"What was once an occasional distraction and disruption has increasingly become a daily occurrence," said Ray Daniels, ABA's chief communications officer, at the outset of the Winter Institute session "Book Banning: Stores, Authors and Communities: What Can We Do?" He went on describe how book bans affect bookstores, authors and communities, with challenges in stores turning into the quiet censorship of books turned spine-out, harassment of staff, social troubles and more. He then asked the panelists how they've addressed this issue in their own communities.

Heather Hall comes from Green Feather Book Company in Norman, Okla., a town where a teacher lost her job as a direct result of sharing the Brooklyn Public Library's Books Unbanned QR code. "Immediately parents came together in outrage" in response to the firing, said Hall, who began making buttons in her store with the QR code on them. Her middle schoolers then went to class wearing them and encouraged their peers to scan the code.

(l.-r.) Heather Hall, Ray Daniels, Laura DeLaney, Maia Kobabe, Kendrick Washington

Maia Kobabe is the author of Gender Queer, the number-one banned book in the United States in 2021, "and I will be very unsurprised if it is number one of 2022 as well," Kobabe said. "But if it wasn't my book, it would be another." Kobabe identified the topics that are being targeted as gender, sexuality, history of race in America, sex ed, abortion, immigration and students rights. "What I've come to learn is that a book being challenged doesn't really hurt the book or the author, but it hurts the communities where those challenges are being placed."

From the state of Idaho, Laura DeLaney of Rediscovered Books in Caldwell is no stranger to book bans. "But it really kicked into high gear in summer of 2022," she said, when the neighboring Nampa school district banned 24 books, "without following any procedures whatsoever." Her store immediately made a statement against this and raised money across the country to give away more than 1,500 books to students, parents, and community members.

"Books saved my life, as a young Black kid who was born into poverty," said Kendrick Washington, policy advocacy director of the Seattle ACLU. He reminded the audience that book bans are nothing new, giving examples like Ulysses and Howl, then identifying the twin historical causes as the patriarchy and white supremacy: lack of books has been used to hold people down and deny progress, from the roots of slavery to now wanting to deny LGBTQ youth an opportunity to find community where they may not be able to find it in their own neighborhoods.

DeLaney observed that books contribute to a full and dynamic society, instead of making subjects like queerness an "X-rated issue." The cost of book bans, Kobabe added, restricts access for those who need the books most, further marginalizing those already marginalized. "We shouldn't have to have a lawsuit in every single school district just to have books in schools and libraries," Kobabe said.

Hall suggested that areas like hers are testing grounds for further legislative reach, and DeLaney elaborated on ways that Idaho House Bill 139, which threatens librarians and teachers with $10,000 lawsuits if "damaging" materials are accessed by minors, could have a chilling effect on collections and access more broadly. Washington said the point of legislation like this is to weaponize ignorance against those perceived as other. "The beauty of the book ban," Daniels added, "is to erase the history we're supposed to learn from."

Turning to solutions, DeLaney gave the example of Rediscovered's Read Freely Project, which endeavors to promote through giveaways those minority voices that have been banned. Hall returned to the guerilla QR-button effort she spearheaded and championed the power of small acts of support that individuals can make to show their communities support. Kobabe has noticed that Banned Book store displays are no longer seasonal in many places, keeping attention on this issue year-round. Pay-it-forward programs, as well, can help cover the costs for young readers who may not have resources to buy books otherwise. DeLaney also suggested that bookstores can join a local library association, affordable memberships that can help block legislation before a ban can take place.

Washington encouraged booksellers who feel endangered to reach out to the ACLU, and added that while school districts have great authority to remove books, they are not allowed to discriminate. The ACLU can help a community understand their options, but said, "When that community pulls itself together and makes a stink, that's where the real work is done."

But with many book bans and challenges being done quietly, secretly even, Kobabe noted that a firm library collections policy being set in place preemptively can put the onus on the challenger to prove a book's potential for harm.

