On Wednesday afternoon in New Orleans, La., ABA's Children's Institute held the final keynote of the three-day conference: a conversation between authors Rex Ogle and Mark Oshiro, moderated by Kai Burner, assistant manager and children's and gift buyer of the Bookworm of Edwards, Edwards, Colo. Ogle is the author of Free Lunch (Norton Young Readers), which won the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award, as well as the companion titles Punching Bag and Road Home; Mark Oshiro is the bestselling and award-winning Latinx queer author of Anger Is a Gift as well as several middle-grade books and The Sun and the Star, co-authored with Rick Riordan. Oshiro's Jasmine Is Haunted (Starscape), a middle-grade novel about ghosts and grief, comes out October 1.

Mark Oshiro, Kai Burner, and Rex Ogle

Burner started the conversation with a challenge for Ogle and Oshiro: pitch your book in 15 seconds or less. Ogle aimed his face down to child height and began: "Road Home is a true story about my dad kicking me out for being gay and the three months I was homeless afterward. It's a difficult read and... um um um, buy it!" Oshiro said his pitch is "the code word that activates sleeper agents": "It's gay ghostbusters."

Jasmine Is Haunted is a very grounded ghost story, Burner noted, and focuses on real feelings and real struggles. What inspired it? "An incredibly grounded and real moment in a school visit," Oshiro said. "I was in the middle of virtual school visits when my second book came out. And kids are very nosy, so these kids had decided to research me." The students had scrolled so far back in his Instagram that they saw pictures of his boyfriend who had passed away the year before. "They asked me to talk about my boyfriend and I froze and started crying.... At the end of the visit, one of the kids asked, 'Why don't we talk about this stuff?' " Oshiro left thinking, "Why don't we talk about this stuff?"

On the note of "this stuff," Burner turned to Ogle. "I know that Road Home has been a very long time coming for you. It's the close of a trilogy. What gave you the drive to sit down and write it?" Ogle, who came from a trailer park in Texas--"rough childhood, poverty, domestic violence"--always wanted to be a writer. But he never wanted to write his own story; books were supposed to be an escape, not an embarrassing deep dive into his emotional state. "I eventually watched the first episode of Ryan Murphy's Pose, though, and I started bawling. I felt this visceral reaction." That night he wrote an essay that eventually became Road Home--a title he published after first "convincing" Norton to let him write Free Lunch and Punching Bag. "Free Lunch came out and I did all these school visits. Kids would say they read my book, that they're living with poverty or domestic violence, or that they're queer. They said, 'your book makes me feel seen.' I didn't realize that books had that impact. To have these kids contact me blew my mind."

"All of us," Burner noted, "know the lines between fiction and nonfiction can get blurry." Did that happen for Ogle and Oshiro here? Ogle mentioned that people ask if he got closure from writing Free Lunch. "NO," he said emphatically, "But when I finished and I got the book in my hand, this huge weight was lifted off of me. I realized all that stuff happened 25 years ago--it's done, I survived, and now I've trapped it in a book. Ha!"

"I was also a homeless teenager," Oshiro said. "I was also rejected by my parents because I was queer. But I chose to write about myself in fiction, partly because I felt the same as Rex--no one wants to read about this." Into the Light, Oshiro said, is "almost 100% real." But he doesn't think he could have written it as a memoir--"the reality was too dark," there had to be some fictional element to keep the work engaging and exciting. "Then I read yours, Rex, and was like, 'Goddammit!' "

Kai Burner chats with Rex Ogle and Mark Oshiro at the final Ci keynote.

The darkness in literature for kids and teens became a focus for the rest of the authors' conversation. "We write books because of the pain of being invisible, the pain of your parents rejecting you," Ogle said. "I was homeless here in New Orleans and coming back here has not been the funnest experience. Y'all are super fun. But I cried in my shower for 45 minutes." Books that include the dark, discuss grief, and comment on trauma are important because, he said, they "bring awareness. I think at the end of the day we're starting conversations that let kids know they can talk about this stuff." Oshiro added, "Grief is always isolating. It's striking how we deal with grief in this country, like you should just get over it." Oshiro wanted to write about a child who was isolated by grief and constant moves, but who comes to find community. "I loved having the chance to write these kids who don't quite understand each other at first but slowly realize they have a shared language and shared experience."

