Pat Light is the new owner of Ouray Books, Ouray, Colo., which re-opened earlier this month in a new space at 229 Sixth Ave. The Ouray County Plaindealer reported that Light purchased the business from previous owners Amy and Brian Exstrum, who had put their bookshop up for sale in 2023, but "while it was under contract for sale to a potential buyer last summer, that deal fell through. Before it all came together for Light to be the next owner, it looked like the shop would close, without a new home or proprietor."

Loki at the new Ouray Books location.

Light recalled that he was half-joking when he yelled, "If someone else doesn't buy the bookshop, I'll buy it," to his neighbors last year, but a last-minute series of events made it possible for him to purchase the business. "We threw a little bit of a Hail Mary," he said. "That ball was in the air for a long time and it was a long throw." The last-minute scramble is one he refers to as "a happy memory now, but it was hell at the time." 

Financing came together from both a small-business loan and private financing from a bookshop supporter who came to offer help at the last author event the previous owners hosted at the Wright Opera House in February, the Plaindealer wrote. This was only a week before the bookshop had to vacate its former space at the Beaumont Hotel, due to losing its long-term lease after the hotel was purchased by new owners.

While Ouray Books is in a different space, the selection is familiar and Light has kept the look and feel of the shop consistent, including the same staff members. He said he is looking forward to creating a space that's inclusive and meaningful for the community.

Proposed model for Rohi's new location

Rohi's Readery, West Palm Beach, Fla., which opened in 2021 at CityPlace downtown with a focus on diversity and inclusion, is expanding to a larger location in the Northwest Historic District, a predominantly Black neighborhood in the northwestern side of the downtown area, WLRN reported. 

Owner Pranoo Kumar said that the new, 1,600-square-foot, Rohi's Readery and  Rohi's Liberation Station will be located in Styx Promenade between Rosemary Avenue and Sapodilla Avenue, directly across the street from Heart and Soul Park and the Historic Sunset Lounge, a renovated jazz venue. 

"The two buildings and its two courtyards will serve as a retail space and the other space will serve as a flex space, which will include free educational programming, offering early childhood, adults and financial literacy programs," WLRN noted.

"When I think of Liberation Station, I think of it as a physical space where people can just feel seen, feel valued, but also are able to just breathe and be," she added.

Kumar noted that her "social-justice driven bookstore" is growing as it continues to include books that spotlight historically marginalized communities, untold stories by Black, Hispanic, LGBTQ+, and immigrants. An education consultant who is of Indian descent, she said the bookshop and art workspace is garnering community and fundraising support ahead of its plan to submit a July update to city officials on the new location, which is funded through the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Her work to expand her bookstore comes at a time when Florida continues to lead the effort nationwide to ban books from public school libraries. Kumar is still grappling with those who disapprove of her need to infuse cultural competency in her lessons and shop, experiencing a "fair share of death threats, negative comments, e-mails," she said. "As a human, I would be remiss if I didn't say that it does bring a level of fear. But I also really channel the strength of my ancestors and those who've come before us who have been doing this work so unapologetically and with harsher consequences."

Noting that "the damage is done" because there is a level of fear in the air over the use of words that imply anything to do with race and identity in various educational spaces outside of the school, Kumar said, "We have developed over 175 partnerships in the past three years. Certain partnerships with organizations that now are not allowed to use certain words like 'diversity, equity, inclusion,' anti-racism work, even the word liberation."

Parents often come to her bookstore in search of banned books. "These books are liberatory books. That's what I say when people come in here and they ask, 'can I see what a banned book looks like?' " That "reframes" the conversation to feel more accessible, she noted.

Exile in Bookville in Chicago, Ill., has partnered with independent publisher Two Dollar Radio to create a line of merchandise featuring designs by Larry Law, illustrator and executive director of the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association. The Exile Radio Collection debuted for Independent Bookstore Day with T-shirts and hoodies.

Gus Moreno (author of This Thing Between Us) and Javier Ramirez showing off the merch.

"We see it as a natural extension of our enduring friendship and mutual appreciation for literature," said Eric Obenauf, director of Two Dollar Radio, "from two businesses that are expanding the idea of how a traditional publisher or bookseller might operate."

"Music and books hold an agreeable symmetry," said Javier Ramirez and Kristin Enola Gilbert, co-owners of Exile in Bookville. "Hell, we even named our store after Liz Phair's album Exile in Guyville. When we opened our store, we took Hans Weyandt's words to heart: 'It's your store, do all the weird things that people you worked for before said wouldn't work. Just be f--king weird.' We found our weird lifemates in Two Dollar Radio and Larry Law."

