After months of negotiation, union workers at Powell's Books, Portland, Ore., voted November 9 to reject a tentative contract agreement with the bookstore's management. 

Powell's workers, represented by International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 5, have been without a contract since June, when the previous contract expired. The negotiation process began early this year and has proved contentious. In September, the union staged a one-day strike on Labor Day, and last week's decision marked the first time the union has rejected a contract since 2000, when Powell's workers first unionized.

Per a ILWU Local 5 representative, Powell's workers cited "starting wages well below a living wage" as the main reason they voted down the tentative agreement last Thursday. Workers also took issue with the pay increase an employee would receive when moving out of entry-level positions.

Emily Powell, president and owner of Powell's, said the proposal was developed in partnership with the union and represented the bookstore's "best offer." The union accepted the proposal and "committed to recommending it for a 'yes' vote. Unfortunately, a union officer then led a 'vote no' campaign against the agreement, resulting in employees rejecting the proposal."

The union reportedly has reached out to Powell's management requesting a return to negotiations, and while the bookstore has agreed to a "sidebar discussion" with the union, it has neither agreed to nor proposed bargaining dates.

Following last week's vote, Powell's has filed an Unfair Labor Practice with the National Labor Relations Board against the union. The union, in turn, has filed an ULP against the store alleging that it has attempted to silence and intimidate workers.

Megan and Jason Kotsko at a Story Garden pop-up last month.

The Story Garden, a children's bookstore featuring a kids' play space, will open in St. Petersburg, Fla., next spring, St. Pete Rising reported.

Store owner Megan Kotsko has found an 800-square-foot space at 832 14th St. North in the city's Historic Uptown and is aiming for a March 2024 opening. Around two-thirds of the store will contain children's books and a variety of gifts and toys, while the back third will be the children's play space and event space.

Events are a major part of Kotsko's plans; her store will host storytime sessions, children's book clubs, and an eight-week program for toddlers involving storytime paired with themed activities and play experiences.

When it comes to curating her inventory, Kotsko told St. Pete Rising, she wants "to be driven by our mission, which is really to have every child be able to come into our store and find a book that reflects their life, be it their culture, their religion, their ethnicity, their passions, and their interests."

In advance of the store's opening, Kotsko will host a variety of pop-up appearances throughout St. Petersburg, with the next event scheduled for November 17 at a children's store called Runrun Kids.

Kotsko noted that she's dreamed of having a bookstore for years, with the Shop Around the Corner from You've Got Mail being a major inspiration.

Major recent changes at Red Wheel/Weiser include an acquisition, the addition of three new distribution clients, and the reorganization of its marketing team.

The company is acquiring Quest Books, Wheaton, Ill., the imprint of the Theosophical Publishing House, the publishing arm of the Theosophical Society in America. Founded in 1966, Quest Books publishes books that "promote fellowship among all peoples of the world and encourage the study of religion, philosophy, and science so that we may better understand ourselves and our place in the universe." Quest, which Red Wheel/Weiser has been distributing since 2015, will become an imprint in the Red Wheel Group, and initial plans call for the backlist to be revitalized.

Barbara B. Hebert, former president of the Theosophical Society in America, said, "Red Wheel/Weiser has been a trusted distribution partner for many years. In addition to meeting our business needs, their vision and mission have always been in alignment with our own. We are heartened that the invaluable books in the Quest Books catalog will continue to reach new audiences through Red Wheel/Weiser's thoughtful stewardship."

The three new distribution clients are Crossed Crow Books, which publishes occult books specializing in magic, rituals, spirit work, and the overall practice of witchcraft; Moon Dust Press, founded by children's book author Andrea Stein to publish books about modern witchcraft for kids and resources for children raised in homes practicing nature-based spiritualities; and Womancraft Publishing, which publishes "transformational women's voices that have the power to challenge, inspire, heal, and speak to the silenced aspects of ourselves." Red Wheel/Weiser began distributing Crossed Crow Books and Moon Dust Press in September. It begins distributing Womancraft Publishing on February 1, 2024.

Michael Kerber, president and CEO of Red Wheel/Weiser, commented: "The acquisition of Quest Books is part of our ongoing strategy of growth through acquisition while also building on our well-established publishing program. We couple this with offering our sales and distribution expertise to independent publishers. The addition of Crossed Crow, Moon Dust, and Womancraft Publishing fits perfectly with our other distributed clients and will be welcomed by our thousands of direct customers."

