Also published on this date: Wednesday October 4, 2023: Maximum Shelf: Clear

Shelf Awareness for Wednesday, October 4, 2023


Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers: Mermaids Are the Worst! by Alex Willan

Ace Books: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

St. Martin's Press: Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival by Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour

Atria/One Signal Publishers: Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life by Maggie Smith

News

NEIBA's 50th Annual Fall Conference Begins

The 50th annual New England Independent Booksellers Association Fall Conference started yesterday in Providence, R.I., with an opening keynote and education panels, and was capped by a lively author reception. Today's program consists of a range of events, including the children's author & illustrator breakfast and NEIBA's 50th Anniversary Gala. Below are pictures from the author reception.

Books on the Square (Providence, R.I.) manager Jennifer Kandarian with An Unlikely Story (Plainville, Mass.) adult book buyer Bill Carl.

Sourcebooks marketing manager BrocheAroe Fabian with Gibran Graham, owner of the Briar Patch bookstore in Bangor, Maine.

Josh Cook, author, bookseller, and co-owner of Porter Square Books, Somerville, Mass., with his recently published book from Biblioasis, The Art of Libromancy: On Selling Books and Reading Books in the Twenty-First Century.

Author Donna Barba Higuera (Alebrijes) dropped by the NEIBA author reception to visit with fellow Levine Querido author, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich (You're Breaking My Heart, January 2024).

TJ Alexander, author of Second Changes in New Port Stephen (Emily Bestler Books, December 5, 2023), with Hannah Moushabeck, Simon & Schuster marketing manager and author of Homeland (Chronicle Books).

David H. Rosmarin, Ph.D., author of Thriving with Anxiety: 9 Tools to Make Your Anxiety Work for You (Harper Horizon).

--photos by Siân Gaetano and John Mutter

G.P. Putnam's Sons: All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman


Mosaics, Bookstore and Queer Safe Space, Opening in Provo, Utah

"I've been told that nothing queer would ever work below 2100 S. in Salt Lake City," said drag artist Tara Lipsyncki, who is opening a bookstore, cafe, and event space called Mosaics in Provo, Utah, this month. "I kind of said: hold my beer, watch me do it."

Slated to open the week of October 23, Mosaics will be a queer community space that is safe and accessible for all. The entire location, Lipsyncki reported, is about 3,000 square feet, with the bookstore encompassing about 1,200 sq. ft. and the event space spanning 1,000 sq. ft. The remaining area will be used for the cafe, which she hopes to have open by next spring.

In the bookstore side of the business, Mosaics will carry all-new titles at opening, and Lipsyncki hopes to make use of the partnerships she's formed with Salt Lake City indies King's English Bookshop, the Legendarium, and Under the Umbrella by having them curate specific sections and shelves on a consignment basis.

The arrangement gives those bookstores an opportunity to expand their brands and customer bases outside of Salt Lake City proper, but also makes things easier for Lipsyncki by being able to rely on their proven strengths. "Why should I guess?" she said. "Why not let them be the experts?"

Tara Lipsyncki

Bringing in other businesses, she added, also ties into the theme of the store being a mosaic--distinct parts combining into a beautiful whole.

Lipsyncki described the event space as a "Russian nesting doll" within the larger store. She has placed a major emphasis on making it "very secure and safe," and the renovations to the building have included additional safety exits, a fire suppression system, and a new security system.

Her event plans include queer-centric events like drag performances as well as live acoustic bands, author events, children's storytime sessions, and, thanks to Lipsyncki's husband, even Magic the Gathering nights. In addition to drag queen storytimes, Lipsyncki will partner with groups that do Disney Princess storytimes, and she hopes to "really get kids in the community excited about books."

Mosaics will also carry a wide variety of nonbook products. There will be a games section curated by a local game store, and a small food market anchored by Sweet Hazel & Co., a lesbian-owned vegan bakery based in Salt Lake City. Beyond that, Lipsyncki remarked that she's always dreamed of having a "little corner shop," and for that she has in mind a sort of "gay, queer-centric Hot Topic," with plenty of items related to pop culture. Though Mosaics will carry a "little bit of everything," the books "will be the driver."

