Bibliotheque's future home (image: Google Maps)

A bookstore, bar and cafe called Bibliotheque is coming to New York City later this year, Eater New York reported. Owners Dr. Andrew Jacono and his son AJ Jacono have found a space at 54 Mercer St. in SoHo and plan to sell new books, food from the Épicerie Boulud market and a variety of beverages like beer and wine.

Per What Now New York, the space at 54 Mercer St. spans 3,600 square feet, divided between a ground floor and basement. The ground floor will contain the cafe, bar and bookstore and will be able to seat 41 people. The plan is to allow space for comfortable browsing even when the cafe is full, and the book selection will feature a variety of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. The basement  will be used for storage.

Dr. Andrew Jacono is a celebrity plastic surgeon whose clients include Marc Jacobs, while AJ Jacono is a writer and the founder of the literary magazine the Spotlong Review. They are aiming for a fall opening.

The Three Arts Book Store in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., has been put up for sale. Founded in 1946 by Jesse and Lillian (Lee) Effron, the bookshop is currently owned by Walter Effron, son of the founders. He has been running it since 1982 and would like to retire.

The business has long had a near-collegial relationship with Vassar College, located across the street. Bookseller Marion Bacon, manager of the Vassar Cooperative Book Store for decades and former president of the American Booksellers Association, encouraged the Effrons to open the Three Arts, and the two stores worked together and shared a number of events over the years.

A general-interest store, the Three Arts features children's books, belles-lettres, fiction and nonfiction, among other departments, with a sideline in antique prints of regional scenes, and Vassariana. The store has approximately 400 square feet of floor space and a full basement for storage and shipping.

Effron would welcome "good faith" inquiries and may be contacted at walter@3artsbookshop.com.

Yesterday, the New England Independent Booksellers Association announced winners of three awards:

Titcomb's Bookshop, East Sandwich, Mass., has won the Independent Spirit Award, sponsored by the Book Publishers Representatives of New England and recognizing the New England independent bookstore of the year.

The organization wrote: "During its 50-plus years, Titcomb's has enjoyed a warm relationship with customers and authors alike. Visiting authors are asked to pose for a picture with the trademark statue. Many customers stop to see the authors' wall where the photos are displayed (now also on their website). Philip Craig, the late author of Martha's Vineyard mysteries, remarked, 'Titcomb's Bookshop... is a charming little shop with equally charming managers and customers. It's been my pleasure to sign books there several times... Not only have I inscribed quite a few books, I've enjoyed excellent conversations with wonderful people who love to read. They are the most interesting people in the world, and Titcomb's draws them like bees to honey.' "

Susie Albert of Penguin Random House has won the Saul Gilman Award, which is sponsored by NEIBA and honors "outstanding service as a sales representative to New England independent bookstores."

In his nomination of Albert for the award, Chris Abouzeid of Belmont Books, Belmont, Mass., wrote, "Susie is unfailingly supportive of independent bookstores... She is always cheerful, organized, and does everything in her power to make getting through the catalogs easy and productive... In short, Susie is one of the best and most versatile reps in the business, and we hope she'll finally get the recognition she deserves for her hard work."

Author Kate Messner has won NEIBA's President's Award, given by the NEIBA board president for lifetime achievement in arts and letters.

President Beth Wagner of Phoenix Books, Essex, Vt., said, "New York Times bestselling author Kate Messner is passionately curious and writes books that encourage kids to wonder, too. Her titles include award-winning picture books like Over and Under the Pond, Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, Over and Under the Pond, The Brilliant Deep, and How to Read a Story; novels that tackle real-world issues like Breakout, All the Answers, and The Seventh Wish; mysteries and thrillers like Capture the Flag, Eye of the Storm, and Wake Up Missing; the Fergus and Zeke easy reader series; and the popular Ranger in Time chapter book series about a time-traveling search and rescue dog. Kate's most recent appearance at the NEIBA Fall Conference was in 2019 to present her middle grade novel, Chirp, at the children's author & illustrator breakfast."

These three winners will be honored at NEIBA's awards banquet on September 22 in Providence, R.I., where the winners of the 2022 New England Book Awards will be announced.

