"In a very real sense, you're on the front lines--fighting every day to make the widest possible range of viewpoints, opinions, and ideas available to everyone. Your dedication and professional expertise allow us to freely read and consider information and ideas, and decide for ourselves which ones we agree with.

"That's why I want to take a moment to thank all of you for the work you do every day--work that is helping us understand each other and embrace our shared humanity.

"And it's not just about books. You also provide spaces where people can come together, share ideas, participate in community programs, and access essential civic and educational resources. Together, you help people become informed and active citizens, capable of making this country what they want it to be.

"And you do it all in a harsh political climate where, all too often, you’re attacked by people who either cannot or will not understand the vital--and uniquely American--role you play in the life of our nation."

Big Hill Books has officially opened in Minneapolis, Minn.

Located at 405 Penn Ave. S in the city's Bryn Mawr neighborhood, Big Hill Books carries new titles for children, teens, and adults along with a variety of greeting cards, gardening supplies, and home decor and gift items.

Owner Beth Thompson welcomed customers for the first time with a grand-opening celebration on July 15, and she'll host the bookstore's first author event on July 30, with local author J. Ryan Stradal. Next month she'll start a recurring event series called the First Friday Date Night; host a panel of local authors for National Bookstore Romance Day on August 19; and welcome Twin Cities author Maureen Millea Smith.

The store resides in a multi-level building originally built as a chapel in 1915, and Thompson eventually plans to turn the store's lower level into a community space available to book clubs, civic groups, nonprofits, and more.

"I may be the sole owner of this new venture, but it took a village of neighbors, friends, and family to get Big Hill Books to this point," said Thompson, who left her corporate job in 2021 to pursue her bookstore dream. "I don't have sufficient words to express my gratitude."

Little Gay Bookstore, a planned nonprofit, LGBTQIA bookstore, has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help it open later this year in Columbus, Ohio, 614Now reported.

The bookstore will share a space at 1129 N. High St. in the city's Short North neighborhood with Queer Beans, a for-profit coffee shop. Per 614Now, both Little Gay Bookstore and Queer Beans grew out of student organizations at Ohio State University. They are overseen by a group that includes Reese Steiner, president and co-founder; Stephanie Houser, treasurer; Olivia Daerth, secretary; and Madison McAlear, vice-president.

They are looking to raise $15,000 to help open the bookstore and so far have raised just over $1,700. Funds will go toward books, shelving, a security system, and more. The group has also started a separate campaign for Queer Beans.

Steiner told 614Now that the impetus to start Little Gay Bookstore came from a visit to an independent bookstore in Los Angeles that did not have a queer section. "We jokingly said we would just do it. Later that day we brought up the actual idea of it, and the rest is history."

The organizers of Little Gay Bookstore and Queer Beans hope to open sometime in the fall.

Barnes & Noble is opening a new store on the Third Street Promenade in downtown Santa Monica, Calif., the Santa Monica Mirror reported.

The new store will reside in a space that once belonged to Midnight Special Bookstore, an independent bookstore that closed in 2004. For more than 20 years, B&N operated a 30,000-square-foot store also on the Third Street Promenade but closed it in 2018. The new store, which was listed only as "coming soon," will be smaller.

Mary Beth Nebel

Mary Beth Nebel, owner of I Know You Like a Book, Peoria Heights, Ill., died on July 6.

On Facebook, an announcement about Nebel's death read in part, "Lawyer, entrepreneur, leader in her business community, patron of the arts, world traveler, and advocate for free speech through the beauty of a well-written book, Mary Beth, in her words 'lived an amazing life.' She had two great loves: her son Tim, who brought her more joy and laughter than anyone could, and her bookstore, a place where people could wander and wonder through the stories and ideas that filled the bookshelves."

The store had been closed for most of the past two months. Nebel posted June 20, "In case you're wondering, I've had some heart issues lately. I'm getting good care at Loyola Medical and I'm getting better. I don't know when I'll be able to open the bookstore. Meantime, say a prayer, count your blessings and keep reading."

Nebel opened I Know You Like a Book in 2006 and expanded it a year later, doubling in size to 1,500 square feet. At that time, the store sold new and used books and had a wine bar.

Tomorrow, July 19, there will be visitation at 9:30 a.m. at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, 6001 N. University St., Peoria, Ill., followed by the funeral mass at 10 a.m.

Thunder Road Books, Spring Lake, N.J., hosted Kristy Woodson Harvey (left) in conversation with Katie Runde to celebrate the launch of Harvey's The Summer of Songbirds (Gallery Books), which is the store's August book club pick.

"Our doors are open and the Early Birds are up and at it!" Books Inc. at Opera Plaza, San Francisco, Calif., posted on Instagram Saturday, for its weekend warehouse sale. "The early bird gets the bookworm! That's the saying, right?"

"Today a Reader.... Tomorrow a Leader," Commonplace Reader, Yardley, Pa., noted in sharing a photo on Instagram of its latest sidewalk chalkboard message: "Caution, Reader Crossing."

Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future: The Case for an Ecological Food System and Against Manufactured Foods by Chris Smaje (Chelsea Green).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Elizabeth Castellano, author of Save What's Left: A Novel (Anchor, $26, 9780593469170).