Recently, a drag storytime event with Lipsyncki at the King's English was canceled due to a bomb threat, and when asked about security, Lipsyncki said it was never far from her mind. She has no problem hiring additional security if she feels it necessary and, in her experience, she's found that having a security person present does not deter the comfort of the space. The "unfortunate reality" is that many of her events already have armed security.

"This is the world we live in," Lipsyncki said. "We have to take all the precautions. We have to think of every possibility."

Lipsyncki has been working to create a community safe space for three years, and though many of the details have changed over time, having an event/performance space was always an integral part of her plan. Opening a bookstore and cafe was not actually the goal from the beginning, but it all came together very quickly after she visited a space in Provo that immediately felt like "home."

What was needed, Lipsyncki said, was a queer safe space that wasn't a 21-plus bar, that didn't close on Sundays, and didn't shut down at 8 p.m. every night. Nothing like that existed in Provo, and she realized that a bookstore/cafe that also held events could fill that need perfectly. When the cafe eventually opens, Lipsyncki plans to keep Mosaics open 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

"This community needs resources," Lipsyncki said, pointing out that crises can happen "all the time." With Mosaics, she hopes to take the comfort and safety found in books and "make it a physical safe space." --Alex Mutter


Grand Opening for the Literary Lounge, Jacksonville, Fla.

The Literary Lounge hosted its grand opening on Friday at 1080 Edgewood Ave. S,  in the Murray Hill neighborhood in Jacksonville, Fla. The Florida Times-Union reported that Shelby Giltz and her mother, Terri Reynolds, said they knew they wanted to open a bookstore when they moved from Raleigh to Jacksonville five years ago. The store was about two years in the works when the "perfect space" opened up on Edgewood, with options for foot traffic and parking.

Giltz, who works full-time selling tires for U.S. AutoForce, considers the bookstore her "creative side hustle," with Reynolds serving as the bookshop's general manager. "With four generations of readers living under one roof together, they said it 'just made sense to open a bookstore,' " the Times-Union noted.

"It's scary to make this leap," Giltz said. "Margins are slim [on books], but we wanted to create a space that's welcoming."

Reynolds added: "It was important to be not 'just' anything--not 'just' for kids, not 'just' for Murray Hill, not 'just' a bookstore." 

Over the last month, the family has been painting, assembling bookshelves and putting the finishing touches on the store. "It's a labor of love for the whole family," Giltz said. "My 8-year-old is ready to come and work now. And Murray Hill as a whole has been very welcoming."


National Book Awards Finalists

Finalists have been selected for the 2023 National Book Awards. The five category winners will be announced at the 74th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner in New York City on November 15.

This year's finalists:

Fiction
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyahn (Pantheon Books)
Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal (Simon & Schuster)
This Other Eden by Paul Harding (W.W. Norton)
The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen (Holt)
Blackouts by Justin Torres (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Nonfiction
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk (Yale University Press)
Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza (Hogarth)
Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir by Raja Shehadeh (Other Press)
Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant (Knopf)

Poetry
How to Communicate by John Lee Clark (W.W. Norton)
from unincorporated territory [åmot] by Craig Santos Perez (Omnidawn Publishing)
suddenly we by Evie Shockley (Wesleyan University Press)
Tripas by Brandon Som (Georgia Review Books/University of Georgia Press)
From From by Monica Youn (Graywolf Press)

Translated Literature
Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated from the Korean by Anton Hur (Algonquin Books)
Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop, translated from the French by Sam Taylor (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel, translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato (New Vessel Press)
Abyss by Pilar Quintana, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman (World Editions)
On a Woman's Madness by Astrid Roemer, translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott (Two Lines Press)

Young People's Literature
Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow (Candlewick Press)
Huda F Cares? by Huda Fahmy (Dial Books for Young Readers)
Big by Vashti Harrison (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine by Katherine Marsh (Roaring Brook Press)
A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat (First Second)


At Melville House, Bromley Succeeds Johnson, Who Remains Co-Publisher

Big changes at Melville House.

