Shelf Awareness for Wednesday, January 18, 2023


Canary Street Press: Blood of Hercules (Villains of Lore #1) by Jasmine Mas

Random House Books for Young Readers: Mr. Lemoncello's Fantabulous Finale (Mr. Lemoncello's Library) by Chris Grabenstein

Yale University Press: Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art by Matt Lodder

St. Martin's Press: Undeniable: How to Reach the Top and Stay There by Cameron Hanes

Quotation of the Day

Indie Bookstores 'Connected Me to the Wider World'

"One of my first jobs was in an independent bookstore in Delhi. Aside from letting me discover new books, it gave me a small but solid anchor in the tough city. I learned that you could trust an Indie seller to recommend a book that will be real, surprising, refreshing, different, their choice and suggestion uncorrupted by anything except their own unique mind. Later on, in other Indies, I discovered writers like Paul Bowles and Anna Kavan, Natsumi Soseki. There was one store in Delhi, I can't remember the name now, but it had a small carousel of books from the London publisher Peter Owen. Such precious gold! Especially living in India, pre-Internet, such bookstores were lifelines, they nourished me, connected me to the wider world. And taught me early on that novels don’t have to follow rules, that they can be strange."

--Deepti Kapoor, whose novel Age of Vice (Riverhead Books) is the #1 January Indie Next List pick, in a q&a with Bookselling This Week

Highlights Press:  The Ultimate Science Cookbook for Kids: 75+ Edible Experiments created by Highlights


News

New Owner at Rivendell Bookstore in Abilene, Kan.

Marilyn Thurlow, co-founder and now-former owner of Rivendell Bookstore, Abilene, Kan., transferred ownership of the shop to longtime manager Lisa Smegal, effective January 1. The Reflector Chronicle reported that the transfer "has been in the works since July 2022, but has been the plan for both Thurlow and Smegal for much longer."

"In a way, it's always been the plan for the last seven years that I would take over," Smegal said, adding that customers will not notice many changes in their experience, but over time she plans to implement changes she feels will be positive for the bookstore, like increasing hours, and making space to sell vintage/antique books and the work of local artists and creators. She plans to start an Etsy shop selling crafts made out of books, which will also be available in-store. She also wants to bring back online ordering, increase the number of in-store events, and would like to found a nonprofit branch of the bookstore to help with literacy and promote books in the community. 

"That's kind of my goal is to be able to use the bookstore to do more in the community and for the community," Smegal said. "You don't get into selling books to become rich, you know? I'm not really a money-driven person anyway, so it's not like I want to make a whole bunch of money off of it. I really would like to have the bookstore doing better so I can do more for the community and donate more to other community organizations and make sure that kids have books that want books and things like that....

"I'm kind of looking forward to that point where it does sink in that this is mine and I can do what I want and make things happen. I'm looking forward to being able to try and implement some ideas that I've had for a while. But I also have to be really cautious and make sure that I don't try and do too much at once and then end up overloading myself and messing it all up."

Smegal's experience as a bookseller will be an advantage: "I know what I'm doing when it comes to selling books.... I don't really have that concern of 'am I going to be able to do this?' I know I can do it. It's more a matter of, am I going to be able to do this with the economy going the way it's going? So that's my biggest worry."

She added: "If it wasn't for the support of the community, I would not have been able to make this happen.... I've never really lived anyplace before that I felt like I was part of a community. Here, I definitely feel like I'm part of a community. Being at the bookstore has helped me meet people and make connections and become friends with people. And without the community support, I would not be taking over the store and be able to do what I've been doing."


BINC: Donate now and an anonymous comic retailer will match donations up to a total of $10,000.


Akimbo Bookshop, Rochester, N.Y., Raising Funds After Fire

Akimbo Books before the fire.

Rachel Crawford, owner of Akimbo Bookshop in Rochester, N.Y., has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help rebuild and reopen the store after a devastating fire that started in a neighboring business, Rochester First reported.

The fire, which broke out early in the morning on January 4, damaged the bookstore so severely that "everything in the shop has been deemed unsalvageable," the campaign page notes, including "all of the books, the furniture, appliances and other equipment." Insurance, Crawford added, won't cover "even a small percentage of the damage."

Crawford founded Akimbo Bookshop as an online and pop-up store in 2020, and she opened its bricks-and-mortar location only eight months ago. The roughly 700-square-foot shop focused on small presses, diverse voices and literature in translation, and since opening has hosted about 50 community events including author readings, lectures, artist q&as, mutual aid events, yoga classes and more. With the help of the Rochester community, she hopes to open Akimbo Bookshop "twice in one year."

"We did a lot here," Crawford told Rochester First. "We did food drives. We did back to school drives for kids in our immediate neighborhood. We want to keep that feeling. We want to keep the arts alive. We want to keep the books alive. And, I'm on it, if we can get the funding."