Scottish bookseller and civic activist Robert Clow, who for 25 years "was the driving force behind the John Smith and Son bookshop chain, giving him a reputation in publishing for innovation and energy," died July 18, the Times reported. He was 88. Clow "became renowned in the 1970s not just for bookselling, but for standing up to the local council fad for knocking down old buildings of rich cultural heritage in Glasgow. In part, his success meant that Glasgow today boasts some neoclassical buildings that would otherwise have been razed."

Clow was born in Northern China to Scottish Baptist medical missionaries, though "from the age of five, he went six years without seeing or hearing from either of his parents," the Times wrote. "Clow spent the first four years of his life in Xi'an while his parents worked at a Baptist Missionary Society hospital. In 1938 he was taken 300 miles to live with an aunt in Taiyuan. In 1939 the outbreak of war meant he would not see his parents for another six years. In 1942 he found himself being stowed in the hold of a cargo ship with no lavatories for four days while being moved to the Japanese-run Weihsien concentration camp.... American troops eventually rescued Robert and other children. He was transported to Hong Kong on a U.S. navy ship, and finally back to Southampton. Wearing a tag that said 'R Clow, Hong Kong,' he saw his father on the dockside waiting."

His parents returned to China and sent Clow to boarding school, where another key moment in his life occurred: Jack Knox, managing director of John Smith and Son of Glasgow, along with his two sisters, became Clow's guardians. Knox "spotted in Robert his curiosity and determination--born of years of sheer survival--and encouraged Clow to follow him into the book trade on leaving school. By the early 1970s he had risen to become John Smith's managing director himself, boldly steering the company on many new ventures," the Times noted.

John Smith's became Scotland's largest bookshop, and Clow pushed through the remodeling of existing shops as well as expansion into new university bookshops. Under his leadership, many distinguished authors, celebrities and politicians came to John Smith's for book signings, including every U.K. prime minister from Edward Heath to Gordon Brown.

One young worker recalled Clow's routine in John Smith's dispatch department--effectively the factory floor--in Glasgow: "Here he was, the top guy in the company, and me and these other wee toe-tags were down there packaging up books and doing manual labor. He would come round at 11 a.m. with a notepad, ask us all what we took in our tea and coffee, and disappear off to make our 'elevenses', reappearing ten minutes later with a tray, cups and biscuits. And he didn't do this for show. It was just him."

Congratulations to Firefly Bookstore in Kutztown, Pa., which will turn 10 years old over Labor Day weekend. 

Owners Rebecca Laincz and Matthew Williams told Reading Eagle they have a weekend-long celebration planned. There will be store-wide sales, refreshments and various activities, including a performance on Saturday afternoon by a Taiko drum group from Philadelphia.

The store opened in 2012 in a 1,200-square-foot space on West Main. In 2017, Firefly Books relocated to a larger spot on the same street. The move was difficult, because the new space needed significant renovations and repairs, but Williams and Laincz put out calls for volunteers and the community responded. There were special events for building bookshelves, painting and clearing the floors, Williams remembered, and volunteers also helped them move inventory from the old space to the new. "We were so grateful for everyone that was willing to put in their time to help get the store ready," he said.

Firefly Books grew into its new 3,000-square-foot space, and when the Covid-19 pandemic began, managed to survive with the help of the community. Asked about future plans for the store, Laincz and Williams said they plan to continue building their online presence, which became crucial during the pandemic, and there is an upstairs area they want to finish renovating so they can use it for events, gallery space and more.

"A few weeks ago we asked if you would be interested in a coworking space in the bookstore on weekdays before we open, and y'all said yes--so we're doing it!" Under the Umbrella Bookstore, Salt Lake City, Utah, posted on Instagram. "Check out the link in bio for more info, but here are the basics:

• We're accepting one two-month cohort of 9-18 individuals, starting September 6 through October 28
• The co-working space is open Tuesday-Friday, 10am-4pm
• Cost is $200 up front or $30/week (with a two-month contract)
• If you and a friend want to share a table, you can sign up together for a discounted rate of $375 up front or $55/week
• You get free wi-fi, free coffee, free snacks, the company of queers, lunchtime speaker series, and 2 queer points per week! 
• Masks will be required in the space to keep our community safe

On the Coworking Space page, the bookshop noted: "Join us for an exclusive coworking space at Under the Umbrella! Hang out at the store before we open with a bunch of other cool queer people and get sh-t done."

At the American Psychological Association:

Devon Renwick has joined the association as books marketing manager, academic and scholarly. She was previously at Johns Hopkins University Press.

