Werner Books & Coffee held a ribbon-cutting ceremony last Friday to mark the reopening of the business at its new location at 3608 Liberty St., Liberty Plaza, Erie, Pa. Owners Lauren Shoemaker and Kyle Churman had announced the impending move to a larger, 5,800-square-foot space earlier this year. 

"It's official! Thank you to everyone who came to support our ribbon cutting this morning! The love from you, our customers, through this new move has been so appreciated!" the booksellers posted on Facebook.

"Werner Books is welcoming the community inside their newly renovated space in Liberty Plaza. The business now features a coffee shop and larger space for people to gather," Erie News Now reported, adding that the owners "said they will continue to serve the needs of their customers and look forward to hosting more events. Werner Books was previously located in Liberty Plaza just a few doors down."

"We're happy to be part of the developing part of the center of the city again, especially with Liberty Plaza itself is growing. We're getting more tenants in here, as we've expanded," said Shoemaker.

Churman added: "There's a lot of collaboration that can happen on the local level and the big box stores don't have that, they don't bring that to the table." 

Friends and business partners Fearless Cummings and Andile Mahlageni-Byndon have opened 2 Dads and a Bookstore in Bellevue, Neb., KETV reported.

Located at 1015 Galvin Road S., 2 Dads and a Bookstore has a strong emphasis on local, independent authors, with Mahlageni-Byndon noting that they "give 100% of the revenue that the authors make back to them. We just want to give them a place and a platform where they can show their work to the community."

The store also buys and sells used books and has an extensive online catalog. The space is open and inviting and customers are welcome to sit down, talk, and have a cup of coffee. They hope 2 Dads and a Bookstore becomes a community hub and, as Black fathers, they hope to show young Black boys in their community the joys of reading. Said Mahlageni-Byndon: "it's just a beautiful dynamic and we can tackle so many different issues in our community."

Mehlageni-Byndon and Cummings met while working together at a previous job. During a training session they discovered that they both loved to read. They quickly became good friends and "ever since then everything took off."

They decided to open a business of their own only about three months ago. "That took a lot of work. My guy had a lot of books, we found a place over in Bellevue and everything just kind of fell together," Cummings remarked.

At Hunting Raven Books

The Booker Prize Foundation announced winners of the inaugural Booker Prize Indie Bookshop Spotlight, a competition that invited independent bookshops from across the U.K. and Ireland to celebrate this year's Booker Prize shortlist. To enter, each store had to assemble in-store displays of the nominated titles and post images of their activity on their social media channels. Six stores would be chosen as winners, with one winner then selected at random to receive two tickets to the Booker Prize 2023 award ceremony and dinner on November 26 in London. The six winning bookshops are:

Little Acorns Bookstore, Derry, Londonderry, "the largest independent bookstore in the Northwest of Ireland. Based in Derry, Little Acorns stocks both new and second-hand books of all genres and subjects, while also specializing in Irish-related subjects; including its history, culture, authors and publishers."

At Little Acorn Books

The Bookshop, Mold, Flintshire, which "has a legion of loyal customers, many of whom have visited since their childhoods and now bring their own children to the shop to discover their next read. It prides itself on its place in the community and regularly hosts events."

Round Table Books, Brixton, London, "an inclusion-led bookshop that aims to celebrate underrepresented authors, writers and illustrators, documenting LGBTQIA+, and disabled peoples' experiences. They curate and stock books from a wide array of publishers and often host author-led events in the space."

The Bookmark, Grantown-on-Spey, Moray, which is "bursting with an eclectic range of titles, including bestsellers, Scottish interest, and a large children's section. The Bookmark hosts its own crime festival called 'Dark Nights, Dark Deeds... Death in Grantown.' " 

Westwood Books, Sedbergh, Cumbria, "which is also England's official book town.... In 2009 the shop was named as one of the Guardian's Top Ten Secondhand Bookshops, and travel author Bill Bryson has also given it a seal of approval, describing it as 'large and excellent.' "
 
Winstone's Hunting Raven Books, Frome, Somerset, "who describe themselves as a 'quirky and fiercely independent bookshop on the only street in England to have a stream running down the middle of it.' " 

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Salted Books, a new English-language bookshop, opened last month in the Santos neighborhood of Lisbon, Portugal. Founder Alex Holder, an English journalist and writer, came to Lisbon four years ago as a guest speaker to talk about her book Open Up: Why Talking About Money Will Change Your Life, reported Portugal Resident.

