Sales at Vroman's Bookstore, Pasadena, Calif., are down 40% this year, "a level which cannot sustain our business," chairman Joel Sheldon wrote in a letter to customers quoted in Pasadena Now. "The next few months will determine the future of Vroman's." Vroman's also owns Book Soup in West Hollywood.

"As you can imagine, the past few months have been the most difficult in Vroman's 126-year history," Sheldon wrote. "We survived the advent of national brick and mortar competitors over the years and the development of online behemoths. But like virtually every retailer in the last six months--large and small--we are struggling as never before."

He continued: "It is critical now that our sales volumes return to much higher levels for us to stay open. Up until now, I have resisted asking for community support--it's a very humbling experience. But it is now time."

Sheldon suggested customers shop for books and gifts at Vroman's, encourage others to do the same, and shop early in the season--October and November rather than December--and early in the day--on weekday mornings rather than busier weekday afternoons and weekends.

Already one Vroman's fan has created a GoFundMe campaign, aiming to raise $100,000 to help the store. Marianne Polonsky, who said she was happy to hand over administration of the campaign to Vroman's, wrote in part that Vroman's "has always been part of our community, spanning three centuries and two millennia. It has brought joy and discoveries to generations of Pasadenans and Angelenos. Vroman's was there for me when I needed a book, or advice and recommendations on a topic as a student. It was there for me on rainy days when I needed to take my toddler to a dry welcoming place, letting me read to her for hours sitting on the big stuffed bear or on those little chairs she adored so much. It has brought us Story Hour with Mr Steve, free conferences with fascinating authors, and a place to look for that unique holiday or birthday gift for the friend who has everything. Vroman's is our heart and we need to keep it beating. It has survived the internet craze but the virus may ring its death knoll if we don't rise to save it.  It's our turn to help Vroman's. Please give as you can so we can keep The Bookstore for generations to come and at least another century."

Book Boutique, a Black-owned multicultural bookstore in Atlanta, Ga., hosted a soft opening this past weekend in its new Atlantic Station location at 260 18th Street, with plans to be fully open to the public this coming Saturday, October 3, What Now Atlanta reported. Monique Hall, author and owner of MBP Publications, operates the store along with her husband, Rodney Daniel.

"Our goal has always been to create an environment for people to rediscover the joy of reading and experience books in a new way," said Hall. "We provide something for the whole family, a one-stop-shop for reading, socializing, playing and gathering. With our new location at Atlantic Station, we hope to act as a go-to destination for the community, and we’re excited to take part in the property’s next phase."

Book Boutique will offer an "all-encompassing literary experience" from weekly programming to book launches, in the 10,300-square-foot space, which features a bookstore on the right side and a cafe, slated to open in November, on the left. Plans call for the bookstore to promote launches of both local and national books, as well as to feature a wide-ranging inventory. 

"Reigniting the sense of community is a top priority of Atlantic Station, whether it's through guests taking a yoga class on the Green, sharing a meal at one of our restaurants or interacting with the art around property," said Kristie Ray, director of marketing at Hines, Atlantic Station's owner. "Book Boutique shares this value and unites people through a fun, educational environment. We are thrilled to have them join our mix."

Innisfree Poetry Bookstore & Café, Boulder, Colo., closed its bricks-and-mortar location permanently on Sunday, the Boulder Daily Camera reported. The store will continue to operate online and will host virtual poetry readings and events.

Last week, store owners Brian Buckley and Kate Hunter tweeted, "When we opened as the third poetry bookstore in the United States in 2010, we were overwhelmed and deeply moved by the care of poets and coffee and tea lovers who came and came and came. Thank you for the bottom of our family hearts. We will never be able to thank everyone who made this decade-long dream possible, but we will try. Thank you. To every poet who ever read a line on our stage--thank you. We hope you all will continue to hold a dear place in your heart for poetry."

Acting manager Chloe Halvorson told the Daily Camera that the closure "ultimately came down to COVID pressures. We're on the Hill. We're so dependent on students."

The store was named after William Butler Yeats's poem "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and moved into its most recent location in 2016. The store celebrated its 10th anniversary in January.

Scott Abel, co-owner of Solid State Books in Washington, D.C., reported that he and co-owner Jake Clumsky-Whitlock "remain set on a course of action that prioritizes our own health and the health of our staff." The store is carrying out all sales over the phone and by e-mail, and allowing curbside pick-up. On Saturdays the store does a sidewalk pop-out that highlights things that "need a touch," like greeting cards, children's books and staff picks.