Ogle expressed that being homeless is also very isolating. And, when he did get his feet under him, he had "no friends, no family, a new place at the University of Texas...." Then Ogle discovered BookPeople in Austin, Tex. "Any time I wasn't working, I was at BookPeople. I chatted with anyone who would chat with me and I kind of cruised the gay section. I looked for community, I looked for connection, and I found it in that silly little gay section from 1997. Over the years, I have accrued found family and I don't believe any longer that family is blood."

The conversation closed with a discussion about books like those that Ogle and Oshiro write being under attack. Oshiro said he maintained a somewhat manic optimism: "This is cyclical. This is not going to last. It can't last forever." And, he said, his favorite way to deal with book bans is "malicious compliance." He said, "I met these kids whose district initiated one of the reporting procedures. So the kids in that school reported all of their textbooks.... They got the Bible taken out of the library, which is the funniest joke of all time." Ogle, who is from Texas, said his approach has become something his abuela always said: "kill them with kindness." He admitted that it took him a long time to get to this place but now, "if someone is gonna call me a faggot, I'm going to offer to buy them a coffee and have a chat."

Oshiro and Ogle closed by expressing extreme gratitude, both pointing out this was their first-ever keynote. "It means a lot to us that you brought us," Oshiro said. "I have a Xanax in my pocket because I get really nervous," Ogle said. "For the last three days, you have shown me so much love, I didn't need it."

At the very end of the keynote, ABA's Joy Dallanegra-Sanger took the stage to make two major announcements. The first was that, as the 2024 election approaches, the ABA has begun a new partnership with the League of Women Voters. The second was that the 2025 Children's Institute will be held from June 12 to June 14 in Portland, Ore. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness

Jen Lemberger and Greg Feitt are the new owners of Chaucer's Books, Santa Barbara, Calif., after purchasing the bookstore from founder Mahri Kerley, who opened the shop in 1974 and has run it ever since, the Santa Barbara Independent reported, adding that Lemberger and Feitt "not only know the shop well, but also fell in love between the shelves nearly 20 years ago."

Although the ownership change is bittersweet due to its falling just before the bookshop's 50th anniversary in November, for Kerley it "is a fitting next step to keeping the legacy of the shop she opened up almost by accident all those years ago. And for Feitt, a longtime Chaucer's employee who has worked his way up to general manager, and now co-owner, it's a lifelong dream come true," the Independent wrote.

"It's great having survived all the change. I've been doing it for 50 years," Kerley said, adding that she is pleased the shop won't be going anywhere anytime soon. "That's why I'm so happy to sell to somebody who grew up with the store. It definitely was important that it be owned by somebody who understood Chaucer's."

Feitt and Lemberger met as part-time employees at Chaucer's, where Feitt began working in 2004. Lemberger, who joined the staff in 2005, said Feitt caught her eye early on. In 2006, they started dating, and have been together ever since.

"We've both always been book nerds. Our homes have always had overflowing shelves and piles of books," Lemberger said, noting that they "deeply believe reading and literacy are instrumental for creating empathy, curiosity, well-being, sense of belonging, and general individual and community success."

Feitt became the shop's book buyer and general manager in 2017, and throughout their time working together as booksellers, the couple had a lingering thought: Wouldn't it be amazing if we could own the place?

"Realizing a dream is great, but in reality, there are the logistics, the contracts, the financing, etc.," Feitt said. "We wanted to make sure throughout the process that we could actually fiscally do this, but also reassure Mahri that we weren't looking at this as coming in and taking over.... Chaucer's is a community institution, and we want it to continue as such and continue her legacy. So, while we have ideas and tweaks for the future, Chaucer's will remain Chaucer's."

The new owners said they are excited to serve the community with the same offerings Chaucer's has always provided. "Reading and learning and curiosity and comfort and new experiences and the windows and mirrors of stories are so important," Feitt said. "Being able to connect a person to that one book is an amazing thing to be able to do day in and day out. If we can do that while also fostering relationships with our schools, nonprofits, local authors, and greater reading community, it's a pretty perfect profession."