The campaign has already raised more than $22,000 out of a $32,000 goal.


Ingram Adding POD, Book Manufacturing to Chambersburg, Pa., DC

Ingram Content Group is adding book manufacturing and print-on-demand services to its distribution center in Chambersburg, Pa. As a result of the change, Ingram's Allentown, Pa., location will close in October 2023. Allentown's stock will be integrated into the Chambersburg facility. Ingram plans to continue to fulfill all new and existing orders without a break in service or turnaround times.

Ingram CEO Shawn Morin commented: "Our business is growing. We are investing in the technologies that will enable us to keep up with increasing demand and better serve our customers. We are excited to be able to get more books into the world with the expansion of the Chambersburg facility to include both distribution and print-on-demand."

Ingram chief logistics officer Shawn Everson added: "Ingram's Chambersburg facility and all the associates employed there will be better equipped with the most innovative technology available."


Obituary Note: Jean Paré

Jean Paré, the Canadian cookbook author and a wildly successful self-publisher, died on December 24. She was 95.

Paré wrote her first cookbook in 1981, when she was 54, the New York Times reported. She had been working for nearly 20 years as a caterer in Vermilion, Alberta, and was repeatedly asked for the recipes for her food, which she wrote out by hand. Eventually she decided to publish them in a book.

Her son Grant Lovig recalled that book publishers weren't interested in the cookbook, saying it was exclusively desserts at a time when "people don't eat sugar anymore." So, without any publishing experience, he and his mother created Company's Coming Publishing. "It was a really big risk," he said. "But ignorance is bliss and we were enthusiastic, and we believed in it." Paré turned out to be an excellent marketer and saleswoman, the Times noted. "She loaded boxes of books in the trunk of her Oldsmobile and traveled to rural towns, calling small stores, pharmacies, gift shops and even a lumber store to ask if they would sell her book." That first book, 150 Delicious Squares, "a collection of some of her most popular dessert recipes," sold some 1.5 million copies.

Paré developed a test kitchen, and the company grew "to more than 100 full-time employees, including recipe developers and testers, a nutritionist and a food economist." Nonetheless, the Times added, her books "retained the homey quality of recipes for everyday cooking from a regular Canadian mom. The recipes were easy to follow and used common, affordable ingredients. Ms. Paré insisted that her books have a flat binding so readers could easily lay them on their counters, and she wanted realistic pictures of the recipes."

Altogether she published some 200 books under the Company's Coming name and by the time she retired, they had sold more than 30 million copies. A dozen years ago, she and her son sold the business to Canada Book Distributors, which has Paré's most popular titles in print and has added new books to the series. Lone Pine Publishing has been distributing Paré's titles in the U.S. since 2011.


G.L.O.W. - Galley Love of the Week
Be the first to have an advance copy!
State Champ
by Hilary Plum
GLOW: Bloomsbury: State Champ by Hilary Plum

In the revelatory State Champ, Angela, a receptionist at a reproductive health clinic, protests via hunger strike her boss's imprisonment for performing abortions that defied the state's heartbeat law. The story, told in diary entries, is perfect for fans of Henry Hoke's Open Throat and Rita Bullwinkel's Headshot: "It's an incredibly muscular narrative that challenges the novel form to do more with less," says Callie Garnett, editorial director of adult trade at Bloomsbury US. "Angela's an athlete, and she makes her body its own form of speech." That speech, poetic and galvanizing and impassioned, only grows stronger with Angela's deteriorating health and fraying ability to function. Hilary Plum, through this funny and furious narrator, throws bold punches in defense of reproductive rights and celebrates the commitment of those who uphold them. --Samantha Zaboski

(Bloomsbury, $26.99 hardcover, 9781639735433, May 13, 2025)

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Notes

Peter Matyskiela Named Manager of Pa.'s Doylestown Bookshop

Peter Matyskiela

Peter Matyskiela has been promoted to store manager of the Doylestown Bookshop, Doylestown, Pa. He has been with the store for almost as a decade, starting as a bookseller, and was most recently supervisor.

Matyskiela commented: "The Doylestown Bookshop has always been a home away from home for me. I loved reading from a very young age and am constantly surrounded by books. I have very eclectic tastes, from literature to graphic novels to philosophy; I'll read almost anything, but in general, the weirder, the better. The thing I love about books the most is the way they can open your mind to new ideas and ways of thinking. Every book you read changes and expands your reality, and to be able to work in a place where I can help people find ways to expand their world is a dream come true."


Happy 10th Birthday, Copperfish Books!

Cathy Graham and Serena Wyckoff

Congratulations to Copperfish Books, Punta Gorda, Fla., which celebrated its 10th anniversary with a party for loyal fans and supporters last Saturday. The store had actually turned 10 on October 1, 2022, but the original festivities had to be canceled due to Hurricane Ian.