At the center of the marketing team reorganization is the hiring of John Hays as the director of business development and community engagement. Most recently, he was v-p, director of sales and marketing, at Inner Traditions, where he worked for more than 14 years. At the same time, Eryn Eaton, who has been with Red Wheel/Weiser for 10 years, has been promoted to director of publicity from marketing manager.

Hays said, "I'm thrilled to join the dedicated professionals at RWW who share with me the same passion for bringing together writers, readers, and members of the spiritual community through the creation of high-quality books and card decks. It is especially exciting to come on board at this moment as we prepare for growth and expansion."

In other personnel changes, Amy Lyons will join Red Wheel/Weiser as a senior acquisitions editor, effective December 4. Lyons has more than 20 years of publishing experience and served for many years as an acquiring editor at Globe Pequot. Brittany Craig has also been promoted to associate designer, working alongside creative director Kathryn Sky-Peck.

Canadian poet and teacher Barry McKinnon, who "is being remembered as a teacher and friend who helped create a northern British Columbia literary scene, that brought internationally acclaimed poets to town while mentoring generations of new writers," died October 30, CBC News reported. He was 79. 

Born in Calgary, McKinnon moved to Montreal in 1965 to attend Sir George Williams University, then earned his master's from University of British Columbia in 1969. After graduating, he moved north to Prince George to become a founding faculty member at the newly opened College of New Caledonia. 

McKinnon published countless poems and more than 20 books and chapbooks, including Governor General's Literary Award finalist The the. (1980) and the 1992 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize winner, Pulp Log.

"But he was perhaps best known for the boisterous poetry readings he would create, bringing in visitors that over the years included Margaret Atwood, Al Purdy, Michael Ondaatje and dozens of others," CBC News wrote. 

Early in his career, McKinnon acquired two printing presses, which he used to create handset poems he gave to visitors, and to publish work written by his students. Friend and colleague John Harris said he believes that seeing their words brought to life in this way served as a source of inspiration to many of McKinnon's students: "It really involved them." 

McKinnon's son described his father as a "soft spot in a tough town," a sentiment Harris echoed.

Writer Rob McLennan wrote in his blog that it felt like McKinnon "was a poet who deserved far more attention than he received, and how moving north to Prince George to teach in 1969 put him on the outskirts of literature... despite the enormous amount of activity he encouraged, prompted and hosted during his time in the north."

Harris observed all he has to do is read one of McKinnon's poems and it feels like he is with him again: "We read his poetry and he comes right back to us."

Posted on Facebook by WordHaven BookHouse, Sheboygan, Wis.: "Being in the BookShop when everything is shut down has its own kind of magic. (And it is when the two ghosts from downstairs are allowed to roam around.)"

For the month of November, Bound to Happen Books in Stevens Point, Wis., has been hosting weekly writing meet-ups in honor of National Novel Writing Month, in which participants attempt to complete a 50,000-word novel in a single month. 

Store owner Lyn Ciurro told WSAW that all writers are welcome, even if they're not participating in NaNoWriMo. Local author Briah Hoyt (published as B.A. McRae) is hosting the meet-ups, which start at 6 p.m. on Wednesdays.

Holly LaDue has joined Phaidon as publisher of Monacelli. LaDue was formerly editorial director of Princeton Architectural Press.

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Haygood Poundstone has been named chief revenue officer for Capstone. Most recently, he was the area v-p of the East at Renaissance Learning. Earlier he worked at Capstone, where he was one of the founding employees of its business unit myON. He has more than 20 years of experience in the edtech market in business development, revenue growth, sales strategies, and operations management.

Pilgrims 2.0: A Novel by Lindsey Harding (Acre Books).

A trailer has been released for the upcoming Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, based on Rick Riordan's bestselling YA book series, Variety reported. The show, which follows a 12-year-old boy named Percy (Walker Scobell) who leads a seemingly normal life until he learns he is a half-blood (half human, half Greek god), is set to premiere December 20 on Disney+. 

The cast also features Aryan Simhadri, Leah Sava Jeffries, Virginia Kull, Glynn Turman, Jason Mantzoukas, Megan Mullay, Timm Sharp, Dior Goodjohn, Charlie Bushnell and Adam Copeland. Guest stars include Lin-Manuel Miranda, Toby Stephens, Jay Duplass, Timothy Omundson, Lance Reddick, Olivea Morton, Suzanne Cryer, and Jessica Parker Kennedy.

