(courtesy Oakland Fire Department)

East Bay Booksellers, Oakland, Calif., was a "total loss" after a three-alarm fire early Tuesday morning, according to city fire officials, who added that the fire also left five people living in an adjacent residence displaced. The East Bay Times reported that the fire erupted about 5:25 a.m. inside the two-story business. It quickly went to "third alarm," primarily to prevent it from spreading to adjacent buildings.

Oakland Fire Department spokesman Michael Hunt said the fire was contained within an hour, but still had not been declared officially under control as of 8 a.m. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Although Hunt did not have an exact damage figure, he described the bookstore as "a total loss."

Owner Brad Johnson shared a message on the East Bay Booksellers' Instagram page. A $200,000 GoFundMe campaign has been set up "to help Brad and the store find their way back to being the vital bookstore that it is. Please donate what you can to rebuild this civil and cultural bookstore. We'll all appreciate it and don't know how it will happen without each of us." More than $26,000 has been raised thus far.

Yesterday, Johnson told ABC News7: "Still in a state of shock, very much sort of just overwhelmed by the scene. I'm slowly feeling like I'm stepping into the actual moment whereas the last couple of hours it's felt like watching a movie."

East Bay Booksellers opened in 2017. Prior to taking over the business, Johnson had been a longtime employee at DIESEL, A Bookstore, which occupied the location for 28 years.

"It's as bad as it can be. It looks as if something just exploded in there. So it looks awful," Johnson told the Oaklandside as people walked by the store offering him their condolences. "They have memories here and there but I think everyone is in a state of shock over the circumstances. Even thinking about the future right now is a little daunting. Like, what just happened?" 

Last evening, Brad Johnson reported on the state of the bookstore and announced a fundraiser.

In a social media post yesterday afternoon, East Bay Booksellers noted: "You may have heard the news already. It breaks my heart to confirm it: the bookstore has completely burned in this morning's fire. What has just happened is overwhelming what's to come. But we'll get there, and we'll let you know how you can help get us there. Thank you for immensely kind messages through this."

Many indie bookstores expressed their concern and support in comments on the post, including Parnassus Books, Nashville, Tenn. ("We are so, so sorry friends. Sending so much love and support from Nashville."), Island Books, Mercer Island, Wash. ("We are heartbroken for you all... let us know what we can do to help you through this."), Type Books, Toronto, Ont., Canada ("We love you. We're gutted to hear this and are poised to help however possible. You're the greatest."), North Figueroa Bookshop, Los Angeles ("Sending love and strength from LA! We're here for you."), Green Apple Books, San Francisco ("You've got us and a lot of other people in your corner."), A Great Good Place for Books, Oakland ("We're here to help you anyway we can."), Mrs. Dalloway's, Berkeley ("Thinking of all of you, utterly heartbreaking."), and more.

City Lights Books, San Francisco, posted: "Horrible news for readers and writers everywhere. We'll keep you posted on how you can help @AhabLives & East Bay Booksellers going forward."

A bankruptcy court judge has approved the sale of the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, Colo., to Barnes & Noble, the last hurdle to finalizing the $1.83 million deal announced on June 17. Under the purchase, Tattered Cover will retain its name, keep its four stores open, and continue to employ most staff.

B&N CEO James Daunt acknowledged to the Denver Post that there is "skepticism" about B&N's purchase of Tattered Cover, "but really in truth this is something that Tattered Cover will sort out. We at Barnes & Noble are not going to be running these stores. Tattered Cover is going to be running these stores. They have very good store managers. I think we now have to put them back on their feet and get them all ordering books and assorting their stores properly."

Tattered Cover filed for bankruptcy last October, closing three of its seven stores and letting go about a quarter of its 103 employees. In March, it submitted a plan to emerge from bankruptcy by June, but in April, it announced that there was interest from "individuals and businesses across the U.S." in buying the company, a move it had decided was "in the best long-term interests of the company, current investors, employees, suppliers, and Colorado's literary community." In May, Tattered Cover court filings indicated that at least eight groups were interested in participating in the auction that was to be held June 12, but the day before the auction, it was cancelled.

One striking result of the sale is that Tattered Cover will no longer be eligible for membership in the Mountain & Plains Independent Booksellers Association or the American Booksellers Association.

Heather Duncan, MPIBA's executive director, said the association's "bylaws and policies are very clear. In order to be a bookstore member of MPIBA, a business needs to be independent and 'locally owned.' "

The ties between the association and Tattered Cover run deep. The late Joyce Meskis, Tattered Cover's longtime owner, was a co-founder and first president of the association, when it was officially formed in 1980 as the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association.

Duncan called the situation "a truly unfortunate consequence of the upcoming change of ownership. The MPIBA board and I wish the store, and especially the dedicated booksellers, all the best."

ABA, meanwhile, confirmed that if Tattered Cover is owned by B&N, it will no longer be eligible for ABA membership. Meskis was also deeply involved in and supportive in myriad ways of the ABA, including serving on its board and as president and teaching regularly at the association's booksellers schools.

