Copperfish Books in Punta Gorda, Fla., which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, has been put up for sale by co-owners Cathy Graham and Serena Wyckoff, who said that although they love the store, their team and their customers, the time has come for them to move on to new adventures.

"It's been a great ride and we couldn't be prouder of what we have created," said Graham. "Our community embraced Copperfish Books from the beginning and has grown with us as we have grown. Even now, in this age of mega online stores, we are well-positioned to ensure that books and reading will remain at the forefront of our business."

Wyckoff added: "We're looking for someone who is passionate about books and all that they represent, who genuinely loves people and wants to be of service, and who has a good sense of what it takes to operate a retail business."

The co-owners said they believe the key ingredients that will contribute to success for a new owner are all in place: a loyal and vibrant customer base; an excellent reputation in the community and in the publishing world; a dedicated, experienced staff; the technology tools to remain current and effective; and a beautiful environment that appeals to many types of customers. In addition, they are willing to share with the new owner(s) the necessary knowledge and resources to ensure a smooth transition. Until the sale, the bookstore remains open for business as usual.

For more information, contact Mark Kaufman at the Bookstore Training Group of Paz & Associates at 904-277-2664 or by e-mail at MKaufman@PazBookBiz.com.

The Book Burrow, a new and used bookstore that debuted as an online store and pop-up shop, will soon take permanent residence inside the Three Legged Goat, a wine bar in Pflugerville, Tex., Community Impact reported.

Starting March 1, Book Burrow owner Kelsey Black will have a selection of books permanently on display inside the wine bar. Black noted that she started selling books at Three Legged Goat on a pop-up basis on Friday nights. Those appearances went so well that eventually she reached out to the bar's owner about making her bookstore a permanent fixture.

Black told Community Impact: "We'll get the wall space, and he'll get the table space. It's mutually beneficial."

Black launched the Book Burrow as an online store in spring 2021 and later began doing pop-up appearances at a local flea market. A grand opening celebration for the Book Burrow residence is planned for March 25.

Novel Biblio-Brew, a bookstore, eatery and coffee bar, will open soon in Schenectady, N.Y., News10 reported.

Novel is a successor to Puzzles Bakery & Cafe, which operated in the same storefront from 2015 until March 2020, when owner Sara Mae Pratt decided to close because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Roughly three years later, Pratt is reopening the business as a bookstore and cafe. In addition to a variety of food and drinks, there will be a curated selection of books along with gifts, puzzles and games.

“Changing up the Puzzles Bakery & Café name and concept has been a deeply emotional, challenging, and heartfelt process,” Pratt told News10. “We’re still incorporating many elements from Puzzles that I believe our former customers will recognize and appreciate--and making some exciting improvements along the way."

Pratt is currently hiring staff and looks to open at 515 State St. in the next few weeks.

On January 23, representatives of several European & International Booksellers Federation member organizations gathered online for this year's first quarterly EIBF international call, which allows members to share insights, struggles and progress from their respective countries.
 
Discussing the latest sales figures in France, Anne Martelle (Syndicat de la librairie française president) said that in 2022, overall sales declined 7.1%, but were still up 7% over 2019. She noted that paperbacks have especially become popular, with a 14% increase in sales in December 2022 compared to December 2021. The book market in France has also been dealing with issues surrounding the increase of book prices and the minimum book delivery fee law, supported by EIBF.

In Ireland, "more money was spent on books in 2022 than ever before," said Sheila O'Reilly (Bookselling Ireland & the Booksellers Association of the U.K. & Ireland), highlighting the eight-year continuous growth of the Irish book market. Despite these numbers, Irish booksellers have experienced difficulties, as well, due to ongoing supply-chain issues from the U.K. and rising energy and staff costs. In addition, 47% of Irish booksellers reported that 2022 Christmas footfall was down from 2021. 

BA managing director Meryl Halls reported that indie bookshops in the U.K. had a successful Christmas, with more than half of them reporting a sales increase over 2021. The BA also grew in membership, to 1,072 members--the highest number in 10 years.

Sharing news about the Dutch book market, Anne Schroen (Koninklijke Boekverkopersbond managing director) said that in 2022, there was a 2.7% increase in turnover, with online sales decreasing after their markable growth during the Covid-19 pandemic. Fabian Paagman, EIBF co-president and owner of Paagman bookshops, noted the growing popularity of English-language books, which is a challenge for Dutch publishers. 