"Unlike with the divisive film adaptations from the 2010s that strayed from the novels, Riordan has been closely involved in the making of the Disney+ series and serves as co-writer and executive producer," Variety noted. Jon Steinberg co-wrote the pilot with Riordan, and James Bobin directed it. Steinberg and Bobin are also executive producers in addition to Dan Shotz, Bert Salke, Monica Owusu-Breen, Jim Rowe, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Jeremy Bell, D.J. Goldberg, and Rebecca Riordan.

Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant (Knopf) has won the £50,000 (about $63,150) 2023 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.

Organizers said that Fire Weather "tells the story of the devastating wildfires that struck Fort McMurray, Alberta in 2016. Triggered by high temperatures and dry conditions, the conflagration originated in the forest and proceeded to engulf half a million acres of land, including the Athabasca oil sands. This forced 90,000 people to evacuate their homes, many of which were destroyed in minutes as the flames swept through entire neighbouring communities. Through the story of the Fort McMurray wildfire, Vaillant skillfully examines the interconnected narratives of the oil industry and climate science, the immense devastation caused by modern wildfires in our increasingly more flammable world, and the lasting impact on the lives affected by these disasters."

Chair of judges Frederick Studemann said, "Fire Weather brings together a series of harrowing human stories with science and geo-economics, in an extraordinary and elegantly rendered account of a terrifying climate disaster that engulfed a community and industry, underscoring our toxic relationship with fossil fuels. Moving back and forth in time, across subjects, and from the particular to the global, this meticulously researched, thrillingly told book forces readers to engage with one of the most urgent issues of our time."

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The winners and runner ups in the 10 categories of the 2023 National Outdoor Book Awards, sponsored by the National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation, Idaho State University and the Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education, have been announced and can be seen here.

Nicholas Dames, a literary critic and scholar who lives in New York City, is a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and co-editor-in-chief of Public Books, an online magazine of arts and ideas. He writes frequently on contemporary fiction and the state of the humanities for the Atlantic, the Nation, the New Yorker, n+1, and other venues. His third book, The Chapter: A Segmented History from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, November 7, 2023), traces the development of the chapter from an editorial and scribal practice of late antiquity and early Christianity to a compositional practice of the European novel.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

My book explains why all kinds of books, but particularly novels, have chapters--and what those strange segmentations do for us, and to us.

On your nightstand now:

A stack of recent novels. On top, the British novelist Gwendoline Riley's My Phantoms. What Riley can do with dialogue has my complete attention. Next, tantalizingly, an advance copy of Lars Iyer's My Weil. I'm an admirer; Iyer's scabrous and justifiable comic misanthropy deserves to be much better known. And at the bottom, saved for a day when I can savor it, Amit Chaudhuri's Sojourn. Everything he writes is, for me, an event.

Favorite book when you were a child:

I was an early reader of adult mysteries. I had a childhood sprint through all of Agatha Christie, for instance. But my first real revelation was Ellen Raskin's 1978 middle-grade mystery The Westing Game, a brilliant quasi-modernist whodunit in which a reclusive millionaire leaves his fortune to one of the tenants of an apartment tower he'd owned--the one who can discover which of the others was his murderer. It's an ingenious puzzle, but it's also a subtle piece of social critique that taught me early lessons in what American life was--and was becoming. I reread it for an article I wrote on its 40th anniversary, and it holds up. It even feels prophetic.

Your top five authors:

As far as "top," that changes every day! But here are five for whom I feel a particular sympathy, a kind of recognition--authors whose frequency I tune into with ease. Three from the 19th century: Stendhal, Charlotte Brontë, Henry James. Two from the 20th: Penelope Fitzgerald, Muriel Spark.

Book you've faked reading:

Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, the summer I was 16, to impress a much better-read teenage crush of mine. My fakery wasn't detected. My karmic payback was to end up teaching it every year to undergraduates.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Of late, it's been Jon McGregor's Reservoir 13, so much so that I had to squeeze it into my own book. The story of a young girl's disappearance from a small English village, it's a meditation on the many different orders and rhythms of time we find ourselves stretched between. It's a one-of-a-kind hybrid of the traditionalist and the experimental.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Every single one of the Fitzcarraldo Editions books I own, in their distinctive and uniform blue. They're one of the many pleasures of book shopping in the U.K. (although you can find some of them, occasionally, in the U.S.). Elegantly unadorned, standardized covers reflect a literary culture I want to live in. I admire the designer's art. But, really, I love nothing more than an austere restriction to the title and the author's name: take the French publisher Gallimard's famous Collection Blanche, for instance, or, in Germany, the little yellow volumes of Reclam's Universal Library series. Most contemporary fiction covers these days irritate me.