Staffing is kept at a very safe level to allow for social distancing, and surfaces are being sanitized regularly. The store has been able to remain closed to browsing for this long, Abel continued, because of tremendous support from customers as well as understanding from the store's landlords. That conversation is ongoing, and Abel noted that pretty soon the store will have to start allowing people inside again, but he and the team are only now starting to plan what that will look like.

Solid State's sidewalk pop-up

For the past six months or so, the store has been operating on a one-in, one-out model when it comes to buying, but the Solid State team has also been holding onto a lot of stock from the year that they feel has been overlooked. Abel explained that they're hoping to see publishers start boosting some of those titles that "fell through the cracks" as the holiday shopping season nears. Abel added that he's also been "reading and rereading" everything that the ABA has been sending out about fourth-quarter preparation. The upcoming shopping season "will be one for the planners."

When asked how this summer compared to past summers, Abel pointed out that this was only the store's second summer. Sales have been down, and it "was a downer" to scrap the store's second anniversary plans. But in order to make sure that the staff stayed safe, Abel and Clumsky-Whitlock knew that they would have to endure "pretty big losses, no book clubs, no events and no fun things." On the long term level, though, they're hoping to see a good next few years and their five-year plan is "mostly intact."

Earlier in the summer, Solid State Books began to appear on lists of Black-owned bookstores to support that circulated following the murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests. Even before that, in fact, the store was listed by the NAACP as a Covid-altered business. Abel noted that since those lists started circulating, the store has gotten some larger events, which is perhaps "some overdue recognition from the publishing side." He also expressed gratitude to the store's neighbors and to some "list-builders," including the National Book Foundation and Oprah. "We have felt the love, so our thanks go to many people."

---

In Waco, Tex., Fabled Bookshop & Cafe reopened in May with limited hours. Co-owners Alison Frenzel and Kimberly Batson are looking to increase hours in October, along with adding take-away food at the cafe. When Fabled reopened, explained Frenzel, the store was offering only drinks, beer, wine and limited pastries through the cafe, when normally there is a full dine-in menu.

The Fabled Bookshop team has added floor stickers for social distancing, reminders to wear masks, hand sanitizer stations throughout the shop and removed some of the cafe seating to allow for extra space. Fortunately, Frenzel continued, almost all of the store's customers have complied with the state's mask order. If anyone refuses to wear one, the staff reminds them that Fabled also offers curbside service and shipping anywhere.

Since the pandemic began, Frenzel and the team have been "bolder" about quantities when it comes to ordering new books due to frequent shipping delays. Looking ahead to the holidays, they have been proactively planning for replenishment issues by over-buying some merchandise and bestsellers.

On the subject of the protests that began in late May and early June, Frenzel said there were several peaceful protests in Waco, and the store put a "Be the Bridge" display in the windows that featured antiracist titles and books about racial reconciliation. --Alex Mutter

The closing program for New Voices, New Rooms, "The Way Forward: Meeting Crisis with Creativity," felt a bit like sitting in a living room with the three authors featured: Ann Patchett (The Dutch House, Harper), with her self-described "Amish look" hair pulled back, silkscreen flowers on the wallpaper; Glennon Doyle (Untamed, Dial), with her poster "We Can Do Hard Things" (more about that in a moment) behind her, and a 64-oz. water bottle that had the chat box all aflutter; and Elizabeth Gilbert (City of Girls, Riverhead), who'd just been for a swim, and confiscated a neighbor's dog for the evening.

Linda-Marie Barrett, executive director of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, introduced the three authors after thanking Eileen Dengler, executive director of the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association, who together with Barrett planned the programming for New Voices, New Rooms. "NVNR was our creative response to crisis," said Barrett. "Pandemic, civil unrest and natural disasters. People will never forget that Amazon de-prioritized books, but that booksellers rose to it whether from their living rooms or the floors of their stores. Let's raise a glass to independent booksellers." Barrett said that a strong closing asks us to "look inward so we can turn outward" and said Patchett, Doyle and Gilbert with the authors who could help do just that.

Patchett asked, "How are you getting creatively through crisis?" Doyle replied, "My event with Ann during my book launch was my very last book tour event. I went from this time when I was supposed to be launching this big thing in the world, to Covid. I remember my sister bawling and saying, 'what we can do?' And I said, 'We can do service.' Now I'm doing everything in my power to affect the election. Today, we launched 'We Can Do Hard Things: 40 Days of Outrage to Action'--I'm trying to learn democracy and teach it to people." Patchett recommends Thank You for Voting by Erin Geiger Smith: "Its great strength is that it's tiny. The history of voting, such a great civics lesson. There's a young readers edition, too."