The View: Will Hurd, author of American Reboot: An Idealist's Guide to Getting Big Things Done (Simon & Schuster, $17.99, 9781982160777).

The first stage adaption of Stanley Kubrick's classic film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, will make its world premiere in London's West End in the fall of 2024, Playbill reported.

The 1964 movie was loosely based on the novel Red Alert (1958) by Peter George, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Kubrick and Terry Southern. The play will be directed by Sean Foley and BAFTA and Emmy Award winner Armando Iannucci. A venue, casting, and the creative team will be announced at a later date. 

"It is both a privilege and a thrill to be asked to adapt and direct one of the most iconic films of all time, and working with Armando Iannucci on the adaptation has been a joy," said Foley. "Stanley Kubrick's 'nightmare comedy' is a perennially relevant satire on world politics and how powerful men can be stupid enough to let us all die if it means they get to brag about it."

Foley told BBC News that the next challenge is finding an actor to play the three main roles, famously and brilliantly portrayed by Peter Sellers in the film: "They've got to be a great comic actor, of which we have very many. They've got to be of that shape-shifting kind of quality. They've got to want it. It's going to be a really tough gig. I'm sure some people, when we approach them, are going to go, 'No way, I'm not going to be compared with Peter Sellers in those roles.' But there will be someone who has the appetite and skill and talent and sees the opportunity to do it in their own way."

Caryl Lewis won the 2023 Wales Book of the Year Award for Drift, her debut novel in the English language. She also took the Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award. Pridd by Llŷr Titus was named the Wales Book of the Year in Welsh. 

The awards celebrate books across four categories (poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and children & young people) in both English and Welsh. Each category winner receives £1,000 (about $1,305), with the two overall winners getting an additional £3,000 (about $3,925). 

Lewis has won the Welsh-language Wales Book of the Year Award twice in the past--for Martha, Jac, a Sianco in 2005 and Y Bwthyn in 2016--making her the first writer to have won the prize in both languages. 

Judge Emily Burnett said of Drift: "This piece of writing made us want to read out loud, to feel the tangible lure of magical words in our mouths. Wales hums throughout this writer’s work, and in doing so, this book seems to, in some ways, defy the categories.... It is a stunning piece of fiction, that swells with a magical lyricism and captures with sheer luminosity its characters, story and sense of place."

Sung J. Woo (Love, Love) is one of those agile writers able seamlessly to insert detailed backstories mid-series: reading his second Siobhan O'Brien mystery, Deep Roots, without benefit of the inaugural Skin Deep is no less absorbing.

People often do a double-take when meeting Siobhan in person: "I was adopted by an Irish father and a Norwegian mother," she's forced to explain about her ethnic Korean heritage, which strangers have decided doesn't match her name. Now 40, she finally seems at peace with who she is. She's settled into running the detective agency she inherited when her boss died suddenly. She's hired college student Beaker as her intern--and just in time, because she needs someone to check her e-mail while her new assignment takes her to a private island in the Pacific Northwest.

Billionaire Philip Ahn has summoned her to Woodford, his expansive family mansion, to figure out if his youngest child, Duke, is truly his son. Octogenarian Ahn is a genius, specializing in artificial intelligence--and, of course, money. But even his most advanced devices--personal drones, biometric apps--can't (or won't?) prove (or disprove) Duke is an imposter.

Siobhan arrives--after 11 hours of "last class" travel, meant to convey that Ahn is "not out of touch with the value of a dollar"--to find a surreal level of luxury. "Employees in service," never servants, ensure her every comfort, even dressing her for family meals, which entails exquisite, fit-to-the-skin clothing laid out on her most-comfortable-ever bed. She'll need to be suitably costumed to meet the entire Ahn clan: two ex-wives, the current wife, their assorted progeny. And then figure out how to escape their gilded prison.

Woo's acknowledgements make nods to Downtown Abbey (yes, there's a Lady Mary!) and Zhang Yimou's Raise the Red Lantern: "If you are familiar with both works, you can no doubt figure the influences." Woo cleverly inserts plenty of comedic asides and snickering revelations that involve surprisingly multiplying actors--literally. Woo's patriarch, interestingly, shares the same name with Hollywood's first Korean American actor. The Ahn players here certainly could have used some of his training.

Identity--and what makes a family--remain at the heart of Woo's series: is Duke Duke?; the Ahns' overtly wannabe Eurocentric royal posturing (despite their ancestry traced to a 16th-century Korean admiral); Siobhan herself with reminders of her outwardly incongruous face and name; even Beaker with his insights on "code switching." Clever, biting, and page-turning, Woo's PI series surely deserves future developments. --Terry Hong, BookDragon

Shelf Talker: Sung J. Woo returns with another rollicking mystery, set on a posh private island where the dysfunctional family's only son may not be who he seems.

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

1. Twisted Love by Ana Huang
2. Leigh Howard and the Ghosts of Simmons-Pierce Manor by Shawn M. Warner
3. The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose
4. Twisted Games by Ana Huang
5. Hooked by Emily McIntire
6. Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
7. King of Wrath by Ana Huang
8. Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins
9. Twisted Hate by Ana Huang
10. Never Lie by Freida McFadden

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]