English-language books are also gaining popularity in Finland, as reported by Laura Karlsson (Kirjakauppaliitto managing director), who spoke about the Finnish book market, spotlighting the continuous growth of sales of audiobooks and e-books.

In Germany, 2022 sales at bricks-and-mortar bookshops grew 4.8% over 2021, with customers paying more money per copy, but the overall number of copies sold was lower than in the previous years, said Jessica Sänger (Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels). According to the latest data, the consumer confidence index in the country currently is very low. 

Ľudmila Jozefáková spoke briefly about Panta Rhei, Slovakia's largest bookshop chain, where the 2022 Christmas sales have not reached 2019 pre-pandemic levels. In Romania, La Două Bufniţe co-owner Raluca Selejan shared insights about her bookshop, which received support from the government and managed to celebrate a successful end of 2022. Bulgarian booksellers also have a reason to celebrate, with 9% VAT rate for books becoming a permanent measure in the country, according to Desislava Alexieva (Bulgarian Book Association president).

Beyond Europe, Dan Slevin, CEO of Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand, spoke about latest developments in his country's book market, spotlighting current challenges that Kiwi booksellers are facing, such as issues with storage and finding experienced bookseller staff.

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Book sales in China made via short-form video increased 43% in 2022, outstripping sales through physical bookshops, according to trade publication BookDao. The Bookseller reported that the country's book monitoring data company OpenBook put print book sales by marked value at 87.1 billion yuan (about $12.8 billion) in 2022, representing an 11.8% drop from 2021 following steep annual rises in the years before the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to OpenBook's classifications, e-commerce platforms were responsible for 45.1% of those sales; vertical and other e-commerce for 23.2%; short-form video for 16.4%; and physical bookshops for 15.3%, with sales down just over 37% in 2022 and more than 56% since the pre-pandemic year of 2019, BookDao reported. Book sale transactions conducted via short-form video platforms, which include Douyin (TikTok) and Kouaishou, rose 42.9% in 2022.

The top-selling adult nonfiction title in 2022 was Counselling for Toads: A Psychological Adventure by Robert de Board, followed by a book on the I Ching. Adult fiction was led by Chinese novel Distant Saviour by Dou Dou and The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin; and the bestselling children's book was Favorite Comic Science for Elementary School Students by Mingyang Zhuoan.

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Bookish video: British bookseller Red Lion Books, Colchester, posted on Instagram: "We have a new section at Red Lion Books where we ask you to 'make us an offer.' I won't disclose the final deal, but part of this couple's offer was to do a dance. They were dressed beautifully and when we asked them where they [were] off to they said they were 'dressed for the mundane' they had woken up and decided to do the usually mundane things--but dressed beautifully. They are so joyful and lovely and welcome to our shop anytime. Here for the chat." --Robert Gray

The 2nd & Charles store in Laredo, Tex., which opened in 2017, closed on Saturday, the Morning Times reported. The company had announced in December that it would be shuttering the store by the end of the year. The city is now down to only one major bookstore in operation--the Books-A-Million at the Mall del Norte. 

Jesi Gutierrez and Celi Hernandez, co-founders of Libélula Books & Co., San Diego, Calif., shared their bookish courtship story in a Valentine's Day-themed column for the Union-Tribune: "If you would've told us 10 years ago that six days a week, every evening at 5:59 p.m., we would be turning off small funky lamps sprinkled throughout colorful bookshelves, stacking a book cart and scooping up the world's cutest cat to take home after a full day at the bookshop we co-own in Barrio Logan, we would have both bet money to prove the impossibility.... Ten years later, and we are still making bets on one another and trying to decide how we can fit more bookish fun and art into Libélula's small 700-square-foot space."

The Golden Notebook, Woodstock, N.Y., shared a photo of the bookshop's Valentine's Day sidewalk chalkboard message: "In my book, you are the happy ending!!"

Watermark Books & Café, Wichita, Kan., tweeted Sunday night: "Goodnight, Wichita!"

Sarah Rucker has joined HarperCollins as sales director for Usborne Books, which HarperCollins is now distributing to trade and specialty retailers, schools, and libraries in the U.S. Rucker has more than 20 years of sales experience, most recently at Gibbs Smith, where she oversaw domestic and international sales. Before that, she was director of sales and marketing at Little Bee Books and worked at Penguin Random House and Hyperion Books.

The Girl That Can't Get a Girlfriend by Mieri Hiranishi (VIZ Media).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Melissa Urban, author of The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You Free (Dial Press, $28, 9780593448700).