Carl Bromley has been named editor-in-chief, succeeding Dennis Johnson, who has been editor-in-chief since founding Melville House in 2001 with Valerie Merians.

Johnson stressed he is not leaving the company and will continue as co-publisher with Merians, saying, "Being editor-in-chief in addition to running the company with Valerie has become a bigger job over the years as the company has grown, and once Carl came aboard I realized our editorial program couldn't have a better leader. Carl is a veteran who's long championed the kind of books we publish, and he really gets the mission of the company."

Bromley joined Melville House in 2020 as executive editor. He was previously the editorial director at the New Press, and led Nation Books (now Bold Type Books) for more than a decade.

Amber Qureshi, who joined Melville House this month, will succeed Bromley as executive editor.

In addition, Sammi Sontag has been promoted to senior publicist from publicist. Sontag earlier was an assistant publicist at Gallery Books.


Notes

Chalkboard: Our Town Books

"Leaves are falling & books are calling" was the message on the sidewalk chalkboard at Our Town Books, Jacksonville, Ill., which noted on Facebook: "It may not feel like Fall outside but we are in full Fall mode inside the store. Come explore the inside with us. For those of you that have to been in yet, we hope to see you soon."


Personnel Changes at Scholastic; Spiegel & Grau

At Scholastic:

Jessie Hine has been promoted to trade marketing coordinator.

Greyson Corley, formerly marketing intern at Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, has joined the company as trade marketing assistant.

---

Nora Tomas has been promoted to publicity and marketing associate at Spiegel & Grau.


Media and Movies

Media Heat: Safiya Sinclair on Fresh Air

Today:
Fresh Air: Safiya Sinclair, author of How to Say Babylon: A Memoir (37 Ink, $28.99, 9781982132330).

Tomorrow:
Today Show: Tasneem Bhatia, author of The Hormone Shift: Balance Your Body and Thrive Through Midlife and Menopause (Rodale, $28, 9780593578698).

Tamron Hall: Paul Holes, author of Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases (Celadon, $17.99, 9781250622808).

The View: Nick Offerman, author of Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Likes to Walk Outside (Dutton, $18, 9781101984703).

Jimmy Kimmel Live: Nicole Avant, author of Think You'll Be Happy: Moving Through Grief with Grit, Grace, and Gratitude (HarperOne, $28.99, 9780063304413).


TV: All the Light We Cannot See

Netflix has released the official trailer for All the Light We Cannot See, the limited series based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Anthony Doerr. Starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, Louis Hoffman, Aria Mia Loberti, Nell Sutton, Lars Eidinger, and Marion Bailey, the four-part series is directed and executive produced by Shawn Levy, written by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders), and recently had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It premieres globally November 2 on Netflix.



Books & Authors

Awards: Heartland Booksellers Winners; T.S. Eliot Shortlist

The winners of the 2023 Heartland Booksellers Awards, who will be celebrated on October 18 during a ceremony hosted by Isaac Fitzgerald at the Heartland Fall Forum in Detroit, Mich., are:

Fiction: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco)
Nonfiction: A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan (Viking)
Poetry: The Sky Watched by Linda LeGarde Grover (University of Minnesota Press)
Young Adult Middle Grade: The Davenports by Krystal Marquis (Dial)
Picture Book: The World Belonged to Us by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Leo Espinosa (Nancy Paulson Books)

---

The shortlist has been selected for the £25,000 (about $30,140) 2023 T.S. Eliot Prize, which is judged by poets and honors "the best new poetry collection written in English and published in the U.K. or Ireland." The winner will be announced January 15.