Clockwise from top left: Linda-Marie Barrett, Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Gilbert, Glennon Doyle

It quickly became clear that the three authors are also friends. "I follow Glennon," Gilbert said. "I look to you in times of crisis for guidance--what's the way we can react, on a personal level and then the public civic level." On a personal level, Gilbert spoke of the importance of "keeping your sanity, stillness, perspective, wisdom." Gilbert said, "When this started, I thought this will be a marathon, not a sprint. That was even before 2020 said, 'Here, hold my beer, let me show you what else I can do.' I haven't done this much spiritual work since I was living in India in an ashram," she said. "Part of my job as a public servant is to demonstrate spiritual practice. The other thing I'm doing is picking up the torch [that began on June 10] with #ShareTheMicNow. Fifty white women with large platforms turned it over to African American women. I thought it shouldn't be an event what happens once, but every day that you can."

Doyle agreed that staying sane is a very important part of this period. "I am a person who has dealt with depression and anxiety my whole life," she said. "Several months into the pandemic, Abby [Wambach, Doyle's partner] said, 'You're so calm!' I was talking with friends who share a similar outlook who were experiencing the same. Our whole life we've been living on a Level 9 and now the whole world has met us here!"

Patchett pursued the point about maintaining one's sanity. "I want to take it one step further which is maintaining my joy," Patchett said. I have a very level personality and I am naturally inclined toward joy. I have a great relationship, house, dog, family nearby, the store, and work I do from home anyway. I can't give in to the bog beneath me. I'm not on any social media and I don't have a cell phone."

"You're all over social media!" Gilbert broke in, "Parnassus makes videos of you, and I know--because you're my friend--that you never watch them!" Patchett bemoaned the fact that she interviewed fellow author and bookstore owner Louise Erdrich with 35,00 people watching them live, and 5,000 people watching it afterward, "and it didn't move books! If I talk about a book while wearing a cocktail dress, people do [buy them]!" Patchett was speaking about her attire for her Nashville store's Tuesday laydown video. For her, it's about keeping the store going, "keeping the people in the store who are my beloveds employed. Putting as much creativity into selling books as I can." Patchett said that she and her business partner, Karen Hayes, didn't feel good about how much they were making from antiracist books, so they donated it all to Gideon's Army, a Black-owned and -operated organization "that makes Nashville a better place."

Barrett returned to the conversation to ask questions posed by the virtual audience. First up, book recommendations. Patchett dove in first with Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi and Alice Randall's Black Bottom Saints. Doyle said. "I'm reading The Fire Next Time right now. I thought James Baldwin's writing would be up here [pointing above her head], but it's all guts and heart." Patchett responded, "Read Giovanni's Room, just to give yourself dessert. It's the James Baldwin book no one reads."

Gilbert said, "The novel that dazzled me this year is Raven Leilani's Luster. It's important to also read Black authors who are writing the novels they always wanted to write, in addition to antiracist books."

Another listener asked, "How do you deal with fear?" Glennon said she channeled her fear into making something instead, with her effort to register voters: "I'm still cranky and exhausted but I feel like I can look myself in the eye and know that I did what I could, no matter what happens."

Gilbert said she experienced what she called "an existential fear" in Australia, preparing to come home in the Sydney airport in March. "I was physically shaken," she said. "I had this thought: you've been doing spiritual practice for 20 years. What did you think you were practicing for? The answer is in the title, Spiritual Practice. I can do 10 hours of worrying or 10 hours of work. And then deepen those practices every day. This is what all that yoga you ever did, this is what it's for. Not to be bendier than your neighbor." For Patchett, the answer was "to just keep serving, to stay as small as I can. To not let my mind ramp up the volume. To think, it's self-aggrandizement to think nothing could be worse, and things have been worse. This is our moment to serve, that's it."

Another question from the audience was, "Once it's safe to travel, do you look forward to author tours?" Doyle said, "I have noticed how much family togetherness is involved in not leaving the house; that in itself has made me realize maybe I'd like to leave again. My kids are all in virtual school and it's impossible. It's impossible for the kids, it's impossible for the teachers, it's impossible for administrators. And it's not their fault." Gilbert said, "I famously do not mind leaving my house. The open road calls."