Universal Television is developing a TV adaptation of the novel Stone Cold Fox by Rachel Koller Croft, who will also write the series, Deadline reported. Julie Plec and Emily Cummins are executive producing through Plec's production banner, My So-Called Company. Stone Cold Fox was published Tuesday by Berkley. 
 
"As a long-time fan of their work, I am beyond thrilled to be partnering with Julie and Emily at My So-Called Company alongside Universal Television," said Croft. "The women of Stone Cold Fox are ambitious, complex and above all, entertaining, so I know this is a perfect match."

Plec added: "Rachel's unique ability to tell this story of calculated deceit in such a breezy and captivating way made us jump at the opportunity to shepherd this story about women, men, sex, money and the lengths people will go to have it all."

Jordan Moblo, executive v-p, creative acquisitions and IP, Universal Studio Group, commented: "It was clear very quickly that Stone Cold Fox was a special book. We're beyond excited to be partnering with Rachel, Julie and Emily, and can't wait for readers to fall in love (and hate) with these characters as we begin developing it for the screen."

The winners of the 2023 Southern Book Prize, honoring "the best Southern book of the year" as nominated by Southern indie booksellers and voted on by their customers, have been announced by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance:

Fiction
Lark Ascending by Silas House (Algonquin Books)
"The urgency of the opening chapters is breathtaking, and then the source of it is laid bare: this is the imagined not-so-distant future resulting from the chaos and painful transformational change similar to what we're going through right now in our world. A haunting story, one that makes you really think about the trajectory of our collective lives." --Cathy Graham, Copperfish Books, Punta Gorda, Fla.

Nonfiction
Bomb Shelter by Mary Laura Philpott (Atria)
"It's more tempting than ever to want to build a bomb shelter and retreat from the upheavals of life. But with this memoir, Mary Laura Philpott convinces us that, like Frank the turtle, we have to poke our heads out from time to time, confront the challenges, and keep going." --Lady Smith, Snail on the Wall, Huntsville, Ala.

Children's
Nigel and the Moon by Antwan Eady, illustrated by Gracey King (Katherine Tegen Books)
"Nigel and the Moon will make your heart swell in the best way! Sure to be a beloved book, Nigel's story resonates deeply with those who are scared to share their dreams." --Lauren Kean, Bookmarks, Winston-Salem, N.C.

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A shortlist has been released for the £4,000 (about $4,870) Wingate Literary Prize, which honors "the best book, fiction or nonfiction, to translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader." The winner will be named March 12. This year's shortlisted titles are:

The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land by Omer Friedlander
Come to this Court and Cry by Linda Kinstler  
The Island of Extraordinary Captives by Simon Parkin     
The Memory Monster by Yishai Sarid, translated by Yardenne Greenspan
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft
In the Midst of Civilized Europe by Jeffrey Veidlinger
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

photo: Ars Magna

Patricia Park is the author of Re Jane, a Korean American reimagining of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. A former Fulbright scholar, Edith Wharton Writer-in-Residence and Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Park has written for the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Guardian and others. She is a professor of fiction at American University and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her second novel, Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim, will be published by Crown Books for Young Readers on February 21, 2023.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim is a funny YA novel about a girl navigating identity politics and "performative wokeness" while vying for her dream college.

On your nightstand now:

My semester just ended, so I have a small window where I can read for pleasure! Here's my stack:

Roses, in the Mouth of the Lion by Bushra Rehman. It's a queer coming-of-age about a Pakistani American girl from Corona, Queens. Bushra comes from the spoken-word tradition, so her prose is gorgeously poetic.

Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades. An English professor at CUNY Queens College recommended this to me, so I can't wait to start reading. As a native Queensite, I'm all about the Queens stories!

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez. But sometimes I cheat on my native borough with books about Brooklyn. Olga articulated my ambivalent feelings about gentrification and code-switching from NYC outer-borough-shorthand to polished academic-speak.

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li. I just went down the Yiyun Li rabbit hole; I interviewed her for her PEN Malamud Award ceremony at American University. She is a master storyteller, and Goose gave me all kinds of Elena Ferrante vibes.

Vinyl Moon by Mahogany L. Browne. I love YA novels-in-verse, and Mahogany is a master of the form.

Favorite book when you were a child:

The Dollhouse Murders by Betty Ren Wright. Once upon a time, a girl finds a charming old dollhouse in the attic. All's well until... the dolls come to life and start acting out their murders! This novel was creepy AF and still haunts my dreams.