In closing, Hall said, "It's dangerous to be political when you own a business," but everyone in attendance seemed to be in agreement that the people who want to ban books aren't dedicated readers themselves, so they are not any store's regular customer. DeLaney approaches those who come in looking for a fight kindly but firmly, and Hall has found that bans have served to alert other people in the community who are ready to take up the cause. --Dave Wheeler

In one of the more unlikely book-related pairings, Chip Gaines, the star, with his wife, Joanna Gaines, of the cable home improvement show Fixer Upper, the Magnolia Network and head of a lifestyle/entertainment empire centered in Waco, Texas, has bought Booked Up, the bookstore founded by the late Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment and other modern classics.

Last November, Gaines quietly purchased the two buildings and stock of Booked Up, Archer City, Tex., from Khristal Collins, Booked Up's longtime manager who inherited the store after McMurtry's death in 2021. Collins has kept the name Booked Up, using it for an online store she founded last week.

The Booked Up sale was noted in a local paper and gotten widespread coverage following a CNN story last week. CNN noted that although Gaines was raised in Albuquerque, N.Mex., he has a strong connection to Archer City: his parents grew up there and he often spent summers with his grandfather in Archer City. A spokesperson for Gaines told CNN: "Chip's connection to Archer City traces back to his parents and grandparents, who grew up there. He loves this community and has been a big fan of Larry McMurtry for years. Chip is honored and excited to preserve this incredible book collection with the respect it deserves." The spokesperson offered no details about Gaines's plans for the bookstore and its stock.

McMurtry founded Booked Up in 1987 in his hometown as a passion project, and it quickly became a beloved destination for McMurtry fans and book lovers of all kinds.

Gaines has a goofy, excitable persona on Fixer Upper, a marketing and entrepreneurial background and published several books: No Pains, No Gaines: The Good Stuff Doesn't Come Easy; Capital Gaines: Smart Things I Learned Doing Stupid Stuff; and, with his wife, The Magnolia Story (all published by Thomas Nelson).

Archer City residents hope Booked Up opens again, and that Gaines might work some of the same kind of magic on hardscrabble Archer City that he and his wife have done with Waco, where their Magnolia Market at the Silos draws more than a million visitors a year. But for now, Gaines's intentions are unknown.

As Texas Monthly commented: "Whether Gaines lines the store's walls with shiplap (though true heads know that's Joanna's predilection, not Chip's) and starts selling croissants out the window, or whether he preserves every sacred layer of dust and leaves the books to sit, Booked Up was doomed to look and feel different without McMurtry behind it."

Read the Waves Bookstore is coming to St. Pete Beach, Fla., later this year, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Owner April Elliott, a former criminal defense attorney, will sell new titles for all ages along with nonbook items like games, stationery and puzzles. She plans to host community-focused events such as book signings, book club meetings and trivia nights, and there will be a monthly subscription service "for grandparents to send books to their grandchildren across the country." Elliott is also considering a mocktail bar.

The bookstore will reside on the first floor of a two-story building located at 425 Corey Avenue. Elliott purchased the building last August, and work is underway to combine three first-floor retail spaces into one larger space measuring around 2,000 square feet. The building also has an apartment on the second floor, which Elliott plans to rent out.

Elliott told the Times that she chose to open a bookstore in St. Pete Beach because of the lack of book buying options in the area. "You can walk by any beach or any pool and there's tons of people reading books, actual physical books, not e-readers. So it was just strange to me that there wasn't an outlet or provider for that," with the nearest option being a Barnes & Noble store at a mall.

Elliott hopes to open by October, but the exact timetable will depend on construction. She noted that starting in the spring, Read the Waves will appear as a pop-up vendor at local farmers markets.

"I have been more inspired in the past year while conjuring this vision to life than perhaps ever before," Elliott wrote in an Instagram post announcing her plans. "That alone tells me this place will be something special. That it will mean something not just to me, but to residents and visitors alike. I have so many ideas and plans that I cannot wait to unveil and experience with anyone else who is interested in books and social discourse!"

The Urban Reader Bookstore in Charlotte, N.C., has closed temporarily while owner Sonyah Spencer works on moving the bookstore to a new location, WFAE 90.7 reported.

Spencer closed the store, which was located at 440 E McCullough Drive in Charlotte's University City neighborhood, on February 26. She plans to move to a more accessible storefront in a more walkable area of the city.

