Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bargain Books in Greenwich Village in New York City is closing at the end of June because of a rent hike, Patch reported. Owner Jim Drougas said he hopes to reopen somewhere else, hopefully in the Village, after serving the neighborhood for 30 years. For the past decade the store has shared space with Carmine Street Comics, and Drougas said he's open to a similar sharing arrangement.

The store will likely launch a crowdsourcing site soon.

"I'm not despondent," Drougas said. "I'm actually kind of hopeful something is going to turn up. We've had a big impact and a lot of people have been very supportive."

Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bargain Books specializes in "highly curated art, fiction, philosophy, spirituality, music, and more" at bargain prices.

Liz Whitelam, owner of Whitelam Books, Reading, Mass., has joined the board of the New England Independent Booksellers Association, and current board member Meghan Hayden, owner of River Bend Bookshop, Glastonbury, Conn., will serve as clerk/treasurer.

The two moves come following the resignation from the board and as clerk/treasurer by Emily Crowe, who has left her position as buyer/manager of An Unlikely Story, Plainville, Mass., to become a Knopf/Doubleday sales representative for Penguin Random House.

Board president Beth Wagner wrote, "We will miss Emily's steadfast service for the board, and are grateful to have the opportunity to work with her in the future as she assumes her new position at Penguin Random House."

MalaTesta Libros

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, neighborhood bookshops "are multiplying and thriving as readers seek personal connections and thoughtful recommendations from the booksellers," despite the toll taken by a recession and the Covid-19 pandemic, the New York Times reported. Small shops "are sprouting where their readers are, in residential areas, keeping alive the rich literary scene" in the capital city. 
 
"Bookstores just keep opening," said Cecilia Fanti, who founded the Céspedes Libros bookstore in August 2017 and expanded it to a larger location three years later to keep up with demand.

Víctor Malumián, an editor at small publisher Godot and co-founder of a popular book fair for independent publishers, noted: "It's true that you can find absolutely everything online, but you're only going to find what you know you're going to look for. Small bookstores help you find what you don't know you're looking for."

For bookish Porteños, as the residents of Buenos Aires are known, "that personal connection makes all the difference," the Times wrote, adding that "with Porteños confined to their neighborhoods for much of 2020, they turned to the small bookstores nearby. And those stores--with their smaller staffs, cheaper rents and nimble social media presence--suddenly found themselves with a distinct comparative advantage over larger chain stores."

MalaTesta Libros, opened by Carime Morales in the Parque Chas neighborhood, was such a success she had to give up her work as a freelance editor. "MalaTesta is in the heart of the neighborhood," she said. "The neighbors go to buy lettuce and then stop by the store to buy a book."

Cristian De Nápoli, author and owner of Otras Orillas Libros, observed: "Argentina may always be in crisis but there are a lot of readers. And they aren't just any readers, but readers who are always in search of what's new.... There is an enormous number of books. It is small bookstores that in some way put order to that euphoria."

--- 

Just ahead of next week's Australian Booksellers Association's Conference & Trade Exhibition (June 12-13 in Sydney), shortlists have been released for the Australian Book Industry Awards, celebrating "professionals in the book business--the dedicated individuals and teams who bring stories to life, authors' dreams to reality, and books to the right readers." Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony June 9. Shortlisted in the bookselling categories are: 

Bookshop of the Year, awarded to an individual physical bookshop in Australia that has demonstrated excellence over the course of 2021:
Open Book (Mosman Park)
Matilda Bookshop (Adelaide)
Potts Point Bookshop (Sydney)
Avenue Bookstore Albert Park (Victoria)
Avid Reader Bookshop (Brisbane)
Paper Bird Children's Books & Arts (Fremantle)

Book Retailer of the Year, awarded to the Australian company or group of companies or retailers that has best demonstrated excellence and contributed to the overall success of the industry over the course of the year:
Readings
Harry Hartog Bookseller
Booktopia
Dymocks
Big W

The Rising Star Award shortlist, Lloyd O'Neil Hall of Fame Award and Pixie O'Harris Award recipients, and Publisher and Small Publisher Award shortlists can be found here, and book award finalists here.

--- 

"We love a good recap!" the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association posted on Facebook. "We were astounded by your response to #CIBD2022. Readers came together from across the country to celebrate and support local booksellers, participate in activities, and enter our Contest for Book Lovers. Want to revisit the lovefest? Check out all the notes we received from authors and illustrators this year. Thank you for being part of our community! We can't wait to celebrate again next year." --Robert Gray

An out-of-control golf cart crashed into the front window of Page & Palette in Fairhope, Ala., over the Memorial Day weekend, Fox10 reported.

No one was hurt, bookseller Jane Willis said, even though the store was very busy and there was a "line out the door." She recalled hearing a "huge crash" while making a customer's coffee, and suddenly "there was a golf cart in the window." Luckily no one was sitting at the store's outdoor tables when the crash occurred.