Patchett: "I think that's it, the open road doesn't have my phone number. I would like to never leave the house again for all sorts of great reasons, most of them environmental. However, I am first and foremost a bookseller, and I have the understanding of how much it matters to have authors come to the store. Glennon, we had 1,700 copies of your book [Untamed] stacked up in the back room of the store, and every other author had canceled, and you came through. We rode on the fumes of your good deed for months. Even while it wasn't the smartest thing for you to have done in terms of your own health and safety, we were so grateful. Those huge author events are the difference between being open and staying closed." --Jennifer M. Brown, senior editor

Stephen F. Cohen

Historian Stephen F. Cohen, "whose books and commentaries on Russia examined the rise and fall of Communism, Kremlin dictatorships and the emergence of a post-Soviet nation still struggling for identity in the 21st century," died September 18, the New York Times reported. He was 81. "Loosely identified with a revisionist historical view of the Soviet Union, Professor Cohen held views that made him a controversial public intellectual. He believed that early Bolshevism had held great promise, that it had been democratic and genuinely socialist, and that it had been corrupted only later by civil war, foreign hostility, Stalin's malignancy and a fatalism in Russian history."

Cohen first came to international attention in 1973 with Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, which was a finalist for a National Book Award. His other works include War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate; Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War; The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag After Stalin; Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev's Reformers (with Katrina vanden Heuvel); and Rethinking the Soviet Experience: Politics and History Since 1917.

In a personal recollection, Katrina vanden Heuvel, editorial director and publisher of the Nation, wrote that the experiences she and her late husband shared in Moscow "beginning in 1980 are in many ways my life's most meaningful. Steve introduced me to realms of politics, history, and life I might never have experienced: to Bukharin's widow, the extraordinary Anna Mikhailovna Larina, matriarch of his second family, and to his eclectic and fascinating circle of friends--survivors of the Gulag (whom he later wrote about in The Victims Return), dissidents, and freethinkers--both outside and inside officialdom.

"From 1985 to 1991, when we lived frequently in Moscow, we shared the intellectual and political excitement, the hopes and the great achievements of those perestroika years. We later developed a close friendship with Mikhail Gorbachev, a man we both deeply admired as an individual and as a political leader who used his power so courageously to change his country and the world. Gorbachev also changed our lives in several ways."

Upon learning of Cohen's death, Gorbachev sent a letter of condolence to vanden Heuvel, writing: "He was one of the closest people to me in his views and understanding of the enormous events that occurred in the late 1980s in Russia and changed the world. Steve was a brilliant historian and a man of democratic convictions. He loved Russia, the Russian intelligentsia, and believed in our country's future. I always considered Steve and you my true friends."

"How do you know you've arrived at the Uncommon Open Air weekend? You see the bookshop with a sea monster coming out of the windows," Canadian bookseller River Bookshop in Amherstburg, Ont., posted on Facebook, adding: "AH-MAZING! Thanks to Jen & Izzy Grondin and Jen & Kyla Hicks for the gorgeous modeling work and thanks to the Visit Amherstburg Tourism for making us and the town look so good!"

"Some tasks in particular make me feel like I'm playing the part of a bookstore owner in a movie," Janet Geddis, owner of Avid Bookshop, Athens, Ga., noted on Facebook, where she shared a few of these moments:

1. Sweeping the sidewalk out front in the morning before we open.
2. Handing a customer a handled bag full of books she's just bought for a loved one.
3. Decorating the chalkboard.

Books International will be the new distributor of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company titles, effective November 1.

Anita Eerdmans, president and publisher of Eerdmans, said that Books International "will provide our customers with the reliable services they expect, and free us up to focus on acquiring, editing, producing, marketing, and selling our books."

Founded in 1911, Eerdmans publishes religious books, from academic works in theology, biblical studies, religious history and reference to popular titles in spirituality, social and cultural criticism, and literature.

If You Go with Your Goat to Vote by Jan Zauzmer, illustrated by Andrew Roberts (The Experiment).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: John Cena, author of Elbow Grease: Fast Friends (Random House, $18.99, 9780593179345).

Today Show: Yaa Gyasi, author of Transcendent Kingdom (Knopf, $27.95, 9780525658184).

Tonight Show: Chris Colfer, author of A Tale of Witchcraft... (Little, Brown, $18.99, 9780316523561).

Late Show with Stephen Colbert: John Lithgow, author of Trumpty Dumpty Wanted a Crown: Verses for a Despotic Age (Chronicle, $22.95, 9781797209463).

Late Night with Seth Meyers: Brian Stelter, author of Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth (Atria/One Signal, $28, 9781982142445).

Netflix has released a trailer for A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting, based on the book series Joe Ballarini, Entertainment Weekly reported. The cast includes Tamara Smart, Oona Laurence, Tom Felton, Ian Ho, Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson, Lynn Masako Cheng, Ty Consiglio and Indya Moore. The movie will be released for streaming October 15.