The idea arose at GLIBA's spring forum in 2023, which took place at Two Dollar Radio's headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, where it also operates a bookstore. Inspiration came from streetwear and skate companies that create custom apparel in partnership with brands and personalities.

"GLIBA's mission is to help booksellers, forge partnerships, and promote the Great Lakes as a vital marketplace," said Law. "This collaboration achieves all that while creating something cool. I was excited to work on this project. For me, Exile and Two Dollar epitomize what it means to be indie in the Midwest. They have heart, they have hustle, they deeply care about the region they live in, and they share a punk spirit which I hold dear."

On the topic of additional merchandise, Ramirez said, "I'd really love to do sneakers.... We've also discussed hats, playing cards, and beanies."

The Booksellers Association of the U.K. & Ireland and the Publishers Association have set out their priorities for the incoming government after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a general election for July 4. The Bookseller reported that the arts, education and library funding, rates and wider taxation, as well as action on artificial intelligence and copyright "are likely to be high up the trade's agenda over the next six weeks. There will also be an impact on books publishing over the next six weeks, with publishers likely to scrutinize schedules closely."

BA managing director Meryl Halls said: "The BA is pleased to see a general election called and a move towards more stability and certainty for the business community, and in our relations with government and officials. We will be continuing to drive our call for fundamental business rates reform, an improved system of checks and balances on the digital giants, to allow SME and specialist growth and innovation, and are supportive of the work done by the PA on AI and the crucial importance of protecting copyright.

"In the retail space, we will be pressing all parties for an urgent look at retail crime, at valuing the contribution of retail to GDP and to the health of town centers, to ensure our high streets are able to thrive--and pressing home the outsized contribution made by bookshops of all sizes in this regard.

"We'll shortly be publishing a report into the social and cultural impact of bookshops, the better to illustrate the halo effect of bookshops on their communities. We'll also be encouraging our bookshop members to engage with their local parliamentary candidates, and helping booksellers to emphasize what a force for good bookshops are."

PA CEO Dan Conway commented, in part: "Our asks of the incoming government are clear: ensure that AI growth does not come at the expense of intellectual property and human creativity; proudly uphold the U.K.'s copyright framework as a driver of creativity, research and innovation; axe the final taxes on reading and learning; restore an open and fair market for education resources; and invest in libraries and literacy.

"We will work to show politicians on all sides the publishing industry's economic value to the UK, as well as its huge cultural and academic importance in inspiring the next generation of readers and learners. If we want a society that is literate, well-informed by trusted content and fiercely openly democratic, then the publishing sector needs to be a cornerstone of any government's future plans."

--- 

Emelie Porsack

As part of its "Bookshops as welcoming and inclusive spaces" campaign, RISE Bookselling is spotlighting booksellers "who are going above and beyond to make their shop a true welcoming space." Recently Emelie Porsack from the diversity taskforce at Börsenverein, the German book industry association, discussed how their bookshops make people feel at ease and welcome. Among the highlights:

"By working in a bookshop and recommending books, I can open new worlds and topics to someone. I can help other people to feel safe in a world where not everyone is respectful or understanding. Not everyone has the privilege of having a supporting family or friends. It can be hard to be on your own with questions, issues or thoughts. Books can play a big part in supporting someone, with information or sometimes just with distraction.  
  
"When I founded the 'taskforce diversity' as a part of young upcoming booksellers at Börsenverein, I wanted to raise some awareness about diversity as part of the bookish community. Some people asked, 'if' or 'why' we still need to talk about 'stuff like that.' But I like to answer that the key lies behind the small word 'how': How can we include everyone? How can we support a diverse community? How do we want to live together, besides our differences? Bookshops can take part in opinion-forming....

"In books someone can share ideas or thoughts and others can read them, maybe reflect on them. By visiting a bookshop someone can encounter so many different topics, people and ideas. In my opinion that's one of the most important traits for coming together and becoming part of an open-minded community."

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Bookseller moment at the English Bookshop, Uppsala, Sweden: "Did you know that we have our own little reading nook just outside the shop? It's part of the Summer street, and is a lovely little haven. Buy a book and something good to drink (from the tea shop across the street or from one of the nearby cafes), have a seat and enjoy!" --Robert Gray

To celebrate 75 years of the National Book Awards, the National Book Foundation has launched its first Summer Reading Adventure for adults 18 and older "to lean into the nostalgic, prize-filled fun of summer reading."

Reading activities include visiting a local bookstore or library and asking for a recommendation; re-reading a favorite book from childhood; listening to an audiobook; reading a book in an unfamiliar genre; attending a literary event in person or online; and more.