Deb Futter, who has been president and publisher of Celadon Books, is becoming president and publisher, Celadon Books and Flatiron Books, and Megan Lynch is promoted to executive v-p & publisher, Flatiron Books. Bob Miller, who founded Flatiron Books more than a decade ago, will be leaving Macmillan.

Under Futter's leadership, Celadon "has continually delivered on its mission to publish a curated list of books with outsized impact," the company said. Futter co-founded Celadon in 2017 with Jamie Raab and was named president and publisher in 2022. Lynch, who joined Flatiron in 2019, will oversee all aspects of the day-to-day operations of Flatiron Books. 

Deb Futter

Miller founded Flatiron in 2013 and commented: "I'm proud of building Flatiron Books over the past 10 years, a decade in which we published 94 New York Times bestsellers--19 of which debuted at #1. We published important nonfiction by Oprah Winfrey, President Biden, Melinda French Gates, James Comey, Michael J. Fox, Matthew Perry, Elliot Page, and Brad Meltzer, among many others, while shaping the careers of such novelists as Liane Moriarty, S.A. Cosby, Stephanie Garber, Leigh Bardugo, Jason Rekulak, Alice Feeney, Jane Harper, and Charlotte McConaghy. I expect even more great things from Flatiron's future, as I move on to building something new."

Regarding the changes, Macmillan CEO Jon Yaged said: "Deb has been a fantastic partner to me and so many others at Macmillan. She is generous with her knowledge, collaborative, and has a special knack for finding the right book at the right time and publishing it perfectly. Her extensive industry relationships are built on her deep passion for books, which will now be even more impactful in her expanded role.

Bob Miller

"Megan has proven herself to be a great publisher and leader. She has driven success across every category. Her tireless devotion to her team and her authors, fabulous taste and editorial judgment, and her uncanny ability to attract some of the brightest stars to Flatiron's ranks, will undoubtedly enable her to lead Flatiron to continued greatness.

"I've known Bob for a long time. He is an industry legend with a unique ability to build successful companies from scratch. Bob has always been a joy to work with, and I can't thank him enough for the impact he's made at Macmillan. I wish him well for the future."

Before founding Flatiron Books, Miller had been group publisher of Workman Publishing, created HarperStudio at HarperCollins, and founded Hyperion at Disney, where he worked for 18 years.

"I'm hoping for Lovestruck to be a space that can really foster community," said Rachel Kanter, a book lover and romance reader who is bringing Lovestruck Books, a romance bookstore and cafe, to Cambridge, Mass., later this year.

Lovestruck Books will reside at 44 Brattle St., a short distance from Harvard Square, in a 5,200-square-foot space. Roughly one-third of the space, Kanter reported, will belong to the cafe, while the bookstore will encompass the remaining two-thirds. The romance genre contains dozens of sub-genres, she noted, and the sizable space will allow her to carry an expansive selection.

"I'll be able to really go deep into the sub-genres," said Kanter. And while her personal favorites include historical romance, contemporary romance, and romantasy, Lovestruck Books will have something that speaks to every romance reader.

There will be a small, curated children's section as well as a small general fiction section. She remarked that her plans for a children's section are sometimes met with "raised eyebrows," but "my answer to that is, people who read a lot of romance often have children."

Lovestruck Books in progress

The general fiction section, meanwhile, is for people "who are maybe new to the romance genre," or "customers coming in for the cafe," and Kanter is excited to introduce general readers to the genre. And across the romance and general sections, she hopes to feature local authors wherever possible. "Part of what I'm hoping to do is contribute to the strong community of readers we see in Cambridge and the Greater Boston area," Kanter said.

Kanter plans to carry only new titles, as her store is very close to Rodney's Bookstore, a much-loved used bookstore in Cambridge, and Rodney's "has that covered," she said. She did, however, talk to Rodney's owner Shaw Taylor about vintage clinch covers from the '70s and '80s, and they floated the idea of collaborating on an event that would celebrate vintage romance covers.

Asked about plans for nonbook items and sidelines, Kanter called "bookish merch" another passion of hers. She's particularly excited to collaborate with other independent, women-owned businesses and to support local vendors and creators.

When it comes to events, Kanter has plenty of ideas. While nothing has been officially scheduled yet, she would like to host things like size-inclusive lingerie pop-ups, boudoir photo shoots, pole-dancing classes, LGTBQ-friendly speed dating, paint-and-sip nights, and Drag Story Hour. She expects to host a lot of book clubs, and someone reached out about hosting a Dungeons & Dragons night at Lovestruck.

"I want to be a convener," Kanter said. She intends to curate events that "celebrate the love of storytelling" and bring "joy and diverse perspectives into the space."

And while no opening date has been set, Kanter has been considering ideas for a grand opening celebration. She imagines one that would span multiple days and feature giveaways, activities, and visits from local authors.

Rachel Kanter

Prior to founding Lovestruck, Kanter's only bookstore experience was "as a regular customer and enthusiastic patron." Her background was in teaching; she has taught high school English and worked at a number of education nonprofits.

Having gone to grad school in Boston, Kanter and her husband returned to Cambridge last year. Around that time, a "very beloved local coffee shop" was closing, and Kanter thought someone should reopen it. Then she began to toy with the idea of reopening it herself as a cafe and bookstore with a focus on romance.

