The union at Solid State Books, Washington, D.C., has unanimously ratified its first contract with the bookstore, after negotiations that took 17 days, a very short period for most contract negotiations. The contract makes Solid State Books the second bookstore in the capital with a collective bargaining agreement following the contract reached by Politics & Prose and its union. The Solid State Books contract was modeled on the Politics & Prose agreement. Both bookstores' unions are affiliated with the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400 Union.

The Solid State Books staff unionized in April, and the union was voluntarily recognized by owners Jake Cumsky-Whitlock and Scott Abel. They commented yesterday, "We are very pleased we were able reach our first collective bargaining agreement with Local 400 so quickly and amicably. This agreement is a win-win for both Solid State Books and our employees. We look forward to continuing the productive relationship and dialogue we have forged with Local 400."

Kiara Martinez, a bookseller at Solid State Books who served on the committee that negotiated the contract, said, "We got here quickly, and we owe that in large part to our union siblings at Politics & Prose. While we are incredibly proud of the work we've done, our journey is only just beginning. It's our hope that we inspire others to begin theirs."

The three-year contract covers all non-management employees. Key provisions include:

• Cost-of-living increases tied to the District of Columbia minimum wage (which is indexed to the Consumer Price Index), as well as pay increases retroactive to May 1.
• Additional holiday on Juneteenth, with hours worked on that day paid at time and a half.
• Extra week of vacation after the third year of employment.
• Ban on mandatory "clopening" shifts, in which the same employee must close a store one night and open it again the next morning.
• Better staffing, with at least two employees in the store at all time and employees not disciplined for work not completed due to short staffing.
• Robust anti-discrimination protections, including Crown Act protections.
• Bereavement leave for full-timers.

Open Books' store in Logan Square will remain open.

Open Books, the Chicago nonprofit that provides literacy experiences for tens of thousands of readers each year through programs and the sale of new and used donated books, will be moving its headquarters from the West Loop to North Lawndale after receiving a $100,000 grant from Impact Grants Chicago, Block Club Chicago reported.

Having previously held temporary pop-up shops in North Lawndale as part of its North Lawndale Reads program and the Lawndale Pop-Up Spot, Open Books will put down permanent roots in the neighborhood while expanding its North Lawndale Reads programs on the West Side, including offering more educational opportunities for children and opening a pay-what-you-want bookstore and community space.

Chelsea Ridley, co-founder of Open Books, said the two locations being considered for its new headquarters are on 16th Street and Roosevelt Road. Open Books currently operates bookstores in Logan Square, Pilsen, and at its West Loop headquarters; all three bookstores will remain open, Block Club Chicago noted.

Ridley added that the move to North Lawndale, which should happen sometime this year, has been planned since she began working at Open Books three years ago: "One of the first things I wanted to do when we started was establish ourselves in North Lawndale. This is going to make a huge difference in the community."

Curiouser Books, a new and used bookstore with a focus on community, is opening in downtown Montrose, Colo., on August 1, the Montrose Press reported.

The bookstore will reside within a clothing store called Mauve; former librarian and lifelong reader Lizz Martensen owns both Mauve and Curiouser Books. The latter carries an assortment of titles for all ages, and sales from the store's used books will go to one of four local nonprofits.

"We had the space in the store and so it was a good opportunity to bring a bookstore to Montrose again and not have the cost and overhead, because it's hard for a bookstore to stay afloat in this day and age," Martensen told the Press.

Prior to opening Curiouser Books, Martensen reached out to some 25 local nonprofits. When customers buy used books, they can choose to have the proceeds from that sale go to PEER Kindness, the Children's Museum, Faultless Inc., or Black Canyon Boys & Girls Club. Martensen hopes to add more nonprofits to the list of partners.

Martensen noted that she used to help out the owner of Maggie's, an independent bookstore that opened in downtown Montrose in 2018 but is now closed. While there are other places to buy books in Montrose, she felt the town needed another independent bookstore, as "there's a charm in being in an independent bookstore and getting to peruse the shelves and see what kind of books the community is interested in. There’s something magical in a bookstore that’s different than just picking something up when grocery shopping."