"I need to be more visible," Spencer told WFAE. "So, my goal is looking towards the boardwalk area where people are out and about. You know, the biggest thing people have been telling me is, 'oh, I couldn't find you. I couldn't find you.'"

In the meantime, Spencer will continue to sell books online and plans to start a mobile bookstore in order to reach more readers throughout Charlotte. She's also considering adding a cafe when she eventually reopens the bookshop.

Spencer originally founded the Urban Reader as an online store before opening the bricks-and-mortar location in 2021. The diverse bookstore focuses on Black authors and stories while also prominently featuring LGBTQ+ books and Spanish books.

Chiwoniso Kaitano

Chiwoniso "Chi" Kaitano has been appointed executive director of MacDowell, the writers and artists residency program in Peterborough, N.H., effective March 13. As the 10th person to lead the organization since 1907, she succeeds Philip Himberg, who retired after serving as a transitional leader. Kaitano is the former executive director of Girl Be Heard, a global NGO that advocates for social change through performing arts and storytelling in all of its forms.

"I look forward to working with the board and staff to sustain and grow funding and to build upon the extraordinary vision for artist support that Edward and Marian MacDowell articulated when they welcomed the first artists-in-residence,” said Kaitano. "Imagining and joyfully meeting the ever-evolving needs of contemporary artists is how MacDowell can and will continue to be a pioneering champion for the value of the arts in our society. I am thrilled and honored to be part of advancing this important mission."

MacDowell's board said it recognized in Kaitano "the leadership qualities and experience needed to advance the long-standing mission of nurturing artists by removing obstacles to creativity. In her new role, Kaitano will identify and deepen sources of support, build meaningful new relationships, and intensify outreach to traditionally underrepresented artistic voices.

Kaitano will work mainly from the Chelsea, New York City, office, while David Macy will continue to serve as MacDowell’s resident director in New Hampshire.

Congratulations to this is a bookstore & Bookbug, Kalamazoo, Mich., which is celebrating 15 years in business. On Saturday, the bookseller posted on Facebook that "today marks 15 years of being in business as a bookstore of and for and about--and in simple thanks to--Kalamazoo. we plan to acknowledge the day quietly in steady service to readers and dreamers and seekers of all forms of comfort or community or growth or calm or love to be found within a story-filled space that belongs to each person reading this post or walking through our doors... or who may ever have done so with intrigue and care. 

"it's mythical to us (to me) that we share this particular day/anniversary with a Kalamazoo cornerstone, who nourishes not only with breads and dozens of remarkable bakes, but with earnest words, a warm heart, and a sincere ethic that I have watched and learned a great deal from over these modest 15 years. Please join us, me, in wishing Sarkozy Bakery a very happy and fully nourishing 45th-birthday TODAY of all the days."

Alexandra Quill has joined Macmillan Children's Publishing Group as senior marketing manager on the school and library marketing team.

Something Wild by Molly Ruttan (Nancy Paulsen Books).

Today:
Fresh Air: Jeanna Smialek, author of Limitless: The Federal Reserve Takes on a New Age of Crisis (Knopf, $30, 9780593320235).

Tomorrow:
Today Show: Toya Boudy, author of Cooking for the Culture: Recipes and Stories from the New Orleans Streets to the Table (Countryman Press, $32.50, 9781682687451).

Also on Today: Dr. Amy Shah, author of I'm So Effing Hungry: Why We Crave What We Crave--and What to Do About It (Harvest, $28.99, 9780358716914).

Drew Barrymore Show: Patricia Field, author of Pat in the City: My Life of Fashion, Style, and Breaking All the Rules (Dey Street, $35, 9780063048324).

Kelly Clarkson Show: Hannah Fry, co-author of The Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (Abridged): Adventures in Math and Science (W.W. Norton, $17.95, 9781324051039).

Agatha Christie's novel Murder Is Easy will be adapted into a two-part film by BBC One, iPlayer and BritBox International. Variety reported that ITV Studios-owned Mammoth Screen (The Serpent) and Agatha Christie Limited (And Then There Were None) will produce the movie, which is set to go into production this summer.