Robyn Lee has joined the press as digital and social marketing associate, with a focus on children's books. She was previously at Waterhouse Press.

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Caleb Gill has joined the University of Pittsburgh Press as marketing coordinator.

Mindfulness for Preschool and Kindergarten: The OpenMind Program to Boost Social-Emotional Learning and Classroom Engagement by Monica Moore Jackman (New Harbinger).

Tomorrow:
Drew Barrymore Show repeat: Kal Penn, author of You Can't Be Serious (Gallery, $28, 9781982171384).

The Talk repeat: Vanessa Lachey, co-author of Life from Scratch: Family Traditions That Start with You (HarperOne, $29.99, 9780063031760).

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this weekend from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, August 27
9:15 a.m. Linda Hirshman, author of The Color of Abolition: How a Printer, a Prophet, and a Contessa Moved a Nation (Mariner, $28, 9781328900241). (Re-airs Saturday at 9:15 p.m.)

Sunday, August 28
9 a.m. Tim Miller, author of Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell (Harper, $26.99, 9780063161474). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m.)

2 p.m. John Shattuck, Sushma Raman and Mathias Risse, authors of Holding Together: The Hijacking of Rights in America and How to Reclaim Them for Everyone (‎The New Press, $29.99, 9781620977149). (Re-airs Monday at 2 a.m.)

3:05 p.m. Nick Seabrook, author of One Person, One Vote: A Surprising History of Gerrymandering in America (Pantheon, $30, 9780593315866).

5 p.m. Eric Holder and Sam Koppelman, authors of Our Unfinished March: The Violent Past and Imperiled Future of the Vote--A History, a Crisis, a Plan (One World, $28, 9780593445747).

6:05 p.m. Scott Horton, author of Hotter Than the Sun: Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (The Libertarian Institute, $19.99, 9781733647366).

6:35 p.m. Ibram X. Kendi, Kevin Powell, Ladee Hubbard and Maurice Ruffin discuss race relations and Black literature at the National Black Writers Conference in New York City.

Winners of the £10,000 (about $11,830) James Tait Black Prizes, "celebrating the best works of fiction and biography in the previous 12 months," were announced today at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

A Shock by Keith Ridgway has won the fiction prize. Organizers said the book "follows several different characters living in south London. Over nine overlapping chapters the novel shines a spotlight on their lives and relationships."

Fiction judge Dr. Benjamin Bateman called A Shock "a sensitive, creative, and highly humane examination of lives that, in so much other fiction, would be relegated to the status of minor characters."

Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music by Amit Chaudhuri has won the biography prize. Organizers called the book "a mesmerising exploration of the author’s relationship with North Indian classical music."

Biography judge Dr. Simon Cooke said Finding the Raga is "a work of great depth, subtlety, and resonance, which unobtrusively changed the way we thought about music, place, and creativity. Folding the ethos of the raga into its own form, it is a beautifully voiced, quietly subversive masterpiece in the art of listening to the world."

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, August 30:

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (Mulholland, $32, 9780316413039) is J.K. Rowling's sixth Cormoran Strike mystery.

American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune by Greg Steinmetz (Simon & Schuster, $28.99, 9781982107406) is the biography of a robber baron.

The God of the Way: A Journey into the Stories, People, and Faith That Changed the World Forever by Kathie Lee Gifford and Rabbi Jason Sobel (Thomas Nelson, $28.99, 9780785290438) explores Christianity.

Operation Pineapple Express: The Incredible Story of a Group of Americans Who Undertook One Last Mission and Honored a Promise in Afghanistan by Scott Mann (Simon & Schuster, $28.99, 9781668003534) chronicles a mission to save American allies in Afghanistan from the Taliban.

Carrie Soto Is Back: A Novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine, $28, 9780593158685) follows a retired tennis star who decides to compete again.

Galaxias by Stephen Baxter (Gollancz, $26.99, 9781473228856) is a sci-fi novel in which the sun is suddenly extinguished.

The Thread Collectors: A Novel by Shaunna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman (Graydon House, $28.99, 9781525804823) follows two women during the Civil War.

Amari and the Great Game by B.B. Alston (Balzer + Bray, $17.99, 9780062975195) is the sequel to Amari and the Night Brothers and the second book in the middle-grade Supernatural Investigations series.

The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Little, Brown, $18.99, 9780316370950) is the final title in the YA Inheritance Games trilogy.