Participants who complete any of the activities will be entered to win books, hats, ice cream, reusable water bottles, and more. Participants who complete all the activities will be entered to win the grand prize--a trip to New York to the National Book Awards ceremony November 20 with airfare, hotel, and two tickets included. Everyone who submits the Adventure online or via mail by August 31 will receive Bookshop.org and Libro.fm discount codes.

Information is available online in English, Spanish, and Mandarin as well as available in person at some New York Public Library branches in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island. The Foundation will share participants' adventures on its social platforms, with most of the action on Instagram @nationalbookfoundation.

Barnes & Noble has chosen You Are Here by David Nicholls (Harper) as its June national book club pick. In a live virtual event, on Tuesday, July 2, at 3 p.m. Eastern, Nicholls will be in conversation with Lexie Smyth, category manager for fiction at B&N, and Marie Cummings-Hendry, publisher liaison, B&N.

"I think it's safe to say that readers fell in love with David Nicholls all over again with this spring's adaptation of his beloved novel, One Day," Smyth said. She called You Are Here "an inspiring and heartwarming story of two people who have lost their way after life knocked them off course, and the unexpected journey that brings them back to each other--and back to themselves. I couldn't help but delight in our story's imperfect protagonists and the gorgeous English countryside. I know our readers will find much to talk about within this book, and its reminder that it is never too late to change your life."

For more information, click here.

"Poppy Books just got a little brighter!! We are so so grateful for @jess.smart.smiley designing and doing this mural for us!! It is so joyful! There are so many little things to look at (very on brand for us) so be sure to stop by and give it a good look!" Poppy Books & Gifts, Spanish Fork, Utah, posted on Instagram.

Sara High has been promoted to the newly created role of v-p, director of international and Canada sales at Hachette Book Group.

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Jennifer Ridgway has returned to the Crown Publishing Group as director, sales marketing.

Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit by Josh Hicks (Graphic Universe).

Today:
Fresh Air: Andre Dubus III, author of Ghost Dogs: On Killers and Kin (W.W. Norton, $28.99, 9781324000440).

Science Friday: Zoë Schlanger, author of The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth (Harper, $29.99, 9780063073852).

PBS Masterpiece has released a trailer for Moonflower Murders, the second Anthony Horowitz adaptation of his bestselling Susan Ryeland/Atticus Pünd mystery novel series and a sequel to Magpie Murders. The new series premieres September 15 on Masterpiece, with the six episodes airing Sundays until October 20.

Lesley Manville and Tim McMullan return to lead the cast that features Alexandros Logothetis, Daniel Mays, Claire Rushbrook, Conleth Hill, Matthew Beard, and Sanjeev Kohli. New cast members include Mark Gatiss, Rosalie Craig, Pippa Bennett-Warner, and Adrian Rawlins.

The Orwell Foundation has released this year's finalists for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction as well as the Orwell Prize for Political Writing (nonfiction), both of which award £3,000 (about $3,820) to the winner and recognize works that strive to meet Orwell's own ambition "to make political writing into an art." The winners will be named June 27. Shortlists for all four Orwell Prize categories are available here. The book finalists are:

Political Writing 
Eve by Cat Bohannon 
The Achilles Trap by Steve Coll 
Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad by Daniel Finkelstein 
The Picnic by Matthew Longo 
Revolutionary Acts by Jason Okundaye 
The Incarcerations by Alpa Shah 
We Are Free to Change the World by Lyndsey Stonebridge 
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama by Nathan Thrall 
Our Enemies will Vanish by Yaroslav Trofimov 

Political Fiction 
Ocean Stirrings by Merle Collins 
James by Percival Everett 
Orbital by Samantha Harvey 
My Friends by Hisham Matar 
Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan 
Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan 
The Future Future by Adam Thirlwell 
Blackouts by Justin Torres 

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The winners of the IndieReader Discovery Awards, sponsored by IndieReader, have been announced. Winners in the many categories can be seen here. The winners of the fiction and nonfiction categories are:

Fiction:
First Place: Lightning Bugs and Aliens: A Small Town Coming-of-Age Story by Daniel Babka
Second Place: Vessels of Wrath by Thomas Holland
Third Place: Marriage and Hanging by Genevieve Morrissey

Nonfiction:
First Place: The Santa Book: A True Story by Erin Eby
Second Place: Nurture: How to Raise Kids Who Love Food, Their Bodies, and Themselves by Heidi Schauster
Third Place: A Cup of Tea on the Commode: My Multi-Tasking Adventures of Caring for Mom, and How I Survived to Tell the Tale by Mark Steven Porro

photo: Kenzi Crash

Emma Copley Eisenberg is the author of the hybrid nonfiction book The Third Rainbow Girl, which was a New York Times Notable book and Editor's Choice of 2020, and was nominated for an Edgar Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and an Anthony Award, among other honors. Her new book, Housemates (Hogarth, May 28, 2024), is a road trip novel of love, friendship, and chosen family in a fractured America.