The shortlist:
Self-Portrait as Othello by Jason Allen-Paisant
More Sky by Joe Carrick-Varty
A Change in the Air by Jane Clarke
The Ink Cloud Reader by Kit Fan
Standing in the Forest of Being Alive by Katie Farris
School of Instructions by Ishion Hutchinson
Hyena! by Fran Lock
The Map of the World by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Balladz by Sharon Olds
I Think We're Alone Now by Abigail Parry


Reading with... RS Deeren

photo: Jessica Johnston

RS Deeren's debut, Enough to Lose (Wayne State University Press, September 5, 2023), is a collection of nine stories set in rural Michigan over three decades. Deeren received his M.F.A. from Columbia College Chicago and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The title story of Enough to Lose has been anthologized in Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation, edited by John Freeman. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry has appeared in Great Lakes Review, Joyland, Midwestern Gothic, and elsewhere. Deeren hails from rural Michigan, where he worked as a line cook, a substitute teacher, a landscaper, a banker, and a lumberjack. He is an assistant professor of creative writing at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn.

Handsell readers your book in approximately 25 words or less:

Enough to Lose is "the best thing I've read lately, with its dead-on depictions of rural life, both beautiful and heart-wrenching." --National Book Award finalist Bonnie Jo Campbell

On your nightstand now:

I've got Marlena by Julie Buntin, a wonderful novel about friendship and addiction in rural Michigan. I'm always drawn to rural stories and how authors depict the unique struggles and successes of the people who live there. Buntin does this wonderfully. I've also got Paper Concert: A Conversation in the Round by Amy Wright. This lyric nonfiction book blends conversations from artists and thinkers, such as Dorothy Allison, Rae Armantrout, and Gerald Stern.

Favorite book when you were a child:

I spent most of my after-school time in the local library in Caro, Mich., and I dove into the "for kids" biographies. I can still see the shelf along the back wall. I'd read about people like Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, FDR--any larger-than-life person. In grade school, we had the Accelerated Reader program, and if something is game-ified, I'm all over it. So I would read a ton throughout the school year. I remember reading The Hobbit, specifically because of this. (I wanted the end of the year pizza party for those with the most points.)

Your top five authors:

This is impossible, so I'll go with who I remember reading the most at various points in my life. In grade school: Beverly Cleary. In high school: I read a lot of poetry, but Theodore Roethke sticks out the most. In college: Toni Morrison and William Faulkner. In grad school: bell hooks.

Book you've faked reading:

I've never faked reading a book, but I have started to add to my "Did Not Finish" pile. This includes: The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty and There There by Tommy Orange. (I will finish them.)

Book you're an evangelist for:

I spent about a year and a half telling everyone to read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi when it came out, and I still think it should be on everyone's bookshelf. The woven branches of the family tree in that book, spanning centuries and half the globe, is powerful genius.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Not for the cover alone, but Seldom Seen: A Miner's Tale by Mitch James has an industrially horrifying cover filled with smoke, rust, and ominousness.

Book you hid from your parents:

I was lucky to have parents who gave me a library card and let me loose in the stacks. I don't remember feeling that I had to hide what I was reading.

Book that changed your life:

American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell. I had just started writing stories about rural people in the eastern "Thumb" region of Michigan when a professor told me to read this book. I had been worried that nobody would want to read a book filled with poor country people from Michigan. I am so glad I was wrong. I come back to the stories in this book regularly and find new ways of reading them.

Favorite line from a book:

"The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem." --bell hooks, from The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

This book is almost 20 years old, and I still think everyone should read it.

Five books you'll never part with:

Besides some that I've already mentioned above: I have a 1915 copy of The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke I found in a thrift store in Maine. It has a Christmas note written in it. I ordered a used paperback copy of Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock and got sent a hardcover signed copy. I have a signed copy of Working by Studs Terkel. As someone fixated on working life, these interviews are priceless to me. I was anthologized in Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation, edited by John Freeman. I've slowly added autographs from the co-contributors, including Roxane Gay, Claire Vaye Watkins, and Edwidge Danticat. I have an ARC of The Comfort of Monsters by Willa C. Richards. I was lucky enough to workshop a couple chapters from this book, and it holds a special place in my memory.