Twelve Points Book Company, which opened last December in Terre Haute, Ind., is closing later this month. On the bookstore's Facebook page, owner John Cannaday posted recently: "I have some bad news for you. Though I have thoroughly enjoyed running the bookstore and meeting so many of you, I have decided to close. The last day will be Saturday July 29th. A series of events, including my new job as a flight nurse, have led to this decision.... Thank you all for being a part of my life during this time. Let's celebrate together!"

In addition to his new job, another reason for the decision was "my desire to spend more time with my family," Cannaday told the Tribune-Star, noting that in terms of running the bookshop, "I'm happy to have done it."

Cannaday pointed out that a number of new businesses are all slated to open in 12 Points in the near future: "The business environment is still good here." 

Book Mountain, which sells used and new books in Santa Fe, N.Mex., has been put on the market by owner Peggy Frank, who "plans to give the store away at no charge," KRQE reported. Frank has been managing her bookstore since 1980, when she got into the business after a car accident left her disabled.  

Now she is looking for a new owner, noting: "My health is not going to get any better. At age 83, we don't really get better." 

She is "giving people a Willy Wonka-like experience by trying to find someone who can take it all over," KRQE noted.

"Well, the catch is you're going to have to work," said Frank, who is seeking someone who enjoys working with people and has a positive attitude, along with a very specific skill. "They need to know the alphabet," she added. "I do have a reputation in town for being very exacting and hard-nosed. Well, I'm sorry I'm not going to negotiate the alphabet with anybody." 

Noting that she is in no hurry to give up the store and that she plans to help the new owner, Frank said: "We're talking about the spirit of reading, and you can't put a price tag on spirit."

Jenny Brown

We can't help but boast about a recent episode of Cindy Burnett's podcast series, Thoughts from a Page, which featured an interview with Shelf Awareness senior editor Jennifer M. Brown about the history and evolution of Shelf Awareness, her role at the Shelf, some behind-the-scenes stories, a few recommended books, and more. Check it out here.

"Thoughts from a Page offered a wonderful opportunity to talk with Cindy about books, and the evolution of bookselling and of Shelf Awareness, since its launch in 2005 with Shelf Awareness Pro, aimed at those in the book trade," Brown said. "To think there was only Shelf Pro in the beginning, and now there's Shelf Awareness for Readers, aimed at consumers on Fridays; Maximum Shelf, featuring one title and author; and our Pre-Order E-blast, which was launched during the pandemic so independent booksellers could capture pre-order sales when people rarely left their homes."

On Thoughts from a Page, Burnett interviews authors, booksellers, editors, agents, sales reps, and publicity directors, offering a 360-degree view of the publishing field. And Burnett always asks her subjects what they are reading. In addition to her podcast, Burnett reviews books at BookReporter.com and writes book columns for the Buzz magazines in Houston, Tex., where she lives.

Chuck Tingle (r.), queer Internet icon and pseudonymous author of hundreds of self-published erotica shorts and horror novels, brought his message "Love Is Real" to Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, Wash., on July 26. Nearly 300 fans came out to see Tingle talk about his first traditionally published novel, Camp Damascus (Tor Nightfire), with #CripLit creator and Lambda Literary Award-winning author Nicola Griffith.

"While Oppenheimer's bio is on our bestseller list, the lighthouse is on the Barbie bandwagon!" the river's end bookstore, Oswego, N.Y., posted on Facebook, along with a photo of the store's sales floor display. 

Khadija Lokhandwala has been promoted to associate publicist at Tor Publishing Group.

Giants Are Very Brave People by Florence Parry Heide, illustrated by Merrill Rainey (Holiday House).

Today:
Fresh Air: Jay Wellons, author of All That Moves Us: A Pediatric Neurosurgeon, His Young Patients, and Their Stories of Grace and Resilience (Random House Trade Paperbacks, $18, 9780593243381).

Greenwich Entertainment has acquired U.S. rights to the documentary Joyce Carol Oates: A Body in the Service of Mind and released a trailer. Deadline reported that the company plans to release the film on September 8 simultaneously in theaters and on home entertainment platforms.

Directed by Stig Björkman (Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words, Georgia Georgia), the project was produced by Mantaray Film. It premiered at the Telluride Film Festival. Oscar-winning actress Laura Dern (Marriage Story, Jurassic Park, Big Little Lies) provides readings in the documentary.

