trailer for His Dark Materials, a TV series adaptation of Philip Pullman's fantasy novel trilogy, "and it looks quite--for lack of a better word--epic," IndieWire reported. The inaugural season covers the story of the first book, Northern Lights (a.k.a. The Golden Compass). The cast includes Dafne Keen, James McAvoy and Ruth Wilson.

"I thought it was time for the books to be liberated in a space that could do them justice,” executive producer Jane Tranter had said during a Comic-Con panel. IndieWire noted that the adaptation "has already seen success prior to airing: The series has been renewed for a second season, which is currently being filmed. Lin-Manuel Miranda and Andrew Scott (as live-action cast), as well as Helen McCrory and Cristela Alonzo (as voice cast for dæmons) are also among some of the stars in the ensemble cast for this upcoming epic, a joint BBC and HBO production."

His Dark Materials premieres November 3 on BBC and November 4 on HBO.

The winners of NEIBA's New England Book Awards, honoring books either by a New England author or set in New England, were:

Fiction: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press)
Nonfiction: Frederick Douglass by David W. Blight (Simon & Schuster)
YA: Hey Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka (Scholastic)
Children's: New Kid by Jerry Craft (HarperCollins)

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Longlists for the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction have been announced. Shortlists will be released November 4, and the two winning authors receive $5,000. The winners will be named January 26 during the American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia, Pa. See the complete longlists here.

It takes two people to fall in love, but it also "takes two people to ruin a relationship." Such is the case for Gavin Scott--a second baseman for the Nashville Legends baseball team, who suffers from a stuttering problem--and his loyal, devoted wife, Thea, the mother of their young twin girls. The couple married when Thea became pregnant. What started out as a happy union settled, over time, into a sexless routine as "the daily necessities of dealing with the kids and the house and his game schedule" wore down their relationship.

On the most memorable night of Gavin's professional career--he nails a walk-off grand slam at a big game--he learns that Thea's been faking it in their marital bed for years. The revelation about "The Big O-No" shatters Gavin's pride. It pits him and Thea against each other, resurrecting more truths and slights, until their faltering marriage comes completely undone. Gavin feels blindsided by the revelation and even more so when Thea asks for a divorce. Thea experiences a sudden rush of liberation. She intends to finish her college degree and rebuild the career she abandoned to care for her family and accommodate Gavin's baseball profession.

Amid the "historic, tree-lined streets" of Franklin, a small town on the outskirts of Nashville, Tenn., Gavin and Thea separate. Gavin seeks the support of his friends, who enlist him in a clique of "ten of Nashville's movers and shakers--professional athletes, business owners, and city officials," who covertly meet to eat, drink and discuss Regency romance novels. They refer to these books set in 18th- and 19th-century England as "manuals" that coach them in their romantic dealings with their partners and spouses. The book they choose to read and dissect, Courting the Countess, is about the imperiled marriage of the seventh Earl of Latford, and how he chivalrously plans to win over his true love. This serves as a model for Gavin, who sets out--from Thanksgiving to Christmas--to woo and win back his wife's affections.

A host of complications ensues: Gavin flirts with Thea. Thea resists his charms. The twins grapple with the tension between their parents. Liv, Thea's younger sister--an opinionated waitress--moves in with Thea and the girls. And news arrives that Liv and Thea's long-absent father is planning to marry a woman who is 32 years old, only six years older than Thea. This brings up issues from the past, which directly correlate to those in the present.

The opening installment of this fun and funny, sports-related romance series unspools a dual-threaded narrative that juxtaposes Gavin and Thea's story alongside that of the countess and her knight in shining armor. Through a series of clever, entertaining plot twists and striking parallels in the relationships of both couples, centuries apart, Lyssa Kay Adams (The Prospect) depicts how love--and the complications and ecstasies therein--never really changes or goes out of style. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Shelf Talker: With the help of a romance book club for men, a baseball player sets off on a clever crusade to save his marriage.

The bestselling Libro.fm audiobooks at independent bookstores during September:

Fiction
1. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Penguin Random House Audio)
2. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (HarperAudio)
3. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Penguin Random House Audio)
4. The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott (Penguin Random House Audio)
5. The Institute by Stephen King (Simon & Schuster Audio)
6. City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin Random House Audio)
7. Circe by Madeline Miller (Hachette Audio)
8. The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Penguin Random House Audio)
9. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (Macmillan Audio)
10. The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware (Simon & Schuster Audio)

Nonfiction
1. Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell (Hachette Audio)
2. Educated by Tara Westover (Penguin Random House Audio)
3. Over the Top by Jonathan Van Ness (HarperAudio)
4. Becoming by Michelle Obama (Penguin Random House Audio)
5. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Random House Audio)
6. Three Women by Lisa Taddeo (Simon & Schuster Audio)
7. Everything Is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo (Penguin Random House Audio)
8. The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power (HarperAudio)
9. The Only Plane in the Sky by Holter Graham and Garrett M. Graff (Simon & Schuster Audio)
10. Calypso by David Sedaris (Hachette Audio)