"The title describes it all," said filmmaker Rachel Talalay. "It's a Halloween family movie. We're living in the zone of trying to be both scary and funny. It's about a super-secret babysitters' organization that's always protected kids from monsters."

To help launch Banned Books Week, the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom has released a list of the Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books of the Past Decade. OIF noted that the list "draws attention to literary censorship but only provides a snapshot of book challenges. About 82%-97% of challenges remain unreported, estimates OIF, which compared results from several independent studies of third-party FOIA requests documenting school and library book censorship with the information in its database."

Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian tops the list as the most banned and challenged book from 2010-2019. He is joined by Toni Morrison, Alex Gino, John Green and E.L. James as some of the most censored authors. The top 15 most challenged books since 2010 are:

1. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
2. Captain Underpants (series) by Dav Pilkey
3. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
4. Looking for Alaska by John Green
5. George by Alex Gino
6. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson & Peter Parnell
7. Drama by Raina Telgemeier
8. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
9. Internet Girls (series) by Lauren Myracle
10. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
11. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
12. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
13. I Am Jazz by Jazz Jennings & Jessica Herthel
14. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
15. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Winners have been named for the 2020 Davitt Awards, presented by Sisters in Crime to recognize crime books by Australian women. This year's Davitt winners by category are:

Adult novel: The Trespassers by Meg Mundell
Debut: Eight Lives by Susan Hurley
YA novel: Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte
Children's novel: The Girl in the Mirror by Jenny Blackford
Nonfiction: Banking Bad: Whistleblowers. Corporate Cover-ups: One Journalist's Fight for the Truth by Adele Ferguson
Highly commended: See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse by Jess Hill
Readers choice (joint winners): The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan and Darkness for Light by Emma Viskic

A book full of an author's poignant childhood diary entries sounds like a vanity project; blessedly, We Saw Scenery: The Early Diaries of Merrill Markoe is not that. The multiple Emmy Award-winning comedy writer has augmented some of her youthful jottings with drawings and snappy, bewildered and trenchant present-day observations, and the result is a marvelously oddball coming-of-age memoir with laughs and a talking hippo.

The entries begin in 1958, the year Markoe's parents moved the family, which included her brother, Glenn, from New Jersey to Miami. (The family later moves to San Francisco--another upheaval that young Markoe considers worthy of ink.) Several wittily vexed entries call to mind a Lynda Barry comic ("MARCH 3, 1961/ GLENN IS AN IDIOT and I can not live a good life without him teasing me every minute of the day..."). Other entries seem at first blush like the usual kid stuff ("JANUARY 29, 1959/ Then this evening our Brownie troop had a Girl Scout Fly-Up. I goofed up the whole show by giggling"). But as the entries accumulate, a picture emerges of a child negotiating more than typical tweenage insecurity about fitting in: Markoe's parents and teachers seem to delight in cracking down on her clowning. Her diary becomes a refuge where she can write the lines that the grown-ups in her life don't want to hear. As the adult Markoe puts it, her younger self was tailoring her entries for "an imaginary readership. It was the first sign that I was writing for an audience."

Markoe is surprised by how little she remembers of the goings-on covered in her diary, and several of We Saw Scenery's illustrations find her confronting a pink hippo--a stand-in for her memory-storing hippocampus. In art that has an invitingly unpolished look, Markoe insinuates her young self into a fantasy tableau with the cast of West Side Story, and she inserts her adult self into scenes in which she tries to convince her younger self not to put too much stock in boys.

Markoe the child couldn't have known that her diary entries would put in stark relief the way that the unladylike behavior of girls of her generation was all too often discouraged. Readers of We Saw Scenery will probably be nearly as overjoyed as Markoe when, in 1966, her parents drop her off at UC Berkeley, where she finally finds a crowd that wants to hear her jokes. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Shelf Talker: The Emmy-winning comedy writer has annotated and illustrated some of the funnier and more illuminating diary entries from her exasperating childhood.

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

1. The Harbinger II: The Return by Jonathan Cahn
2. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter
3. Kane by Sawyer Bennett
4. Heart to Beat by Brian Lima
5. Flirting with 40 by K. Bromberg
6. Nori's Delta by Lori Ryan
7. Thanks for Last Night by Lauren Blakely
8. Five Years or So (Charming Inn Book 5) by Kay Correll
9. Greyson by Dale Mayer
10. Ivy's Delta by Elle James

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]