Joyce Carol Oates: A Body in the Service of Mind offers "a revealing look at the forces that shaped one of America's most prolific, enduring authors and the remarkable regimen that has sustained an eight-decade career still going strong," according to a press release, which added that the film, 16 years in the making, "takes us inside the societal events that affected her and her writing deeply such as the 1960s riots in Detroit (them), the tragic Chappaquiddick incident (Black Water), and the life of Marilyn Monroe (Blonde)."

Greenwich co-president Edward Arentz said, "The longtime friendship between subject and filmmaker allows for an unusually intimate and unguarded portrait of a remarkable writer and intellectual. Even longtime readers and fans may be surprised by details of Oates' early life, but the overwhelming impression is of a privileged visit with a fascinating woman of prodigious artistic discipline, curiosity, and engagement. Clearly she's a national treasure, a clichéd phase that Ms. Oates would no doubt shun but in her case it's nevertheless entirely accurate."

The shortlist has been announced for the $25,000 2023 Alice Award, honoring "a richly illustrated book that makes a valuable contribution to its field and demonstrates high standards of production" and sponsored by Furthermore grants in publishing, a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund. The winner will be announced September 5 and presented in the Rare Book Room at the Strand Book Store on October 24. This year's shortlist:

Wendy Red Star: Delegation edited by Brendan Embser and designed by Emily CM Anderson (Aperture and Documentary Arts)
Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club edited by Kimberli Gant and Ndubuisi Ezeluomba and designed by Margaret Ann Bauer (Yale University Press)
Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy by Monique Kornell with contributions by Thisbe Gensler, Naoko Takahatake, and Erin Travers and designed by Kurt Hauser (Getty Research Institute)
New York: 1962-1964 by Germano Celant, edited by Sam Sackeroff, and designed by Michael Rock (The Jewish Museum and Skira Editore)
Cinema Ann Arbor: How Campus Rebels Forged a Singular Film Culture by Frank Uhle and designed by Ann Arbor District Library, Fifth Avenue Press (University of Michigan Press and Fifth Avenue Press)

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A shortlist has been released for the 2023 Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award, which celebrates storytelling in all genres and is presented annually to "a compelling novel with brilliant characterization and a distinct voice that is confidently written and assuredly realized." The winner, who receives both £2,000 (about $2,580) and a handmade glass bell, will be named September 28 in London. This year's shortlisted titles are:

When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
The Leviathan by Rosie Andrews
Metronome by Tom Watson
Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka.

David Headley, Goldsboro Books co-founder and managing director, and founder of the Glass Bell Award, said: "The Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Awards' ethos, from its inception in 2017, is that it is a compelling novel. The books must possess that innate ability to draw the reader in to its pages, so that time stands still and you're likely to miss your stop on the train. These shortlisted books all achieve that in spades and my team and I are delighted with the results. I'm expecting a few lively discussions around the judging table and can't wait to see who will be crowned the winner come autumn."

photo: Eryn Chandler

Chandler Baker is the author of Whisper Network, a Reese's Book Club Pick, and The Husbands, a Good Morning America Book Club Pick, as well as several young adult novels. A former corporate lawyer, she lives in Austin, Tex., with her husband, two small children, and even smaller dog. Cutting Teeth (Flatiron Books) explores the standards to which society holds mothers, and the things no one tells you about becoming a parent.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

Cutting Teeth is a funny mystery about what happens when 10 preschoolers with an odd craving for blood are the only witnesses to a murder.

On your nightstand now:

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. In a historic coup, I convinced my book club to read this meaty fantasy novel, which is sort of a grownup Harry Potter with dragons. I knew the Goodreads rating on this one was sky high, and that's ultimately what clenched the decision for our group to read it. Of course now I'm feeling immense pressure for them to like it.

Favorite book when you were a child:

I was big into the popular sled dog genre when I was a kid. I'm kidding. I didn't know any other kids who loved reading and talking about sled dogs constantly, incessantly, invariably. I learned all the different commands through books. Jack London's Call of the Wild was seminal.