Powell's Books, Portland, Ore., is returning to Portland International Airport with the approval of a seven-year lease, KGW reported, adding that the bookseller had operated a retail bookshop at PDX for more than 30 years before closing it during the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020. The new store will be located in the South Hall of the airport, immediately after the Concourse B and C security checkpoint.

"Since the day we closed our airport store almost four years ago, the most common question from shoppers has been, 'Will Powell's be returning to PDX?' Today I'm very excited to finally answer yes!" said Powell's Books CEO Patrick Bassett. "We always hoped to return to PDX and now with the main terminal expansion we are thrilled to serve travelers through our world-renowned airport."

Powell's plans to open a temporary kiosk shop in late summer 2024 when the new main terminal opens, followed by a nearly 2,000-square-foot retail space once construction is complete on the outer wings of the terminal. This will be Powell's fourth store in the Portland area, joining the flagship on Burnside St., the Hawthorne Blvd. bookstore, and the Cedar Hills Crossing shop in Beaverton.

"Through every stage of this project, supporting local businesses and giving travelers more of what they love about PDX has been our primary goal," said Kaitlin Hunter, senior manager of concessions at the Port of Portland. "All 21--now 22--of the shops and restaurants opening in the new main terminal are local brands, and it's special that travelers will get to experience such an iconic part of our city right at the airport." 

Nightfall Books, a general-interest bookstore with titles for all ages, has opened in downtown Bainbridge, Ga., the Post-Searchlight reported.

Located at 214 E. Walter St., the shop carries a wide-ranging inventory, with a section that highlights books set in Georgia and by Georgia authors. There is a dedicated children's room as well as a manga section, and in addition to books, Nightfall carries sidelines like clothing, puzzles, and art supplies.

Owner Kendyl Peak held a soft opening for the store this week and has a grand opening set for this coming Friday. Peak told the Post-Searchlight that the community's response has been very encouraging. "Everyone's really been impressed and excited about having a bookstore in Bainbridge. I haven't heard anything negative. Everyone seems to be very positive about it."

Authors Equity, the new, "fully author-centric" publishing house founded in March by former PRH and Macmillan executives Madeline McIntosh, Don Weisberg, and Nina von Moltke, has released information about its first 10 titles. (The majority of investment funding for Authors Equity has come from authors, including James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, and Louise Penny, author of the Inspector Gamache mystery series. The house aims to be joint partners with authors throughout the publishing process.)

As the company noted, "When we launched, many speculated who our 'typical' authors would be. As it turns out, there is no single type. As individuals in publishing, we've worked across all categories in the past, so it makes sense that there's range in what appeals to us now. More interesting, though, is the range of authors drawn to us. If there's a common thread, it's that these are all creators driven to try something new." Author Equity's first titles include:

Big Fan by Alexandra Romanoff (September 10) and Hardly Strangers by A.C. Robinson (November 12) are both from 831 Stories, a romantic fiction company founded by retail and storytelling innovators Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo (also known for Of a Kind and "A Thing or Two" newsletter and podcast), which will publish a new book every couple of months.

This Is Strategy by Seth Godin (October 22), a guide to leading in a complex, ever-changing world by the author of 21 bestselling titles about entrepreneurship, tech, business, media, strategy, and more.

Don't Believe Everything You Think: The Expanded Edition by Joseph Nguyen (October 29) is an expanded, revised edition of a self-published title that has already sold several hundred thousand copies online and that is a blend of spiritual and philosophical concepts with practical techniques for people seeking relief from anxiety and overthinking.

A title by Rachel Hollis (December), the author and motivational expert who aims to help readers unwind some of life's toughest knots with questions that will spark self-discovery, ignite personal growth, and unlock our true potential--from "Would you sign up for this again?" to "What if YOU are the problem?"

Superagency: Empowering Humanity in the Age of AI by Reid Hoffman and Greg Beato (January 28, 2025) is by tech visionary Hoffman and tech and culture writer Beato, who challenge conventional fears about AI and invite readers to view the future through a lens of opportunity, rather than fear.

We Hold These "Truths" by Casey Burgat (February 4, 2025), a former Congressional staffer who is a George Washington University legislative affairs professor. He and a team of officials, academics, and experts from both sides of the aisle aim to dismantle the deeply embedded myths that perpetuate political division and to point the way to building a healthy democracy.