"Not that we wanted to be hit with a hurricane, but the delay actually made it so our seasonal customers could be here to join us," said co-owner Cathy Graham. "A small silver lining!"

The evening open house featured music by jazz keyboardist and board member of the Charlotte County Jazz Society Shawn Marren; wine poured by Punta Gorda Chocolate & Wine; and goody bags for guests. Around the store, boards displayed news clippings and photos of events from the past 10 years, and a video presentation of more photos played for all to enjoy the memories.

"We feel so honored to be a valued part of this community, and for a decade now!" wrote co-owner Serena Wyckoff on the store website. "Many thanks to all of you who have shopped and supported our store over the years, to the wonderful authors who have visited us for events, and to our dedicated and talented booksellers. What an amazing 10 years it's been!"


Personnel Changes at Hachette Book Group

Radhika "Radhi" Parikh has joined Hachette Book Group's corporate communications department as communications associate. Parikh was formerly publishing coordinator at Disney Publishing, producer's assistant for HBO's The Plot Against America, a seasonal reviewer at Cinereach, and ad sales associate at NBC Universal.



Media and Movies

Media Heat: Kristin Chenoweth on the View

Tomorrow:
The View: Kristin Chenoweth, author of I'm No Philosopher, But I Got Thoughts: Mini-Meditations for Saints, Sinners, and the Rest of Us (Harper Celebrate, $22.99, 9781400228492).

Kelly Clarkson Show: Katie Chin, author of Katie Chin's Global Family Cookbook: Internationally-Inspired Recipes Your Friends and Family Will Love! (Tuttle Publishing, $24.99, 9780804852258).


On Stage: Life of Pi

London's West End production of Life of Pi, Lolita Chakrabarti's stage adaptation of Yann Martel's novel, has ended its run at the Wyndham's Theatre. Playbill reported that upon closing this past Sunday, the play had almost 500 performances. It was awarded five Olivier Awards, including best new play, in April 2022. A 2012 film adaptation of the novel won Oscars for direction, cinematography, score, and visual effects.

Chakrabarti's Life of Pi is currently making its North American premiere at the American Repertory Theater, Cambridge, Mass., through January 29, prior to a Broadway debut March 9 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.


Books & Authors

Awards: MWA Grand Master, Raven, Ellery Queen Winners

Mystery Writers of America has announced the winners of its special awards: Michael Connelly and Joanne Fluke are the 2023 Grand Masters, while the 2023 Raven Award recipients are Crime Writers of Color and Eddie Muller, and The Strand magazine will receive the Ellery Queen Award. The presentations will be made at the 77th annual Edgar Awards ceremony, to be held April 27 in New York City.

MWA executive v-p Greg Herren said, "Michael Connelly and Joanne Fluke have contributed so much to the genre through their hard work and amazing careers, and they will continue to influence and inspire future generations of writers long after they receive their awards."

Grand Master Michael Connelly is the author of 31 novels, including the Harry Bosch series and Lincoln Lawyer series. He is a former newspaper reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels and is the executive producer of both the Bosch TV series and The Lincoln Lawyer.

Grand Master Joanne Fluke launched her Hannah Swenson Mysteries series 21 years ago with Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder. Since then, she has written 30 more, the most recent of which is Caramel Pecan Roll Murder. The series has been made into five Murder, She Baked films for the Hallmark Channel. Fluke has also written suspense, thriller and romance novels under her own name and pseudonyms.

Raven winner Crime Writers of Color is an association of authors seeking to present a strong and united voice for members who identify as crime/mystery writers from traditionally underrepresented racial, cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The group was founded five years ago by Gigi Pandian, Kellye Garrett and Walter Mosley.

Raven winner Eddie Muller is host of the Turner Classic Movies series Noir Alley and founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation.

The Ellery Queen Award winner Strand magazine is a bimonthly periodical known for its articles about the mystery world and its practitioners, interviews with top authors like James Patterson and Lee Child, and unearthing lost short stories penned by now-dead literary greats.


Reading with... Marie Benedict

photo: A. Musmanno

Marie Benedict is the author of Her Hidden Genius, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, Lady Clementine, The Only Woman in the Room, Carnegie's Maid, The Other Einstein and, with Victoria Christopher Murray, The Personal Librarian. She spent more than a decade as commercial litigator in New York City before finding her calling--writing about important, complex and fascinating women from history. The Mitford Affair (Sourcebooks Landmark, January 17) explores the lives of three sisters who lived during the rise of Nazism, in a work of historical fiction.

Handsell readers your book in approximately 25 words or less:

The infamous Mitford sisters face scandal when Diana marries a Fascist and Unity become Hitler's rumored mistress. Novelist Nancy grows suspicious and must choose: her country or her family?