Golf carts are street legal in Fairhope, though it is unclear exactly how it went out of control. The cart was able to hop the parking bumper and curb without slowing down much. For now the broken window has been patched over with cardboard and tape.

Congratulations to Broadway Books, Portland, Ore., which celebrated its 30th anniversary recently with a special sale; the launch of the first ever Broadway Books jigsaw puzzle; a 30th anniversary tote bag; special contests; a photo booth; and more. 

Announcing plans for the birthday festivities last month, co-owners Kim Bissell and Sally McPherson noted: "Wow, can you believe we're turning 30?? We honestly don't feel a day over 29. But it's true! Thanks abound for the solid foundation laid by Roberta Dyer and Gloria Borg Olds in the spring of 1992, and to all of the authors, publishers, landlords, wonderful employees, and--especially--you, dear readers and book buyers, the loyal customers who have helped us to keep the lights on for three decades. Thanks to all of you we are still here serving the Portland literary community and our beloved northeast Portland neighborhood.

"The little bookstore that could, we have chugged along through the Big Box Bookstore invasion and the onslaught of the billionaire online megastore guy, recessions and political upheavals, ice storms and power outages, an international pandemic and global supply chain disruptions, and irritating and senseless vandalism. We have survived all of this thanks to you.

"Paul Yamazaki of City Lights Books in San Francisco said that a bookstore is somewhat like the ocean: it may look the same, but if you are a careful observer it is always changing. At first glance, we haven't changed that much from the very special store Roberta and Gloria opened 30 years ago. But on closer inspection we have evolved with the times, striving to stay relevant and current while continuing to provide a most carefully curated inventory of books and sidelines for you to explore, with friendly, well-read booksellers at your service. We treasure our connection with our community and hope the feeling is mutual."

The owners of Your Brother's Bookstore, Evansville, Ind., gave 14News a tour of the subterranean space they found last year after discovering a trap door while replacing the floors before the shop opened. 

"We, of course, went down immediately," said co-owner Sam Morris.

They found a dusty old room with a hole in the wall and didn't think much of it "until the Evansville African American Museum reached out, thinking it might hold evidence from the Underground Railroad. When people from the museum came to investigate, they learned the hole in the wall connected to a tunnel that runs under Main Street," 14News noted.

"The first day that it happened, our sign outside said, 'Ask us about our secret tunnel,' because I just wanted to tell every single person that it was down there," said Morris.

Although no evidence was found of the Underground Railroad, there were artifacts connected to Prohibition. Vanderburgh County historian, Stan Schmitt, said this fits the area's Prohibition history: "Indiana went dry before Kentucky did, and so there was a year or so where there was a lot of stuff coming across the [Ohio] river."

Morris said the owners have "been coming up with just funny things that we can do down there. I think we're going to throw down some porcelain dolls and seal it back up, let that be a surprise for the next people."

In Bloomsbury's adult trade division:

Marie Coolman is being promoted to senior director, marketing, publicity and communications and will oversee both marketing and publicity.

Lauren Dooley has been promoted to assistant marketing manager.

Lauren Moseley is joining Bloomsbury as marketing director. Moseley has been associate marketing director at Algonquin.

Kenli Young has joined the company as marketing associate. Young has been a bookseller at the Strand Book Store while finishing her M.S in publishing from NYU.

---

At Kaye Publicity:

Hailey Dezort has been promoted to marketing manager. She was previously marketing and events coordinator.

Eleanor Imbody has joined the firm as events assistant. She was previously assistant to the president at Browne & Miller Literary Associates.

Amanda LaConte has joined the firm as research assistant.

In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua by Sophie Chao (Duke University Press).

Today:
Good Morning America: James Patterson, author of James Patterson: The Stories of My Life (Little, Brown, $29, 9780316397537). He will also appear today on Live with Kelly and Ryan and tomorrow on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Watch What Happens Live: Ryan O'Connell, author of Just by Looking at Him: A Novel (Atria, $27, 9781982178581).

Late Night with Seth Meyers: Leila Mottley, author of Nightcrawling: A Novel (Knopf, $28, 9780593318935).

Tomorrow:
Tamron Hall: Grant Hill, author of Game: An Autobiography (Penguin Press, $30, 9780593297407).

Late Late Show with James Corden: Dustin Nickerson, author of How to Be Married (to Melissa): A Hilarious Guide to a Happier, One-of-a-Kind Marriage (Thomas Nelson, $25.99, 9781400231614).

Fox is developing Felonious Monk, a one-hour drama based on William Kotzwinkle's novel. Deadline reported that the project, from writer Michael Brandon Guercio (Treadstone) and Fox Entertainment, "is about a disgraced cop with anger issues-turned-monk who returns to his hometown to take care of his dead uncle's outstanding business debts, and suspects foul play. Now, he's forced to abandon his serene monastery life in order to solve his uncle's murder and other homicide cases."