Kweli Journal's 15th Anniversary Short Story Collection, edited by Laura Pegram, with a foreword by Edwidge Danticat (spring 2025). Exploring themes of displacement, loss, and resilience, this collection reflects the rich history and future potential of BIPOC communities, aligning with Kweli's mission to nurture and empower emerging writers of color. Contributors include Brit Bennett, Naima Coster, DéLana Dameron, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Daphne Palasi Andreades, Susan Muaddi Darraj, and Princess Perry.

Next to Heaven by James Frey (summer 2025) is a novel that makes for "a knife-sharp, can't-stop-won't-stop rip-roaring summer read" with characters readers would never want to live with, but characters one "can't stop peeping through their windows" to experience.

A new series from Kyle Mills (summer 2025), known for having continued Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp series, features ex-Navy SEAL Salam al Fayed, who has been declared clinically dead twice, with enemies who want the third time to stick. He is recruited to lead a desperate mission to head off a threat unlike any humanity has faced before--one that the world's increasingly corrupt and incompetent governments have no hope of resolving without him.

Pregnancy Personalized by Rachel Swanson (fall 2025), a dietitian and nutritionist, who offers a guide that expands on traditional prenatal advice with personalized, proactive, and science-based strategies for optimizing fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum health.

Jonathan Shar has been named CEO of Barnes & Noble Education by the company's board of directors. He succeeds Michael P. Huseby, who has resigned from the position, effective June 11.

Jonathan Shar

"I am honored to take on the role of CEO and to help lead this important organization," said Shar, adding: "I also want to thank Mike Huseby for his many years of guidance and leadership. He has made many important contributions to the company, our clients, our employees, and to me personally."

Noting that Shar "brings great experience and passion for the Barnes & Noble Education business," BNED chairman William C. Martin said the new CEO "is just the leader we need to unlock the future growth and profitability potential of this business." 

Prior to his appointment, Shar served as president of B&N College and executive v-p of BNED Retail. Before joining BNED in 2018, Shar was CMO at Akademos, the e-commerce and digital marketing company providing online bookstore services. He also spent nearly five years as general manager of Nook Digital Content at B&N.

Before the final keynote at ABA's Children's Institute, Kathy Bartson, director of development of the Binc Foundation, led the popular Heads or Tails game. The winner was Nicole Brinkley of Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, N.Y., who said she had entered the competition because a friend had to leave early and gave Brinkley her pins. Brinkley announced she would be giving the money back to Binc. Pictured: (l.-r) Nancy Ellwood, Arcadia Publishing; Judey Kalchik, Binc program manager; Nicole Brinkley; Kathy Bartson; Megan Petrie, Arcadia Publishing.

Posted on Facebook by the Poisoned Pen Bookstore, Scottsdale, Ariz.: "One of our Gay Pride displays set up for June. And join us in streaming at 4 p.m. today when John Charles talks to John Copenhaver, a Lammy Award winner with a new book at last called Hall of Mirrors."

"He takes his duties very seriously, "Gallery Bookshop, Mendocino, Calif., noted in sharing a photo on Facebook of bookseller cat Catsby. 

"An open-door day in June? Yes, please! Here til 7 today, y’all," The Bookshop, Nashville, Tenn., posted on Instagram.

At Princeton University Press:

Tim Wilkins, director of North American sales, is becoming director of finance, sales, a new position, and will lead an analytics-focused financial strategy for the Press's global sales team, which the Press said is key to "an ongoing strategic investment in PUP's long-life intellectual property." He joined the Press as sales assistant in 1999.

Midwest sales rep Lanora Jennings has been promoted to manager of indie relations and marketing and Midwest rep and will work to grow relationships with independent bookstores across North America while continuing her regional sales oversight.

Field and special sales associate Corrynn Johnson will become a point of contact for coordinating new store account set up.

Northeast sales rep Karen Corvello will expand her regional sales focus to assume work on special sales accounts.