Paperbacks:
This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life by Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods (Crown, $18.99, 9780593238882).

The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu (Tor Trade, $19.99, 9781250796844).

Survive the Night: A Novel by Riley Sager (Dutton, $17, 9780593183182).

From last week's Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org, here are the recommended titles, which are also Indie Next Great Reads:

Hardcover: An Indies Introduce Title
A Map for the Missing: A Novel by Belinda Huijuan Tang (Penguin Press, $27, 9780593300664). "A poignant exploration of home, love, and ambition, set against the backdrop of Cultural Revolutionary China. Tang has a keen eye for familial conflict, and portrays regret with deftness. This is a beautiful, bittersweet debut." --Ellen McLaren, Queen Anne Book Company, Seattle, Wash.

Hardcover
The Devil Takes You Home: A Novel by Gabino Iglesias (Mulholland, $28, 9780316426916). "The best authors are guides. If I'm going somewhere as dark and terrifying as this story, I'm glad Gabino Iglesias is taking me there. If you're new to his work, get ready; he's got both hands on the wheel and knows exactly what he's doing." --Chelsea Bromley, Snowbound Books, Marquette, Mich.

Paperback
We Are Not Like Them: A Novel by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza (Atria, $17, 9781982181048). "Lifelong friends, one Black and one white, have their relationship tested after the tragic shooting of an unarmed Black teen. A thought-provoking and timely read." --Mary Kay Burnett, Buttonwood Books and Toys, Cohasset, Mass.

For Ages 4 to 8
Kapaemahu by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson, illus. by Daniel Sousa (Kokila, $17.99, 9780593530061). "This extraordinary book recounts the arrival of four healers to Waikiki centuries ago and the stone monuments that represent them. Colonization attempted to bury the stones, but now readers all over the world can learn of their power and origins." --Andrew King, Secret Garden Bookshop, Seattle, Wash.

For Ages 8 to 12
Grounded for All Eternity by Darcy Marks (Aladdin, $18.99, 9781534483361). "A rollicking adventure of fallen angel kids experiencing a far greater torment than the hell they call home--being stuck on earth. Humorous and heartful, with queer representation." --S. Kitty Garza, Bards Alley, Vienna, Va.

For Teen Readers
Slip by Marika McCoola, illus. by Aatmaja Pandya (Algonquin Young Readers, $24.95, 9781643752495). "Teens will connect with this story about a teenage artist's attempts to navigate her work and friendships after her best friend attempts suicide. Great for a teen book club--there's much to analyze and discuss in this short graphic novel." --Amanda Grell, Pearl's Books, Fayetteville, Ark.

[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]

If the subject matter of his books is any indication, poet Ross Gay has a single-minded focus: making the world a better place. Following on his bestselling 2019 collection, The Book of Delights, Gay returns with Inciting Joy: Essays, a collection of 14 energetic reflections that investigate how to "make joy more available to us" and "how joy makes us act and feel."

In the service of this goal, Inciting Joy surveys an assortment of topics drawn from Gay's own experience that display his gift for intensely observing the world around him. They include his involvement in the creation of a community orchard in his hometown of Bloomington, Ind., and his appreciation for the standup comedy of Richard Pryor.

But the volume isn't a catalog of unalloyed pleasure. In "Through My Tears I Saw (Death: The Second Incitement)," Gay recounts the death of his father, a man with whom he had a difficult relationship, from liver cancer at age 58. He returns briefly to that event in the collection's penultimate and longest piece, "Grief Suite (Falling Apart: The Thirteenth Incitement)," a wide-ranging survey of male emotions and his own struggle with mental health issues.

Gay doesn't limit himself to purely personal concerns. A professor of English at Indiana University, he takes the educational system to task in "Dispatch from the Ruins (School: The Eleventh Incitement)," criticizing it for its emphasis on "outcomes," and above all for what he calls "the unstated outcome of our classes, and of school: At the end of this class you will be a better unit, more able to follow your leader." He offers as an alternative some of the innovative techniques he employs with his students in the service of his goal: "we might instead make something beautiful."

Despite its thematic relationship to its predecessor, in his current book, Gay makes a significant stylistic departure. In contrast to The Book of Delights' bite-sized entries he called "essayettes," written over the course of a single year, he's stretched out here into full-length essays that showcase the breadth of his interests and the vibrancy of his prose. Gay has an affinity for sentences that twist like winding country roads, stitched together with a profusion of commas and semicolons. He's especially fond of lists, like the 20 components of the "skateable world"--from fire hydrants to drainage ditches--he catalogues in "Share Your Bucket! (Skateboarding: The Fifth Incitement)," an exuberant ode one of his youthful passions.