Sian Ejiwunmi-Le Berre is adapting the novel and Meenu Gaur (Zinda Bhaag) will direct. Casting has not yet been announced. Murder Is Easy is the second of three adaptations Mammoth Screen and Agatha Christie Limited are co-producing for BritBox International. The first, Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, came out last year. 

"I've watched every Agatha Christie adaptation out, because Christie wrote for the world and the whole world loves her back," said Ejiwunmi-Le Berre. "But somehow I'd never read one of her novels. When I first read Murder Is Easy, I couldn't believe how daring, experimental and furious the book was. Nothing like I'd expected. From the first read, the book was shouting at me how to enter and adapt it, and what's so exciting is having everyone at Mammoth Screen and ACL jump right in there with me. It's like going on an extended train journey with a genius sat next to you, whispering the secrets of storytelling into your ear."

Shortlists has been unveiled for the 2022 André Simon Food & Drink Book Awards. Winners in each category receive £2,000 (about $2,405) and will be named March 14. Two other prizes, the John Avery Award, in honor of a former trustee, and the Special Commendation Award, are presented at the discretion of the judges. This year's shortlisted titles are:

Food
Breadsong by Kitty & Al Tait
Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many by Jeremy Lee
Eat Share Love by Kalpna Woolf
Lune: Croissants All Day, All Night by Kate Reid
Motherland by Melissa Thompson
The Wilderness Cure by Mo Wilde
The Year of Miracles by Ella Risbridger

Drink 
A Sense of Place by Dave Broom
Drinking with the Valkyries by Andrew Jefford
Imperial Wine by Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre
The Perfect Tonic by Camper English

Laura Spence-Ash's debut novel, Beyond That, the Sea, weaves a tapestry of intimate relationships that span the Atlantic in the decades after World War II. At the novel's center is Beatrix Thompson, whose parents, Millie and Reg, make the heart-wrenching decision to send her, at age 11, across the ocean to escape the Blitz in London. Bea lands with a well-off family, the Gregorys, who live near Boston and spend summers on a private island in Maine. She becomes close to the two boys, William and Gerald, and her bond with them and their parents--deep and complicated--will endure.

Spence-Ash gives voice to multiple main characters, writing in brief chapters told from their perspectives: Bea, Millie and Reg each have their say, as do the Gregory parents, Ethan and Nancy, and their two sons. This narrative style allows Spence-Ash to share different facets of the same incidents, such as Bea's arrival in Boston, her parents' choice to send her away, the adjustment period for the Gregorys as Bea becomes part of their lives, and the eventual wrench when she returns to London. The novel spans multiple decades and continents, but also captures small, intimate details: the muffins Nancy makes for breakfast, the wildflowers in the cemetery near the Gregorys' home, the orange rowboat always moored at the dock near their house in Maine. Spence-Ash traces Bea's maturation from a shy, scared girl into a more confident young woman, who eventually builds her own life and career in London, but never forgets her family across the pond. Meanwhile, Bea's mother, Millie, grapples with her complex feelings about the Gregorys and the important years she missed, as she struggles to build a relationship with her adult daughter. Each of the boys, as they grow into men, are also deeply affected by their memories of Bea.

The war itself lives in the novel's background; its carnage is the catalyst for Bea's time in the U.S., but its details are emphasized less than the characters' day-to-day experiences. In later years, Bea and the others build new relationships and discover new passions, but are still bound by those years spent together during the war. When Bea finally returns to Boston, she finds both the reliable love of a family who consider her theirs, and some unexpected insights into her formative years with them.

Quietly stunning, with finely drawn characters and vivid descriptions, Beyond That, the Sea is a gorgeous, elegiac, novel about loss, family and the complexity of love. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Shelf Talker: Laura Spence-Ash's gorgeous, elegiac debut novel follows a young woman whose life and love take her across the Atlantic during World War II.

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

1. Ignite Culture by Margaret Graziano
2. Diaries of a Female Real Estate Investor by Farrah Ali
3. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves
4. Things We Hide from the Light by Lucy Score
5. Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score
6. The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose
7. Ambrosia (Frost and Nectar Book 2) by C.N. Crawford
8. The Temporary Wife by Catharina Maura
9. Hail Mary by Kandi Steiner
10. Final Offer by Lauren Asher

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]