Book you hid from your parents:

Those copies of Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles noir mysteries--Farewell, My Lovely, say, or The Long Goodbye--that I was told I was too young for, but took down from the shelves anyway. Streetwise, city-poisoned adults seducing, betraying, and occasionally murdering each other: What else could a kid want?

Book that changed your life:

Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. It was my first experience with the power of form in fiction. I remember pacing up and down my room in excitement over it. This, I thought, might be worth studying.

Favorite line from a book:

The final sentence of Henry James's The Wings of the Dove: "We shall never be again as we were!" In its immediate context, said by a clever and unscrupulous woman to her former lover, it's ambiguous, almost imponderable. But in a broader sense it's also remorselessly clear. It could be the last line to every novel, ever.

Five books you'll never part with:

Homer's Odyssey, a constant template for me. Jane Austen's Persuasion, another template. Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall, which never fails to cheer and console. Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady, still for me the paradigm of What A Novel Is. C.L.R. James's Beyond a Boundary, the greatest of books on sports and one of the greatest on acculturation, parts of which I've memorized through years of rereading.

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

Proust's In Search of Lost Time: I've a yearning, itself deeply Proustian, to recapture the experience of first reading it, at 20 years old, much of that marathon reading spent in a dorm single with the landline phone unplugged so nothing could interrupt me. Whenever I think of what theorists of reading call "immersion," that's the experience I summon up.

Your favorite chapter from a novel:

It's a fascinating peculiarity of chapters that one rarely remembers them as such! But I might as well go with the opinion of the Master--Henry James himself, who pointed it out in his preface to the novel: chapter 42 of The Portrait of a Lady, in which nothing (outwardly) happens. Read it and see.

The title of the story "St. Augustine Checks His Twitter Feed" tells readers a good deal of what they need to know about the English writer C.D. Rose's collection Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea. The 19 concise stories in this volume feature surrealist, metafictional and fabulist elements, and although not all succeed, there's much here that will appeal to readers who prefer short fiction of a less traditional variety.

Rose (The Biographical Dictionary of Literary Failure; Who's Who When Everyone Is Someone Else) gives a foretaste of much of what is to come in "Ognosia," the book's opener, which defies the short story convention of unity in point of view as it moves effortlessly among the perspectives of a group of characters in a hotel in an unnamed city. In "To Athens," Rose threads a lengthy sentence through a story whose paragraphs all begin with the phrase, "I have a friend" to fashion an entrancing counterpoint, while "A Brief History of the Short Story" engagingly examines the form in its French, Russian, and American iterations through a smartly linked narrative.

The St. Augustine story is a wry commentary on the allure of social media, as the cleric muses about writing what will become his Confessions and "oh, you know, the nature of suffering, evil, free will, time, the apocalypse, eternity, that kind of thing," while thinking about "changing his handle to @StAugustine_original," or wondering "why he hadn't gotten a blue checkmark."

In the titular story, the famed European intellectual Walter Benjamin has escaped to Los Angeles, where he "stares peacefully at the Pacific Ocean," acknowledging his boredom while unable to "settle for the time needed to concentrate on even the idea of a book and thinks he should try instead to finish the many things he has started." But in a story like "Henri Bergson Writes About Time," depicting the French philosopher at his desk reflecting on how "the past gets bigger, the future, like the dwindling spool, worryingly smaller" as he recalls an encounter with Albert Einstein, Rose shows he can write with emotional resonance.

He's heir to the tradition of short story writers like Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino, and shares some of the sensibility of their contemporary counterparts like Steven Millhauser, Jim Shepard, and Aimee Bender. Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea isn't necessarily tailored to appeal to a wide audience, but appreciative readers will find ample enjoyment here. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: Adventuresome readers will enjoy this hard-to-pigeonhole collection of 19 short stories.

Thanksgiving is next week. We will have normal hours except for on Thursday, November 23rd when we will be closed. If you need cookbooks for inspiration or gifts for your hosts or self care gifts if this will be a tough day for you, we have you covered. Thank you for making this place feel alive with joy and gratitude.

--Wild Geese Bookshop, Franklin, Ind.

At Our Town Books, Jacksonville, Ill.