Gay concludes Inciting Joy with an essay on gratitude, describing Aretha Franklin's rendition of "Amazing Grace," in a documentary of the making of her record of the same name. One can almost hear the ecstatic voices of a gospel choir in Gay's admonition that "we belong not to an institution or a party or a state or a market, but to each other. Needfully so." It's a fitting ending to a consistently uplifting book. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: This lively set of 14 essays from a talented poet considers how to bring more joy to our lives.

Yesterday I met a man in a café who was reading Moby Dick. He makes a point every summer of reading one of the classics. Good for him. Me? I was holding a copy of the latest Daniel Silva. Don't get me wrong, I like the classics--I have a little ongoing Proust affair--but when summer comes, I want fun and frivolity. I want to be 11 years old in Mrs. Highfield's yard again, with a glass of sweet tea, a bottle of coconut oil, and a book that takes me far away from my real life.

Daniel Silva is perfect. First, his books come out every July just at the right time to sneak in a few days of vacation. Second, they are clever, fast-paced thrillers with a protagonist, Gabriel Alon, who is both an art restorer and an Israeli spy. Plus, they all happen in cool cafes in Paris or art galleries in London. For booksellers, there are gobs of backstock, and once someone gets hooked, they will want to read them all. Moscow Rules is a good one for anyone interested in Russia this year. The Rembrandt Affair is pitched perfectly for folks who like a good art heist. Any of the now 24 books in the series will make somebody's summer a whole lot more fun.

There are also books that are especially good if you are in the place they happen. Remember Phillip Craig? He wrote a pile of mysteries set on Martha's Vineyard. One might not expect Martha's Vineyard to be rife with unsolved murders, but in Craig's hands the reader never doubts it. The island is one of the main characters. We learn about gathering oysters and clamming. The fishing derby and the locals versus the mainlanders are both old stories well told. Readers can feel the salt in their hair and taste the lobster from Larson's. The setting is beautifully rendered.

Linda Greenlaw writes about a tiny island off the coast of Maine in riveting detail. Her book The Lobster Chronicles introduces readers to the 70 locals who live on this tiny island. There is quiet drama in this small-town life. They fight and love and make up, and one will cheer for even the most curmudgeonly among them. Greenlaw has a talent for fascinating seafaring description. The storms will make a reader's heart race and the recalcitrant lobsters will cause laughter and worry in equal measure. She wrote this and another nonfiction title about sword-fishing called The Hungry Ocean before launching a career as a novelist with three mysteries also set in Maine. Greenlaw is a perfect summer friend.

The American South is a good place to visit in the summer. That hot sun seems to conjure up complicated love affairs and languid conversation, and nobody does it better than Ellen Gilchrist. Gilchrist has won just about every writing award up to and including the National Book Award, so there is literary heft but also all kinds of fun. She likes her women skinny and smart and her men bullish and sexy. Gilchrist has revisited the Hand family dozens of times and Rhoda is her icon. She is a hard charger who pisses everyone off and makes them love her fiercely, often in the same sentence. We meet her when she is about 10 years old in In the Land of Dreamy Dreams. Her male cousins won't let her play the really fun games, so she dreams up painful deaths for them. She shows up in Net of Jewels as a 19-year-old who drinks too much and reads Freud and Dickinson. In Net of Jewels, she struggles to understand why she keeps falling in love with her father. "About my father and the con job he did to get me to quit Vanderbilt," Rhoda recalls. "Well, we owed him a lot that year, although we didn't know it. He had given up his true love for us. So we owed him our lives, didn't we?... A short, large-hipped, slightly tacky lady who had done his books the year he made a million dollars.... Doesn't it always come down to a woman?"

In I, Rhoda Manning, Go Hunting with My Daddy, Gilchrist offers, "Actually, it's revolutionary. If you can work and be in love at the same time." And "Maybe you ought to get a job for the Ladies Home Journal. They like simplistic shit like that." She's wickedly funny. How I love these books. Make sure to put them in the hands of some lucky young women this summer. Rhoda: A Life in Stories is a terrific collection. --Ellen Stimson