On your nightstand now:

The teetering stack on my nightstand contains all sorts of novels in varying states of completion (yes, I know it's a bad habit to read multiple books at the same time), including: Kate Atkinson's Shrines of Gaiety (started but not finished!); Louise Penny's A World of Curiosities (just did an event with her!); Hernan Diaz's Trust; Anthony Horowitz's The Twist of a Knife; Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait; Sequoia Nagamatsu's How High We Go in the Dark; Lisa Scottoline's Loyalty; and Angeline Boulley's Firekeeper's Daughter (reading with my son).

Favorite book when you were a child:

Could anything ever surpass the childhood delight of falling into the wardrobe alongside the Pevensie siblings while reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis?

Your top five authors:

What a difficult question--I adore so many! If I had to narrow it down, I'd settle on the following geniuses, most of whose stories deal with the reverberations of time in some fashion: Margaret Atwood, Kate Atkinson, Jane Austen, Yaa Gyasi and David Mitchell.

Book you've faked reading:

Dare I confess to never reading Moby-Dick by Herman Melville nor finishing Ulysses by James Joyce?

Book you're an evangelist for:

Probably The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley--for the reasons described below.

Book you've bought for the cover:

I distinctly remember picking up A.S. Byatt's Possession for the cover. In addition to being a ravenous reader of history, I've always been fascinated by certain periods of art, including the atmospheric, color-saturated paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites. So when I saw The Beguiling of Merlin by Sir Edward Burne-Jones on the cover of Possession, I was sold.

Book you hid from your parents:

During a teenage obsession with Stephen King novels, I had to hide the fact that I was reading them at bedtime. Too many nightmares.

Book that changed your life:

Hands down, I'd select The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It utterly altered the course of my life, although I did not realize how profoundly for many years. This groundbreaking (for its time) retelling of the Arthurian legend from the perspective of the women transformed the way I examined the past, opened my eyes to the way "history" is really formed and started my journey to shine the light on important, unknown historical women.

Favorite line from a book:

In Yaa Gyasi's phenomenal novel Homegoing, she writes: "We believe the one who has power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there you get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture." This quote is a guiding light for me as I write my own novels.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

I have so many favorites that I'd love to experience for the first time, but I'd settle on Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. To immerse myself in the unusual structure of the novel--looping back through time to experience different possible lives for its main character, Ursula Todd--without knowing how the story will unfold would be delicious.


Book Review

Review: My Baba's Garden

My Baba's Garden by Jordan Scott, illus. by Sydney Smith (Neal Porter Books, $18.99 hardcover, 32p., ages 4-8, 9780823450831, March 7, 2023)

In I Talk Like a River, writer Jordan Scott and illustrator Sydney Smith collaborated on a picture book about a boy who stutters. Their subdued but heart-tugging follow-up, My Baba's Garden, presents another scenario in which a straight-ahead verbal exchange just isn't possible. In this case, the workaround is both sufficient for communication and meaningful to the kid telling the story.

Every morning, the narrator's father drives him to see his grandmother, Baba, who "lives in a chicken coop beside a highway"; the boy always finds her in the kitchen. Baba serves him the same breakfast each morning: "oatmeal with lots of butter; pickles, cabbage, and beets from her garden." If he spills any oatmeal, she picks up the glob, kisses it and returns it to his bowl. The narrator notes that his mother has told him that for an extended period in Baba's life, she didn't have enough food.

After breakfast, Baba walks her grandson to school. When it's raining, she "hums and sings songs I don't understand" and walks slowly because she's looking for worms, which she puts in a dirt-filled jar she keeps in her pocket. After school, Baba is always there to walk her grandson back to her house, stopping first to put the worms in her garden. "When I ask my Baba why she does this," the narrator reports, "she wets her finger with rain and traces all the lines in the palm of my hand." After a big change comes, the narrator improvises a new version of their old rituals, albeit with roles reversed.

In an author's note, Scott explains that Baba is based on his Polish-born grandmother, who immigrated to Canada after World War II and never learned much English; as a boy, he communicated with her "through gesture, touch, and laughter." Smith is an illustrator well suited to capturing a nonverbal bond. As in I Talk Like a River, his dense watercolor and gouache art has a shimmery, textured richness. Light features prominently in both outdoor and indoor scenes, as when the sun outlines grandmother and grandson in Baba's garden and shoots through her kitchen window while she's preparing his food. My Baba's Garden hints at themes like immigration, poverty, loss and the end of life, but the narrative works beautifully at its most basic level: it's a love letter from a grandchild to a grandparent. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author

Shelf Talker: In this subdued but heart-tugging picture book, a boy and his grandmother, who regularly walks him to school and doesn't speak much English, share a nonverbal bond.


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