MGM+ has given a series order to The Institute, an eight-episode TV series based on the 2019 Stephen King novel, Deadline reported. Ben Barnes (Shadow and Bone) and Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds) will star in the project from director/executive producer Jack Bender (Lost, Mr. Mercedes), writer/executive producer Benjamin Cavell (Justified, The Stand) and MGM+ Studios. Production is scheduled to begin in Nova Scotia later this year.

"I'm delighted and excited at the prospect of The Institute, with its high-intensity suspense, being filmed as a series," King said. "The combination of Jack Bender and Ben Cavell guarantees that the results will be terrific."

Bender commented: "I'm thrilled that Stephen King has entrusted me with another of his brilliant novels and continuing the extraordinary creative relationship with Michael Wright and MGM+. Working alongside Ben Cavell and a team of exceptional writers, to tell the story of these uniquely gifted children, will ensure a suspenseful and engrossing series."

Cavell added: "It is my great honor to have another chance to adapt Stephen King, who has been generous and collaborative beyond my wildest imaginings. Also, the opportunity to work with Jack Bender, who has directed some of my all-time favorite television, is truly a dream come true. I couldn't be more grateful to Michael Wright and MGM for putting this team together."

The 36th annual Lambda Literary Awards, celebrating excellence in LGBTQ literature, were presented in 26 categories at a ceremony held in New York City this week. See those winners and the winners of seven special awards here.

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Winners of the 34th annual Reading the West Book Awards, sponsored by the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association and chosen by booksellers and readers, have been announced. The virtual event Tuesday night featuring acceptance remarks from each winning author can be seen here. The winners:

Fiction: Holler, Child by LaToya Watkins (Tiny Reparations Books)
Debut fiction: Go as a River by Shelley Read (Spiegel & Grau)
Poetry: West: A Translation by Paisley Rekdal (Copper Canyon Press)
General nonfiction: True West: Myth and Mending on the Far Side of America by Betsy Gaines Quammen (Torrey House Press)
Memoir/biography: Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon by Melissa Sevigny (W. W. Norton)
Picture book: Alithia Ramirez Was an Artist by Violet Lemay, with art by Alithia Ramirez (Michael Sampson Books)
Young reader/middle grade: Coyote Queen by Jessica Vitalis (Greenwillow Books)
YA/teen: Rez Ball by Byron Graves (Heartdrum)

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American author V. V. Ganeshananthan won the Women's Prize for Fiction for her novel Brotherless Night (published in the U.S. by Random House) and Canadian writer Naomi Klein took the inaugural Women's Prize for Nonfiction for Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Ganeshananthan receives £30,000 (about $38,300), along with a limited-edition bronze statuette known as the "Bessie," while Klein also gets £30,000 and a limited-edition artwork known as the "Charlotte." 

Chair of the fiction judges Monica Ali said, "Brotherless Night is a brilliant, compelling and deeply moving novel that bears witness to the intimate and epic-scale tragedies of the Sri Lankan civil war. In rich, evocative prose, Ganeshananthan creates a vivid sense of time and place and an indelible cast of characters. Her commitment to complexity and clear-eyed moral scrutiny combines with spellbinding storytelling to render Brotherless Night a masterpiece of historical fiction."

Suzannah Lipscomb, chair of the nonfiction judges, commented: "This brilliant and layered analysis demonstrates humor, insight and expertise. Klein's writing is both deeply personal and impressively expansive. Doppelganger is a courageous, humane and optimistic call-to-arms that moves us beyond black and white, beyond Right and Left, inviting us instead to embrace the spaces in between."

Morgan Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation. His debut short story collection, Night of the Living Rez, won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kaufman Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the New England Book Award, and the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 Honor. Talty is an assistant professor of English in Creative Writing and Native American and Contemporary Literature at the University of Maine, Orono, and he is on the faculty at the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing as well as the Institute of American Indian Arts. He lives in Levant, Maine. His debut novel, Fire Exit (Tin House, June 4, 2024) centers on one man navigating issues of family and compassionately addresses tough choices in matters of family and lore.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

You ever wonder what it's like to watch your biological child grow up across a river and that child does not know?

On your nightstand now:

The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck and Until August by Gabriel García Márquez. Ben is great and I'll be talking to him in person for an event in Maine when his book is released, and Márquez is... Márquez!

Favorite book when you were a child:

I hated books.