"I came here to do a talk, spent a week here, loved it and moved here a couple of months later!" said Holder, who relocated from the U.K. with her partner, Mark Thompson, and their two children. "Mark is an art director, so all the visual choices in here are his." 

"A much-needed shop in an ever more cosmopolitan city, Salted Books has opened to satisfy a growing thirst for new literature in English," Portugal Resident noted, adding that a "discreet shop window reveals an electrifying interior where books abound and serenity reigns. Like a sweet shop for book lovers, the shelves are covered in colorful and appealing covers that catch the eye of curious buyers."

"The irony is that there are so many wonderful bookshops in Lisbon, but I couldn't read any of the books," Holder said. "But also, I missed the community around English-speaking readers and writers. So, we opened, and the best surprise has been that half of our customers are Portuguese who read in English."

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My Little Bookshop

West Australian bookseller My Little Bookshop, Rockingham, was named Small Retailer of the Year at the National Retail Association's National Retail Awards recently, Books+Publishing reported. Owner Kerry Ridley began the business as a traveling bookshop in 2019 before opening a bricks-and-mortar shop in 2022.

QBD was a finalist for the Large Retailer of the Year category within the shopfront awards, and bookseller Cassey-Leigh Robertson, from QBD's Rockhampton store, was an individual finalist in the category of Retail Leader of the Year. --Robert Gray

Jose Harris, who was "the author of a magnificent biography of William Beveridge that established her as the pre-eminent historian of the British welfare state," died September 13, the Guardian reported. She was 82. In William Beveridge, published in 1977, just 14 years after its subject's death, "she blew apart cherished narratives about the architect of the welfare state."

A second edition 20 years later offered an account of Beveridge's unusual private life, something that Harris had been prevented by his stepchildren from exploring fully in the first edition.

The tension between private life and public service also shaped her book Private Lives, Public Spirit: A Social History of Britain 1870-1914 (1993), in which she offered a picture of British society in a period of fundamental transformation. The work secured her election as a fellow of the British Academy. 

In 1962, after graduating from Newnham College, Cambridge, Harris undertook a Ph.D. on unemployment as a problem in social policy in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, supervised by Richard Titmuss of the London School of Economics. After teaching at University College London (1964-66), she moved to a research fellowship at Nuffield College, Oxford (1966-69). Her interest in Beveridge, which had been central to her Ph.D., was nurtured by the then warden of Nuffield, Norman Chester, whose early career had included service as secretary to the Beveridge committee. 

She then taught for almost a decade in Titmuss's department of social administration at the London School of Economics. While there she published her first book, Unemployment and Politics (1972), and the biography of Beveridge.

When Harris's husband, James Harris, was elected to an Oxford fellowship in 1973, they moved "to the leafy north of the city," the Guardian wrote, noting that she "exchanged gardening tips with an elderly neighbor, Lady O'Malley (the novelist Ann Bridge). Only some time after her neighbor's death did Jose discover that she was the Mary Sanders who had turned down a proposal of marriage from Beveridge 60 years before. The correspondence between Beveridge and Sanders was one of the new archival finds that enabled Jose to produce the enriched second edition of the biography."

This past Wednesday, Shelf Awareness sent our monthly pre-order e-blast to more than 960,000 of the country's best book readers. The e-blast went to 962,743 customers of 236 participating independent bookstores.

The mailing features 11 upcoming titles selected by Shelf Awareness editors and a sponsored title. Customers can buy these books via "pre-order" buttons that lead directly to the purchase page for the title on each sending store's website. A key feature is that bookstore partners can easily change title selections to best reflect the tastes of their customers and can customize the mailing with links, images and promotional copy of their own.

The pre-order e-blasts are sent the last Wednesday of each month; the next will go out on Wednesday, November 29. Stores interested in learning more can visit our program registration page or contact our partner program team via e-mail.

For a sample of the September pre-order e-blast, see this one from The Booktenders, York, Maine.