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

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Even though I read a lot, I'm very slow at it, which means I don't reread as much as I assume others do. But this book was the first one I did. From the framing structure to watching the creature disappear across the snow, the idea of never quite belonging is wonderful.


Book Review

Children's Review: My Grandfather's Song

My Grandfather's Song by Phùng Nguyên Quang, illus. by Huỳnh Kim Liên (Make Me a World, $18.99 hardcover, 40p., ages 4-8, 9780593488614, October 17, 2023)

The satisfying and thoughtful My Grandfather's Song uses the lyrical voice of a grandchild to relate the story of how their forebear, an early "pioneer... to the south of Vietnam," learned to find the music in his new home and use it to coexist with nature. Back matter deepens the takeaways by elaborating on the story's relevance to Earth's current climate crisis.

The grandchild, spending the day working alongside Grandfather, describes how the man journeyed to a new land in a tiny boat across water that was "gentle as a lullaby." The looming jungle the pair visits early in the morning is home to unseen voices, which Grandfather calls a song that must be learned. Likewise, the bamboo they cut is "a melody we raise high as a roof"; the earth is an instrument that, with time, will provide "a harmony of plenty." Even when sounds are frightening--"a rustle, a creak, a slither through darkness"--finding the song eases the fear and a new song follows, one of fish and ocean and forest. Years pass and the now-grown grandchild has learned the "symphony of generations," which they share with new families, who add additional voices to the "chorus of our song."

The inspiring text is passionate and emotive, and the extended metaphor of nature speaking through music proves a powerful tool. Dynamic digital illustrations beautifully convey the wild landscape, their impact emphasized by the horizontal length of the book. Bright, bold colors and a surreal sensibility dramatically evoke the animal spirits--including a giant monkey and oversized turtle--who reside within the jungle and the pages. Water and sky also come alive in swirling, layered currents of color and texture.

In-depth back matter explains that Phùng Nguyên Quang and Huỳnh Kim Liên created this story as a tribute to "the very first pioneers" who lived in a land and time when "humans had to pay respect to Mother Nature and her creatures in order to settle there." Now, this same land is home to modern cities where nature remains both "generous and dangerous"--we should "be thankful for the things we have taken from the earth." My Grandfather's Song gently suggests the potential benefits humans may reap in rethinking our relationship to the earth, to the climate, to the world. Because when "we listen... the land responds with gifts." --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author

Shelf Talker: The satisfying and thoughtful My Grandfather's Song uses the lyrical voice of a grandchild to relate how an early "pioneer to the south of Vietnam" learned to sing the "melody" of his new home.


The Bestsellers

Libro.fm Bestsellers in September

The bestselling Libro.fm audiobooks at independent bookstores during September:

Fiction
1. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (HarperAudio)
2. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (Penguin Random House Audio)
3. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (Recorded Books)
4. The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman (Penguin Random House Audio)
5. The Fraud by Zadie Smith (Penguin Random House Audio)
6. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Penguin Random House Audio)
7. Holly by Stephen King (Simon & Schuster Audio)
8. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperAudio)
9. None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell (Simon & Schuster Audio)
10. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (Recorded Books)

Nonfiction
1. Sure, I'll Join Your Cult by Maria Bamford (Simon & Schuster Audio)
2. Counting the Cost by Jill Duggar (Simon & Schuster Audio)
3. Doppelganger by Naomi Klein (Macmillan Audio)
4. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (Penguin Random House Audio)
5. Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster Audio)
6. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Tantor Media)
7. The Wager by David Grann (Penguin Random House Audio)
8. Build the Life You Want by Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey (Penguin Random House Audio)
9. Glossy by Marisa Meltzer (Simon & Schuster Audio)
10. Outlive by Peter Attia (Penguin Random House Audio)


Powered by: Xtenit