Your top five authors:

Richard Van Camp (It's okay if you don't know him. Now you do. Go read The Lesser Blessed immediately and then everything else he has written.)

Alice Munro (Like, come on--who does it better?)

Anton Chekhov (Okay, maybe Anton does it better, but whatever.)

Colson Whitehead (Colson's work is so damn good you'd think he was the only writer writing and able to do what a writer does.)

Louise Erdrich (A huge name author, Native, but deserves so much more respect--she is a powerhouse of a storyteller.)

Book you've faked reading:

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson. When people ask why they should read it, I say, Because "Fuckhead," that's why.

Book you've bought for the cover:

The Unpassing by Chia-Chia Lin.

Book you hid from your parents:

We didn't read. I did hide snubbed-out cigarettes and ashes in my Avril Lavigne CD case.

Book that changed your life:

Not a book, but short story: "Gusev" by Anton Chekhov.

Favorite line from a book:

The opening to Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses: "The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door."

Those beats!

Five books you'll never part with:

The Lesser Blessed by Richard Van Camp (I'll go to jail before I give it away.)

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (Isn't it pretty to think you'd be able to snatch this from my hands?)

Felix S. Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law (reference text that costs a lot of money and is by no means a "handbook"--it's a thick text I'd use to fend off anyone coming for the books I have listed here.)

The Round House by Louise Erdrich (You just can't have it.)

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (I've written all over that book and for that reason you're not getting it.)

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

The entire Cemetery of Forgotten Books series by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Man--he left this world far too soon.

Snowden Wright (American Pop; Play Pretty Blues) immerses his readers in a gritty, troubled small-town Mississippi with The Queen City Detective Agency, and introduces an indomitable protagonist.

It's the 1980s and the country is about to reinaugurate Ronald Reagan when a small-time felon called Turnip does "a Greg Louganis off the roof" of the county courthouse in Meridian, Miss. Turnip was implicated in the murder, allegedly by hire, of a successful local real estate developer, and rumored to be involved with a mythical criminal syndicate called the Dixie Mafia that may or may not actually exist. Turnip's suspicious death (by rooftop dive, or was it by poison?) and the murder he may or may not have helped arrange wind up entangled with cockfighting rings, domestic violence, child brides, centuries-old institutional racism and class discrimination, and much more.

Enter Clementine Baldwin (that's Clem or Ms. Baldwin to you) of Queen City Detective Agency in Meridian, a decaying railroad town that was once the second-largest in the state. "Clem loathed this place and its vitiated nostalgia, redolent of an era when that idiot Atticus Finch thought he could win a rigged game, when you needed a tool to open a can of beer.... At least the beer cans had gotten better." A disillusioned former cop, Clem is also a Black woman in a city, state, and nation that respects neither. She'd rather just be called a private investigator than a lady PI. For her second-in-command, she went looking for a prop: "completely useless in most circumstances, but, in hers, as handy as locking hubs on a muddy day. In other words, the prop had to be a white man. The guy needed to have hominy for gray matter...." But instead she found Dixon Hicks, "whose name said it all," a prop who turned out to be a good partner and even a good friend.

Clem is a quintessential hard-boiled detective with entirely legitimate beefs with the world around her. She drinks too much, but who wouldn't? Partnered with the genuinely, surprisingly good Dixon, she is a smart, courageous, flawed heroine, with plenty of dark humor and a storied past. Wright's prose is clever and delightfully funny even while handling serious social ills. The Queen City Detective Agency is a remarkable work of Southern noir, featuring crackpot characters both silly and sinister, a longstanding history of greed and white privilege, and an unforgettable private investigator. Readers will be anxious for more featuring Ms. Baldwin. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: A disgruntled PI and a plot as wildly complicated as the history of the American South itself combine in this spectacular, darkly funny mystery.

"Is This the Most Boring Man In the World?" Last month, the Wall Street Journal posed the question in a headline for a piece on the popularity of soothing and somnolent recorded voices as sleep aids.  

Eventually the article turned to audiobook narrators, even citing a decision by executives at an international corporate monolith's subsidiary (hint: rhymes with oddible). Apparently the suits had noticed that many of their customers were listening to audiobooks with a sleep timer, which led to the launch of something called the Sleep Collection, featuring "bedtime tales read by stars including Brian Cox, Eva Longoria and Keke Palmer.... But for dozing off, many listeners find audiobooks originally intended to entertain do the trick just fine," the Journal wrote. 