Handsell readers your book:

If you like books about falling in love with your housemate (gay chaos!), living in a fat body, film photography, or Philadelphia; if you can possibly remember what 2018 America felt like before we knew how much worse it would get; if you like fiction that's a little gossipy and a little sad or are interested in structurally complex novels--Housemates might be for you.

On your nightstand now:

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July (a reread; all the characters sound the same and all of them are perfect. I just love living in July's bonkers smart and sexy mind).

Dead Weight: Essays on Hunger and Harm by Emmeline Clein (come for the Marissa Cooper/The OC discourse, stay for the astute analysis of the diet industrial complex).

Favorite book when you were a child:

I was an Ella Enchanted (by Gail Carson Levine) girly. I just couldn't get enough of the fun and frolicking, not to mention the fine insights into obedience and rule breaking.

Your top five authors:

Grace Paley, James Baldwin, Miranda July, Marcy Dermansky, Susan Choi.

Book you've faked reading:

Too many recent ones to name by too many lovely people. A few other writer friends and I have adopted the saying "great book, didn't read it" for books we've been meaning to get to.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Brother & Sister Enter the Forest by Richard Mirabella. Why aren't there more novels that probe the wild joys and horrors of having a sibling? Why aren't there more books that actually render what trauma feels like as it marinates in its own juices over time? Mirabella does both here, and it wrecked me.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Piglet by Lottie Hazell (those cheeseburgers!)

Book you hid from your parents:

Sophie's Choice by William Styron. Unpopular/strange opinion for the Jew that I am: this is a book that is less about the Holocaust than it is about being horny. Stingo overhears--and then partakes in--sex that animates his changing understanding of the world. Steamy!

Book that changed your life:

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. To trace the impulse of me seeing good writing and thinking I want to do that is to trace it right back to McCullers's devastating howl of a novel that is about nothing less than how people love and fail to love each other. It should be hyperbole to say this book is the way I see the world, but it is not!!

Favorite line from a book:

"I want, for instance, to be a different person." --Grace Paley

Five books you'll never part with:

Problems by Jade Sharma, All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee, Sarahland by Sam Cohen.

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

Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson. There was something about the way this book unspools that is so special and will never come again.

Kailee Pedersen's debut novel, Sacrificial Animals, is a lyrical and unsettling supernatural horror-thriller about the violent legacy of one Midwestern family. When Nick Morrow reluctantly returns to his abusive father's home, he must face not only the memories of his past, but also his brother, Joshua. Yet what none of them expects is that the real reckoning at hand may not be with the father both brothers obsess over, but with Joshua's enigmatic and alluring wife.

Second son Nick doesn't believe a deathbed reconciliation with his brutal father, Carlyle, is possible. But when Carlyle's estranged favorite, firstborn son Joshua, decides to return despite having been disinherited years ago for marrying an Asian woman, Emilia, Nick can't resist the summons. He's surprised to find Emilia is as young and beautiful as ever, and Joshua, whom his father seeks to reestablish as his heir, is still as easily swayed by his father's favor. The longer Nick stays, the more his childhood memories haunt him. And as his attraction to Emilia grows into an affair, he entangles himself further into the family history he wanted to escape. Emilia's ominous beauty simmers beneath it all, her eerie calm hinting that her seduction hides something menacing.

Pedersen's prose is both poetic and raw. The novel has the cadence of a classical tragedy while being addictively propulsive. Nick's melancholic memories paint a vivid picture of a life that is frost-bitten, wood-splintered, and full of a tightly maintained rage. Yet there's a tenderness, too, in Nick's memories of his short-lived affair with classmate Henry and his longing for more gentleness in a world of grit. Sacrificial Animals is extraordinary for its illumination of unexpected empathy, and it suggests that the catharsis of vindication is never simple.

Based in part on the mythos of the American Midwest and in part on Chinese mythology, Sacrificial Animals infuses the fading, sepia-toned image of an American family saga with a more complex understanding. At first glance, Nick, Joshua, and Carlyle form a holy trinity of white male angst, but Emilia's magnetic presence disrupts their cycle of martyrdom. She claims the role of agent of destruction, making their downfall less predictable if no less inevitable. This is perhaps the best part of this genre-bending literary novel: the experience of reading it is as variable as it is fated. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor

Shelf Talker: A genre mashup of Chinese mythology, supernatural horror, thriller, and Midwestern family drama, Sacrificial Animals is a breathtaking upending of the American family saga.