Your top five authors:

I like writers who use humor to undercut weighty issues--which is what I try to do in my work. These are some writers who influenced me: Kurt Vonnegut (he speaks hard to my inner Bronx Science nerd), Gish Jen, Sherman Alexie and Jane Austen. As a Jane Eyre head, I should also include Charlotte Brontë, but most of her other novels are so heavily in French that it's all Greek to me.

Book you've faked reading:

The Bible. (Sorry!)

This question reminds me of this cruel parlor game called Humiliations where a bunch of English professors go around and confess books from the canon they've never actually read. It's from David Lodge's novel Changing Places. It's all fun and games until one guy admits Hamlet(!), and all the other profs give him the stink-eye and deny him tenure.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Frankly in Love by David Yoon. Where was this book when I was a teen? Frankly took away some of the pain I didn't even know I was still carrying around in my heart. I felt so seen, even now as an adult.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. C'mon, pink grosgrain belts!

Book you hid from your parents:

Charles Bukowski's Women. That book, which was filled with all kinds of lecherous sexual affairs, cast me into despair as a teen. It kept making me think, "Do only dirty old womanizing men get to become 'real' writers?"

Book that changed your life:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Jane is the ultimate underdog, yet she finds a way to not only survive--but to thrive. She's such a badass. Eyreheads unite!

Favorite line from a book:

"Do you think, because I'm poor, obscure, plain, and little, that I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!"

(See above.)

Five books you'll never part with:

I also read a lot of craft books, both for my own practice and for teaching my students. These books are indispensable to me:

What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter.

Master Class in Fiction Writing: Techniques from Austen, Hemingway, and Other Greats: Lessons from the All-Star Writer's Workshop by Adam Sexton.

Naming the World and Other Exercises for the Creative Writer, edited by Bret Anthony Johnston.

Dreyer's English by Benjamin Dreyer. Any work that manages to be both funny and deliver vital grammar info gets an A+ in my book.

And Fervor de Buenos Aires by Jorge Luis Borges. These poems transport me right to Argentina, where I did research for the Papi character in Imposter Syndrome.

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

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. I read it when I was a dreamy teen poet, and Rilke's advice knocked some sense into me and brought me to reality. I think about this work a lot now as a professor of creative writing--how do we encourage young aspiring writers, while showing them the discipline they need to hone their craft? It's a balancing act, for sure.

Joy McCullough (Blood Water Paint) pays homage to William Shakespeare, whom she admires for how he "took established stories and made them his own." McCullough, in turn, commendably retells the Bard's tragedies in fiercely feminist examinations of Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet and Titus Andronicus, built into an overarching plot that gives the plays' female characters a chance to tell their own stories.

Enter the Body is divided into three parts. Part One begins in the trap room, a large open space beneath a theater's stage that acts as a "purgatory" for those who "die" onstage. Nineteen-year-old Lavinia, 17-year-old Cordelia, 15-year-old Ophelia and 13-year-old Juliet reside here, among others. Juliet tells the story of her forbidden love, a "spark ignited when palm met palm/ and turned to raging inferno that threatened/ to incinerate the world." Ophelia jumps in to relieve Juliet from her tragic tale and describes how she'd "been used/ and humiliated/ by these men." Next is Cordelia, "who made a sacrifice born out of love" only to be disowned by her father. One character whose story is not told but who is equally important--if not more so--is Titus Andronicus's Lavinia. Lavinia, with her tongue cut out and her hands cut off so she couldn't reveal the vile acts that had been done to her, represents the women who can't tell their stories, whether out of fear or death. She's instead a "silent observer," a witness to the other women's pain and vulnerability as they recount being subjected to male power and authority. Most of Lavinia's thoughts are shared in the sections of prose that are woven throughout the novel-in-verse. These sections are also welcome periods of pause, reflection and commentary, conveying what the other women in the room are thinking and feeling.

Part Two is written as dialogue in a play, with the women analyzing their stories and discussing Shakespeare's misogynistic choices, including making women mad or evil for convenience's sake and using their dead bodies as props. Juliet is fed up with the way things have always been done and challenges the women to tell their story as they would have liked it to play out. As a result, in Part Three, each woman shares her ideal version while the others provide astute and droll commentary. A poetic and entrancing tribute to the women of Shakespeare. --Lana Barnes, freelance reviewer and proofreader

Shelf Talker: This entrancing, fiercely feminist examination of William Shakespeare's tragedies gives his female characters the opportunity to tell their own stories.