The titles highlighted in the pre-order e-blast were:

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Flores and Miss Paula by Melissa Rivero (Ecco)
The Lost Tomb by Douglas Preston (Grand Central)
How Not to Age by Michael Greger (Flatiron)
Dinner Tonight: 100 Simple, Healthy Recipes for Every Night of the Week by Alex Snodgrass (William Morrow Cookbooks)
After World by Debbie Urbanski (S&S)
The Wildest Sun by Asha Lemmie (Dutton)
Rich AF: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life by Vivian Tu (Portfolio)
Welcome Home Stranger by Kate Christensen (Harper)
Heartstopper #5 by Alice Oseman (Graphix)
Mercy Watson Is Missing! by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Chris Van Dusen (Candlewick)

More than 1,000 people turned out for actor John Stamos's appearance at Books & Greetings, Northvale, N.J., to promote his memoir, If You Would Have Told Me (Holt). Owner Kenny Sarfin said Stamos was "gracious, friendly, and took his time with each customer, making them feel like old friends. It truly was one of our best book signings!!" Pictured: Stamos with Sarfin.

Featuring '10 themed independent bookstores in NYC," Untapped New York noted that the city "is home to some of the most unique independent bookstores for every type of reader. Independent thematic bookshops not only offer rare, specialty books, but they also provide patrons with a wealth of information on all sorts of unique topics. In this list, we highlight 10 of the most interesting themed independent bookstores in NYC that sell everything from romance novels to cookbooks."

"Let us find you a gourd book. We've got your cozy fall day covered," Prologue Bookshop, Columbus, Ohio, offered in an Instagram post sharing a photo of the shop's sidewalk chalkboard.

"Everyone needs their Belle moment--what's the fun of having a bookshop without a ladder?! And this Belle looks lovely in red!" Plenty Bookshop, Cookeville, Tenn., posted on Instagram.

Water for All: Global Solutions for a Changing Climate by David Sedlak (Yale University Press).

Tomorrow:
Today Show: Ree Drummond, author of The Pioneer Woman Cooks--Dinner's Ready!: 112 Fast and Fabulous Recipes for Slightly Impatient Home Cooks (Morrow, $32.50, 9780062962843).

Drew Barrymore Show: Sarah Cooper, author of Foolish: Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation (Dutton, $29, 9780593473184).

Sherri Shepherd Show: Henry Winkler, author of Being Henry: The Fonz... and Beyond (Celadon, $30, 9781250888099).

Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Willie Nelson, co-author of Energy Follows Thought: The Stories Behind My Songs (Morrow, $50, 9780063272200).

Neil Gaiman "will reprise his role as Charles Dickens for two nights only this holiday season," Playbill reported: he will present Dickens's original performance text version of A Christmas Carol at New York's Town Hall December 18-19.

This is the first time Gaiman has reprised his channeling of Dickens since 2013, "when he appeared in character as the esteemed author for the New York Public Library," Playbill noted, adding that the earlier reading "was immensely popular, and audio of the event has become the most popular event download in NYPL history, now a Christmas staple."

As in the earlier performance, the event will be introduced by historian Molly Oldfield, who will share the history of Charles Dickens's in-person dramatic readings.

There are two winners of the $5,000 ninth annual Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award, which honors "the Columbia University faculty member whose book published by the Press in the two years prior brings the highest distinction to Columbia University and Columbia University Press for its outstanding contribution to academic and public discourse."

The co-winners:

Antagonistic Cooperation: Jazz, Collage, Fiction, and the Shaping of African American Culture by Robert G. O'Meally

Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism by Andie Tucher

photo: Peter Yoon

Paul Yoon is the author of Once the Shore: Stories, which was a New York Times Notable Book; Snow Hunters, which won the Young Lions Fiction Award; The Mountain, which was an NPR Best Book of the Year; and Run Me to Earth, which was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. He is a recipient of a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation and lives in New York's Hudson Valley. His story collection The Hive and the Honey (Marysue Rucci Books/S&S) delves into questions of belonging--to places, to people--and explores the complicated nature of inheritance and identity across the Korean diaspora.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

Hi there, this is a book full of searchers scattered across the world, trying to find a sense of home.

On your nightstand now:

Ralph Sneeden's The Legible Element for its sense of place; Janika Oza's A History of Burning for its vast canvas; Benjamin Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World for its infinitely layered richness.

Favorite book when you were a child:

I loved mysteries, especially the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series.