When I think about short fiction, it's not just great collections that come to mind, but particular stories. I can summon titles that open again in my memory like fans: Grace Paley's "Wants," James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues," Colum McCann's "Fishing the Sloe-Black River," Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing," Jim Shepard's "Batting Against Castro," T.C. Boyle's "Beat," Yasunari Kawabata's "First Snow on Fuji," Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl." We don't memorize short stories like we do poems, but something tangible, recoverable, does linger from the stories that strike us most deeply. 

May is Short Story Month, and while it doesn't get the press attention that Poetry Month does, many bookshops do create displays, including Wellesley Books, Wellesley, Mass.: "Don't let it slip by without trying one of these collections of gems. There are so many reasons to love the short story and there are just as many masters of the genre on our display."

Or they share their enthusiasm for the form on social media as Stories Like Me, Pittsburgh, Pa., did: "We'll keep this short: read more short stories! Need a recommendation for Short Story Month? We've got 'em!"

Or maybe a bookshop's owner, someone like author Emma Straub of Books Are Magic, Brooklyn, N.Y., pays tribute to an iconic short story writer: "I started reading Alice Munro because Lorrie Moore told me to, a good reason to do anything. A Canadian goddess with a voice like a laser beam. Funny, heart wrenching, and true. Thank god she left us with so much to read. We've got them waiting for you. Rest in peace, Alice Munro, and thank you." 

When she was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in fiction, Munro, who died May 13, said, "I would really hope this would make people see the short story as an important art, not just something you played around with until you got a novel."

Alice Munro at the original Munro's Books (photo courtesy Munro's Books)

Strangely enough, I found myself wondering this week what Alice's handselling technique for story collections might have been when she worked as a bookseller. In 1963, she and her then husband, Jim Munro, founded Munro's Books in Victoria, B.C. Legend has it that Alice began writing after she had read books in the shop and thought: "I can write better books than this." The reality is that she published her first story more than a decade before that. Still, there is this great photo of Alice behind the counter. I like to think she's trying to figure out how to handsell a story collection to that customer.

The Munros divorced in 1972, but Jim continued to run the bookshop until his retirement in 2014. He died in 2016. Earlier this month, Munro's Books marked Alice's passing with a tribute that said, in part: "Long before she went on to change the landscape of fiction at large, a young Alice was planting the seeds of literature here in Victoria. In 1951, she married Jim Munro, gaining the surname that would follow her into fame. Twelve years later, Munro's Books opened at its original location on Yates Street. A photo from that period shows a young clerk looking up from a cluttered front desk to chat with an elderly customer. Her smile is warm, her gaze alert despite the trifecta of childcare, writing, and store duties that flooded her daily life. She is Alice in her element: a writer among books.... 

"[T]he pleasures of bookselling found their way into Alice's fiction, too; one story even casts a neighborhood bookshop as 'what a cabin in the woods might be to somebody else--a refuge and a justification.' What greater gift than to see our 'cabin in the woods' thus described by the words of the writer who helped lay its groundwork?"

Despite the honors and attention bestowed upon her, Munro "never stopped championing the ordinary lives of girls and women--or the undersung form of the short story, whose depths she plumbed again and again to astonishing effect," the bookshop noted.

How long is a short story? This was one of the first questions I was asked when I led a discussion group on reading stories back in the 1990s. It was a good, honest question from a book lover. I wouldn't say I answered it ("long enough" might have worked), but the group's exploration yielded hints of how great--if not how long--a story could be. We began with resistance to the call of the story, but they were still willing to show up for the meetings and our subsequent readings and conversations may even have changed--or tempered--a few of their objections to the form. 

I remember having success handselling Robert Olen Butler's collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, but I might have used some bookseller magic tricks (Pulitzer Prize winner, reads like a novel, etc.). The paperback edition did not even use the word stories on the cover beneath the title, which was a magic trick, too. 

What did I read during Short Story Month this year? On vacation in North Carolina, I stopped by Malaprop's Bookstore in Asheville and bought Table for Two by Amor Towles, which is labeled "fictions" rather than stories (but IYKYK). It's quite wonderful. I'm also loving Terese Svoboda's new collection, The Long Swim. 

Whether you're a bookseller or a reader who loves short stories, however, convincing customers and friends to read a collection can be challenging. The standard response is: "I don't read short stories." The standard reasoning: "When I read a book, I want to be completely immersed in the plot and characters, and let them take me away. Stories end too soon." Here's what they don't want to hear: "You might be reading the wrong stories."

I love good short stories because I love good writing. Seems simple enough.