Your top five authors:

Liane Moriarty, Tana French, Donna Tartt, Sally Hepworth, and Curtis Sittenfeld. I'm just seeing now that my top five are all female authors and I'm okay with that!

Book you've faked reading:

Anything by Cormac McCarthy. I've seen No Country for Old Men. I've perused my husband's bookshelves, but I don't know, I've come this far, I'm not sure Cormac and I are happening.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I love books about what it feels like to make art and to strive to do it with excellence. I get really concerned for people when they don't love it like I do.

Book you've bought for the cover:

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. I love what I call "color blob" covers. Adore them! And I fear I'll never write the type of books that warrant a color blob cover. But one day, if I do, I'll have reached peak author. Just wait.

Book you hid from your parents:

Summer Sisters by Judy Blume. That scene in the bathtub. IYKYK.

Book that changed your life:

Laura Vanderkam's I Know How She Does It literally helped me figure out how to be a writer, a mom, a full-time lawyer for several years, until it was time to drop the lawyer act. I recommend this to all my mom friends who are struggling with childcare, math, and other problems.

Favorite line from a book:

"What a treacherous thing it is to believe that a person is more than a person." --John Green, Paper Towns. John Green published Looking for Alaska right around the time I was falling in love with reading again, and there are at least a hundred quotes from him that made me want to be a writer.

Five books you'll never part with:

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson, The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty, Room by Emma Donoghue, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, and Bossypants by Tina Fey.

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

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I listened to this book during a very long drive, and yet I feel like I lived a lifetime in the hours it took to finish the story. I still get a little ache in my chest when I think about it and Las Vegas.

Isle McElroy (The Atmospherians) takes readers on a mind-bending journey of gender exploration and body politics with People Collide. Much of the novel is told from the perspective of Eli Harding, an American man living in Bulgaria with his wife, Elizabeth, a highly accomplished writer with a prestigious teaching fellowship. Eli is also a writer, but less successful--at everything--than his impressive spouse. In the novel's opening pages, he discovers that he has woken up in Elizabeth's body. Elizabeth herself has disappeared.

Eli first hides away in the couple's apartment, waiting for Elizabeth--whom he assumes now occupies his body--to return, or for this mysterious "Incident" (as he thinks of it) to right itself. When he ventures out, he dresses Elizabeth's body, applies makeup, and decides that she was right: a male friend was condescending to her all this time. Then both Eli's mother and Elizabeth's parents push for action: he is sent to Paris by his own mother (who believes he is Elizabeth) to search for her vanished son. He finds his wife--indeed, in his own body--and the surreality intensifies.

People Collide comments on gender and the roles that the larger world expects from people who present as men and as women. Elizabeth is an ambitious, dominant, talented, driven, no-nonsense individual; Eli is a hardworking writer but has mostly made his living as a restaurant server. He's followed her to Bulgaria for her more prestigious work. They do not disagree that she is his superior: "'I'm smarter than you, I'm kinder than you, I'm more talented and better looking. And you benefit from all of that. It's exhausting. And I want to benefit. Things should be easy for me.' It didn't hurt to hear her say those things. I felt the same way." Eli's well-muscled body is six inches taller than Elizabeth's, and she carries it "with a graceful confidence that I had never shown in my life." He used to walk too quickly for her, which she found "frustrating and selfish." In her body, he notes: "I never slowed down for her. Not until now, when I had no other choice."

Beyond the gender binary and the public's assumptions based upon appearances, McElroy's insightful novel also examines class, privilege, the art world, and family relationships. Elizabeth's parents are smugly satisfied with their money, connections, and community in a small, liberal, artsy town in Michigan; they look down upon Eli's thrice-divorced mother. Everyone judges Eli harshly for abandoning his wife--an irony, because it was, in fact, Elizabeth who did the abandoning, in his body.

People Collide is sly, clever, funny, provocative, and compelling. It offers a world and a story to get lost in. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: In this smart, absorbing, thought-provoking novel, a husband and wife mysteriously swap bodies and experience widely varying impressions and reactions.

Everyone has to scratch on the walls somewhere or they go crazy.

--Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion

As a reader, I've long preferred journals and diaries to biographies. In an interview, May Sarton once said that "people don't read the journals to discover me; they read the journals to discover themselves." That sounds about right. Sarton's works--particularly Journal of a Solitude and The House by the Sea--have been part of my life for decades. Other longtime companions include the journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Merton, as well as the travel writings of Matsuo Bashō.

And I'm always up for something new, or even variations on a theme, like John McPhee's recent book Tabula Rasa, Part 1, in which he gathered up sketches, anecdotes and ideas for stories and books that never made it past the notion stage.

Some fortunate authors, like most of those mentioned above, kept journals to store project ideas and personal reflections, gossip and weather reports, but they also kind of knew that someday their "private" observations would be published. Most diarists, however, are filling pages with words that will inevitably be condemned to the hellfires of public landfills. Why do they do it? Well, why not?

Almost every bookstore now carries a selection of blank books, colorful notebooks and engagement calendars (potential diaries in disguise), ranging from pricey Moleskins and their upscale competitors to an endless variety of themed options. 

Just yesterday, I noticed that Plaid Elephant Books, Danville, Ken., had posted on Instagram: "We have several matching 'sets' of lenticular (i.e. 3D) bookmarks and notebooks, but this one is our favorite.... New shipment arriving next week, just in time for back-to-school!"

And U.K. bookseller White Rose Bookcafe, Thirsk, showcased "some lovely new 2024 Diaries in stock now, so you can look forward & plan even more good stuff that you & your family can enjoy! Sue says 'This is my all-time favourite journal and I've been using it for over 8 years. I love the weekly inspiring quotes from poets and famous people like Rumi and Maya Angelou. The monthly themes are helpful for reflection and personal development. I treasure my journal time with a morning coffee and birdsong!' Designed as a resource to enrich daily life, with new vibrant illustrations alongside one life-enhancing theme a month for you to focus on."

As a writer, I confess I've been pretty rubbish at keeping a journal or diary myself. Not that I haven't tried over the years. I still have some leftover blank books (or semi-blank, I suppose) lying about as evidence of my feeble attempts. Each was purchased with the best of intentions. Each, inevitably, briefly became a commonplace book--the pages filled quotations from books I was reading at the time--and then was abandoned.

Where was I in these journals? Just a reader collecting other writers' words. Even then, my patience wore thin. The empty pages always begin no more than a quarter of the way into each volume.

I guess I'm not alone. The blog Diaries of Note recently wrote that although Thomas Edison "filled numerous notebooks with writings pertaining to his groundbreaking inventions, he kept a personal diary only once in his eighty-four years. Spanning a period of just nine days in July of 1885."

On July 20, Edison wrote: "It's so hot--I put everything off--Hot weather is the mother of procrastination--my energy is at ebb tide--I'm getting Caloricly stupid--Tried to read some of the involved sentences in Miss Cleveland's book, mind stumbled on a ponderous perioration and fell in between two paragraphs and lay unconscious for ten minutes." A nine-day journal. The End. That I can identify with. 

While my sideline as a journal-keeper flailed repeatedly, I was a fan of bookstore sidelines from the moment I first heard the term in 1992, when I became a bookseller in a shop that even had a full-time Sidelines Buyer. 

Back then there were still a lot of skeptical booksellers who were reluctant to carry non-book inventory, though I suspect the percentage of books-only purists has dwindled substantially over the past three decades, for high-margin retail survival tool reasons if nothing else. 

Most indie booksellers love the handselling high that comes from a conversation resulting in a tidy stack of great books leaving the shop with an enthusiastic reader. On the other hand, those booksellers won't complain if the next customer they wait on buys no books at all, but loads up on greeting cards, toys, souvenir t-shirts, tote bags, scarves, candy, magnets and locally produced salsa. What does a great indie bookseller say to the bookless patrons? Thank you so much. Please come back soon.

As for blank books, they're also the perfect response to this particular sales floor customer service dilemma: 

I need a book as a gift for my uncle.
What kinds of books does he like to read?
He doesn't read.
Well, how about a blank book then?

What does the future hold for blank books? Are we really on the cusp of seeing my April Fool's Day prediction from 2022 (Ted Cruz Slams Blank Book Sales for "Potentially Offensive Content") enter the unnerving realm of possibility? Don't stay on the sidelines, journal keepers and sellers. Write on.