Guercio executive produces along with Jordan Cerf of Mosaic. Kotzwinkle serves as consultant. Felonious Monk was published by Blackstone in 2021, the first in a series.

The Writers' Trust of Canada announced that Patrick James Errington (poetry) and Teya Hollier (short fiction) are winners of this year's RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, which was established in memory of poet and short story writer Bronwen Wallace and "has a track record of identifying future Canadian writing stars." Each winning author receives C$10,000 (about US$7,790).

Errington won for his poetry collection, If Fire, Then Bird, which the jury said "confronts embered landscapes of memory and loss in sonorous, sensory-rich language. These poems move with undeniable grace and attention, subtly adopting and subverting lyrical and pastoral tropes to pose tough questions about the fragile boundaries between health and illness, presence and absence, place and displacement. Like figures walking through the smoke from a burning field, Errington's poems emerge with remarkable definition, clarity, and surprise."

Hollier won for her short story collection Watching, Waiting, described by the jury as a "tender, skillful and moving storytelling achievement" that "perfectly captures a child's voice and understanding of the adult world. The bonds in a delayed father-daughter relationship are so delicately explored that readers are given pause at every cautious movement and each unspoken word. Deftly navigating familial and spatial geographies of shame, solidarity, and race, Teya Hollier moves effortlessly from comparing parents' skin colour, to secret candy, to the contrasting experiences of zombie and princess trick-or-treaters in a fine form of the unexpected."

The other finalists for the poetry prize were Eimear Laffan for My Life, Delimited and Christine Wu for selections from Familial Hungers. The other short fiction prize finalists were Jen Batler for Ectopia Cordis and Emily Paskevics for Wild Girls. Each writer receives C$2,500 (about US$1,945). 

Over the course of nine searingly candid essays fueled by Erika L. Sánchez's fearless, supple humor, Crying in the Bathroom confronts the often brutal realities of living authentically as a nontraditional woman of Mexican heritage in the United States. Describing her memoir as "a series of my musings, misfortunes, triumphs, disappointments, delights, and resurrections," Sánchez takes a backward glance at her improbable, well-traveled life, from her ancestral peasant roots and the restless energy that informs her best work to her debilitating mental illness and the sheer joyful satisfaction of creating a home, family life and career entirely of her own design.

Author of the National Book Award finalist I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, Sánchez straddles multiple contradictory identities that form her genuine self. Her parents were immigrant factory workers, whom she calls "old-school Mexicans"; she is a poet, Fulbright scholar and Buddhist who rejected her family's oppressive Catholicism, choosing to live without guilt and shame as constant companions. Writing became her escape from a life of immigrant striving and the restrictions of growing up female in a traditional Mexican community in Chicago where girls were expected to stay close to home. Instead, Sánchez (Lessons on Expulsion) moved out during her senior year of college and never looked back, traveling the world and immersing herself in a kaleidoscope of cultural, sexual and romantic experiences.

In the first essay of her memoir, "The Year My Vagina Broke," Sánchez reveals how her younger self worried she was being punished by pious female ancestors, her sexual awakening and early adult years dampened by chronic vulvar pain. From childhood, Sánchez, now in her late 30s, battled a depression that was forever hovering, bringing her to the brink of ending her life. Despite the uncertain path of mental health treatment, Sánchez forged ahead with her artistic endeavors, rejecting an office job in the title essay that a friend of hers describes as "a sweatshop of the mind," and eventually finding a home in academia.

With animated, often hilarious, vignettes from a multicultural youth spent yearning for the solitude necessary for writing, Crying in the Bathroom finds the author immensely grateful for the good fortune of the present, for a splendid study of her own and the sacrifices her hardworking parents made so their daughter could pursue her literary dreams and lead a life of the mind. --Shahina Piyarali, reviewer

Shelf Talker: A Mexican-American poet and YA novelist reflects with humor and gratitude on her family, her formative years and the adventure of creating a successful literary career.

The following were the most popular book club books during May based on votes from book club readers in more than 75,000 book clubs registered at Bookmovement.com:

1. The Lincoln Highway: A Novel by Amor Towles (Viking)
2. The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray (Berkley)
3. The Maid: A Novel by Nita Prose (Ballantine)
4. Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel by Anthony Doerr (Scribner)
5. Anxious People: A Novel by Fredrik Backman (Washington Square Press)
6. The Last Thing He Told Me: A Novel by Laura Dave (Simon & Schuster)
7. The Midnight Library: A Novel by Matt Haig (Viking)
8. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Washington Square Press)
9. The Four Winds: A Novel by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin's Press)
10. It Ends with Us: A Novel by Colleen Hoover (Atria)

Rising Stars:
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson (Ballantine Books)
What Happened to the Bennetts by Lisa Scottoline (Putnam)