It's strange that the upcoming holiday break is still called Thanksgiving Weekend, when for indie retailers Thursday is only a warmup act before sh*t gets crazy in all the usual ways--and a few unanticipated new ones--as the holiday season shifts into warp speed with Black Friday, Plaid Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and more.

For booksellers, whose stores are mostly closed for Thanksgiving, the day can be complicated. The family gathers, with relatives and friends enjoying a long weekend off while you worry if you've ordered enough copies of this year's National Book Award winners; or chart Weather Channel storm patterns on your phone (weather being a critical ingredient in your weekend's success); or rework the staff schedule again and again in your  head, hoping you've got enough sales floor coverage so customers are as overwhelmed with great service as you will be with the crowds. 

By Thursday night, when everybody's wrapping up leftovers or dozing through final bad football games, you'll still be thinking about last minute tasks and everything that might go wrong. The stakes are high. Really high. 

At Neighborly Books, Maryville, Tenn.

In a column I wrote 15 years ago, when Black Friday was king of the weekend, I suggested the day after Thanksgiving should be rechristened Gray Friday, which would more accurately reflect the uncertainty of the upcoming retail holiday season during an economic meltdown. Not much has changed since then except the weekend's stakes, which if anything are even higher.

Actually, it's all a bit weird for me because before I entered the book trade three decades ago, I'd spent about 15 years in the retail grocery business, where all of the pressure was on the days before Thanksgiving. Grocery stores are jammed with customers wondering (yelling, to be more accurate), among an infinite number of other complaints, why they're getting a 20-pound turkey when they clearly remembered ordering a 25-pounder. And how can the store be out of fresh cranberries on Thanksgiving eve at 9 p.m.? 

But this is now, a few days out from the maelstrom of bookselling's holiday season opening weekend. 'Tis the nights before and all through the bookshops, not a creature is stirring... (well, that's not really true, is it?). There's relative quiet for the moment, however; perhaps even a chance, now and then, to revel in the anticipation and, yes, even give thanks where thanks is due. 

Among indie booksellers pausing to enjoy the moment as they prepare was the Bookworm, Bernardsville, N.J., whose recent sidewalk chalkboard message ("Give thanks for great books") got me thinking a bit more about the spirit of giving thanks this coming week, no matter how shady the historical implications of the holiday may be. I've noticed several indies sharing their holiday season anticipation vibes, including:

Children's Book World, Los Angeles, Calif.: "ONE WEEK UNTIL THANKSGIVING. Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Fill the day with thankful thoughts, full bellies, and fun Thanksgiving picture books!"

At the Nature of Reading

The Nature of Reading, Madison, N.J.: "The holidays are slowly arriving here at The Nature of Reading! While you'll still find the store in its autumn glory, we'll be adding in more items for the holiday season as we move closer to winter."

Novelette Booksellers, Nashville, Tenn.: "Hi hi! We are closed today! We have some holiday prep to do and are getting a lil rest in to join in the holiday spirit after a busy couple months busting our a$$es. We'll be back open Thursday morning, tysm for your support besties."

Duck's Cottage Coffee & Books, Duck, N.C.: "It's beginning to look a lot like... we're ready for the #holidays! Let the #christmas shopping begin!"

The Thinking Spot, Wayzata, Minn.: "Our *Thanking Tree* is up! This Thanking Season, I'm grateful for my Book Club Buddies! They not only helped me put up the tree but over the past year, have handled the store, handled a popup, provided amazing book recommendations, made connections, helped with inventory true-up, and generally jumped in wherever I needed help! And best of all, they've been the most amazing and fun reading partners. I don't have a picture of all of you but you know who you are--*THANK YOU ALL* Looking forward to another year of amazing reads! Add a *leaf* to our Thanking Tree and tell us what you're grateful for this season--next time you're at The Spot!"

At the Bookworm, Bernardsville, N.J.

Regarding the historical baggage Thanksgiving Day still carries, Room of One's Own bookstore, Madison, Wis., is sharing a Thanksgiving Reading Decolonized list, noting: "We're not actually celebrating pilgrims and colonization anymore, right? Right?! Here are some things to consider reading this month!... These are by no means the only titles to read, just drops in the bucket of the bounty we are blessed with. Thankful to you and to every Indigenous voice."

Thanks and giving are good words separately, however. A gathering of friends and/or family around a dinner table for any reason is cause for celebration. And I'm still grateful for the opportunity to work in the book industry, where the terrain seems to shift with every step, sharpening our focus on a lifelong quest for the right words. So, a few days in advance, let me just say... thanks.