One woman interviewed for the piece recommended audiobooks narrated by the legendary actor and author Stephen Fry, saying: "The British timbre of Fry's voice is modulated, plummy, yet silvery; a perfect concoction for a peaceful night's sleep." This, of course, is just blatantly sacrilegious, especially in the lead-up to Audiobook Month.

As a longtime audiobook reader, I'd never really considered the possibility of the format being employed as an aural sleeping pill. Not that I haven’t dozed off occasionally while listening late at night, but I consider that failure on my part rather than a sleeping success story. And the bookseller in me would instinctively respond to the audio-dozers by saying they're just listening to the wrong audiobooks. 

In any case, the audiobook market is thriving despite them, so somebody's staying awake.

The Audio Publishers Association recently reported in its annual survey that audiobook sales rose 9%, to $2 billion in 2023, continuing the category's steady growth over the years, and a majority of adults in the U.S. (52%) have listened to an audiobook.

Surveyed in February, some 38% of American adults listened to an audiobook, up from the 35% reported a year earlier. And the most avid audiobook fans listened to an average of 6.8, up from 6.3 a year earlier. Overall, all audiobook listeners listened on average to 4.8 audiobooks, up from four the previous year.

In Canada, a report on leisure time and reading habits by BookNet Canada found that while the majority of readers prefer to read print books (59%), followed by e-books (20%), and audiobooks (13%), the dominance of print preference has been dropping since 2019 (from 65% to 59% in 2023), while at the same time, preference for audiobooks has been rising (from 8% in 2019 to 13% in 2023). In addition, Canadian readers’ interest in abridged audiobooks, with sound effects and/or music, and environmentally friendly print books is on the rise.

This year Libro.fm is celebrating its 10th anniversary as a welcome Amazon/Audible antidote for independent booksellers. Its first six partner bookshops were Village Books, Bellingham, Wash.; Octavia Books, New Orleans, La.; Green Apple Books, San Francisco, Calif.; Third Place Books, Seattle, Wash.; Eagle Harbor Book Co., Bainbridge Island, Wash.; and Blue Willow Bookshop Houston, Tex. Libro.fm now has 3,000-plus bookshop partners and offers more than 450,000 audiobooks.

Audiobooks are thriving. For many years, I covered the Audio Publishers Association Authors Tea, which was usually held as one of the final events at BookExpo. It was one of my favorites, and particularly fascinating when authors and narrators got to share the stage or when authors paid tribute to their narrators. 

"When they read your book, it becomes a singular experience inside their own head, so with the narrator, particularly a good narrator, they take a book that you thought you knew better than anyone else because you wrote it and then they find things in it that you didn't know were there," author John Scalzi said at the 2016 APA Authors Tea.

In 2017, author Daniel José Older described the rising popularity of audiobooks as "a full circle moment in literary history. The roots of literature are in spoken word, not Microsoft Word.... That's where stories come from--people talking to each other out loud and saying these words. And that matters. It matters in process and it matters in product.... I think of writing as a form of incantation, as a form of magic. And it's a powerful statement that we get to hear these things said out loud."

And in 2019, at BookExpo's final in-person gathering before the pandemic hit, actor and audiobook narrator Euan Morton, who was then playing King George III in the hit Broadway musical Hamilton, moderated the Authors Tea.

He said that recording audiobooks over the past 20 years had "been a great bonus in my life in that it has allowed me to be an actor even in those periods when I'm not working. They have kept character and soul in me as a performer, and I'm really grateful for that.... I consider recording audiobooks to be some of the most important work I do. It's about being a representative of the author. It's a huge responsibility, one I take seriously and that I know my peers take seriously."

Near the end of the event, Morton observed, "In my opinion, the most magical thing in the world is the written word; second is the spoken one, and third are all the mad colors that come with it. And when you put them together you get euphony."

I've always loved the sound of books. When people read aloud, I instinctively close my eyes and listen (unless I'm driving). Close listening is akin to close reading; one human being sharing a story with another. Stay awake and listen!