Your top five authors:

Michael Ondaatje
Kazuo Ishiguro
Alice Munro
Nadeem Aslam
John Berger

Book you've faked reading:

Anything by Proust.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Here are three: Often, I'm tempted to buy hundreds of copies of Anuk Arudpragasam's The Story of a Brief Marriage, Hernan Diaz's In the Distance, and Roberto Bolaño's 2666, and hand them out to people.

Book you've bought for the cover:

I actually bought Anuk Arudpragasam's The Story of a Brief Marriage at the Harvard Book Store (I think in the fall of 2016) solely because of its cover, knowing absolutely nothing about it. One of the luckiest days of my life.

Book you hid from your parents:

None. I'm not entirely sure they were aware of or noticed what exactly I was reading.

Book that changed your life:

Too many to name here, but I think it's probably one of the books in John Berger's Into Their Labours Trilogy or perhaps his novel To the Wedding. His work taught me grace, humility, experimentation, and to always try to capture the world honorably and respectfully.

Favorite line from a book:

The opening line of Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion which captures so much mystery and longing and place and youth and possibility in one line.

Five books you'll never part with:

So as not to repeat myself here with the authors I love and admire, I can say I have five really beat-up NYRB Classics that have traveled with me for over a decade, from one place to another, from day job to day job, and I'll never part with them because they keep me sane and they always make me want to be a better writer: Andrey Platonov's Soul; Richard Hughes's A High Wind in Jamaica; Maria Dermout's The Ten Thousand Things; Tove Jansson's The Summer Book; and Victor Serge's Unforgiving Years.

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

I heard a rumor that the world will be graced soon (or soonish) with more fiction from Daniyal Mueenuddin. If this is true, we are lucky indeed--and it makes me want to read In Other Rooms, Other Wonders to experience the rawness and buoyancy and fireworks of that spectacular work of fiction as if for the first time.

The action-packed WEBTOON series unOrdinary by uru-chan, with 5.9 million subscribers, is in print for the first time. The story follows John, an audacious teen without abilities, as he navigates the brutality of attending a high school where everyone else has a superpower.

"In this world, strength defines a person... and those without strength are crushed." John hoped that Wellston Private High School would be different from the rest of the world, but instead he's known as "the school zero" and attacked by those with power. Yet John doesn't abide the established "hierarchy." He fights back, defends bullied students, and speaks casually to "high-tiers," especially those he finds "a disgrace to society." Arlo, a top-ranked student, wants to know why John does not fear him--and why Seraphina, also elite, spends so much time with a zero. Seraphina, once "always perfect," has indeed changed since meeting John. But to her, it's an improvement from being "lost in people's expectations." Still, she struggles with John's idea that powers should be used to bring peace; his father wrote unOrdinary, a banned book about a vigilante defending zeroes that she thinks "challenges the entire structure of [their] current society," especially how it has inspired likeminded heroism. Now, these self-proclaimed superheroes are being murdered, and a fearful public wishes vigilantes would stop causing trouble. As authorities stifle unOrdinary's ideals--a moral system that John openly follows--Arlo is adamant that there is something suspicious about him.

John upholds values few others dare to consider: that even the weak hold greatness and that strength does not mean superiority. His relentless grit that lands him in disaster--and often the infirmary--is painfully addicting to witness. By contrast, the rough home life and background explaining Seraphina's shifting perspective on achievement (and appreciation of John) twist the heart. The pair's closeness is a tender thing, encompassing vulnerable conversations and late-night competitive gaming. Uru-chan also carefully balances action and stillness. Thrilling calm-before-the storm buildups precede Seraphina dishing out what seem mere samples of her unrivaled ability. Awkward asides and exchanges, over-the-top and deadpan facial expressions, written moods ("gloom"; "rage"), and added flair (an arrow pointing at someone crashing out a window, the word "gone" over a ghostly outline of John having escaped the infirmary) ensure plentiful laughs. Brilliant coloring lights up the page with students' energy bursts and gorgeous backgrounds, and the vibrant art of the intense fight scenes packs a punch. A magnificently illustrated and entertaining first volume. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer

Shelf Talker: An audacious teen without abilities unflinchingly defends himself and others in a brutal high school where the superpowered reign, in this artful first volume of a popular, action-packed WEBTOON.