Last summer, when Los Angeles's Ripped Bodice opened its second location, in Brooklyn, N.Y., the news was "affirming," and Kanter began researching the bookselling business in earnest. She went to the Paz & Associates bootcamp, worked with consultants like Kerri Budryk of Brookline Booksmith, who specializes in gift and nonbook items, and Tim Huggins, founder of Newtonville Books and former CFO of Brookline Booksmith, who now offers business and financial advice to bookstores as a "CFO for Hire," which he will continue with Lovestruck.

Kanter has learned a great deal from established booksellers, and one of the "total joys of this process has been how welcoming and collaborative other indie bookstore owners are." When she started out, she was a little concerned about being "the new kid in town," but she found herself amazed at "how welcoming everyone has been." The "collaborative spirit" among booksellers has been "unlike anything I've ever experienced."

Touching on the Harvard Square community, Kanter said people in the area "have been so receptive to this." Though there are already several well-established bookstores in the area, "there is space for more," and her store will be part of an encouraging trend of independent retail returning to Harvard Square. Community members and romance readers alike have been "enthusiastic and excited." --Alex Mutter

Francine Pascal

Francine Pascal, "a former soap-opera scriptwriter from Queens who conjured up an entire literary universe among the blue-eyed cheerleaders and square-jawed jocks of suburban Los Angeles, most notably in her long-running and mega-best-selling Sweet Valley High series of young-adult novels," died July 28, the New York Times reported. She was 92.

Noting that the books are "strikingly innocent," the Times wrote: "Even as the thoughtful Elizabeth and the scheming Jessica clash over boys, friends and spots on the cheerleading team, drugs, alcohol and sex barely permeate the 181 titles in Sweet Valley High, or the scores of others in the spinoffs--and the spinoffs of spinoffs--from the series."

Within a few years of its debut in 1983 with Double Love, the Sweet Valley High books had taken over the YA market. In January 1986, 18 out of the top 20 books in B. Dalton's YA bestseller list were titles from the series, and overall more than 200 million copies of Sweet Valley titles have been sold. The series also revolutionized YA publishing. Pascal told the Los Angeles Times in 1986: "There are millions of teenagers that no one in publishing knew existed."

She wrote the first 12 books herself, then worked with a team of writers to keep a steady, rapid publication pace, often a book a month. The Times noted that she "would draft a detailed outline, then hand it to a writer to flesh out while relying on what Ms. Pascal called her 'bible'--a compendium of descriptions of the personalities, settings and dense web of relationships that defined life in Sweet Valley."

"I can't have any deviation, no matter how small, because it can impact future stories," she told her daughter, Susan Johansson, in an e-mail shortly before her death. "The better writers follow my outlines perfectly."

Though she wrote several books before starting the Sweet Valley series, including a nonfiction account of the Patty Hearst trial, Pascal first made her name writing for the 1960s soap opera The Young Marrieds with her husband, John Pascal. 

She had studied journalism at New York University, then worked as a freelance writer for magazines like True Confessions, Modern Screen, Cosmopolitan, and Ladies' Home Journal. When the producers of The Young Marrieds insisted that the Pascals relocate from New York to Los Angeles, they quit and returned to journalism. Francine Pascal also collaborated with her brother, Tony-winning playwright Michael Stewart, on the book for the musical George M!.

Pascal wrote her first YA novels in the late 1970s, beginning with Hangin' Out With Cici (1977), which was made into an afternoon TV special; My First Love and Other Disasters (1979); and The Hand-Me-Down Kid (1980).

She was "trying her hand at a soap opera treatment, and failing miserably, when an editor friend related a story. The friend had been at lunch when another editor asked why there was no teenage version of Dallas, the prime-time soap opera that was among the biggest hits on television at the time," the Times wrote. 

Pascal immediately wrote a detailed sketch about twin girls in high school, which she sold, along with her first 12 books, to Bantam Books. Spinoff series quickly followed: Sweet Valley Twins began in 1986, followed by Sweet Valley Kids, The Unicorn Club (a spinoff of Sweet Valley Twins), Sweet Valley Junior High, Sweet Valley High: Senior Year and Sweet Valley University.

The Sweet Valley series ended in 2003, but restarted in 2011 with Sweet Valley Confidential, set 10 years after the world of Sweet Valley High. Pascal also wrote two adult novels, Save Johanna! (1981) and If Wishes Were Horses (1994), a fictionalized memoir about her life with her husband. In 1999, she began yet another YA series called Fearless. 

"These books have uncovered a whole population of young girls who were never reading," she told People magazine. "I don't know that they're all going to go on to War and Peace, but we have created readers out of nonreaders. If they go on to Harlequin romances, so what? They're going to read."

Valerie Burns (seated) visited The Book Worm in Powder Springs, Ga., for the launch of her new Baker Street Mystery, A Cup of Flour, a Pinch of Death (Kensington Cozies).

Sad news from the Raven Book Store, Lawrence, Kan.: "Ngaio, original Raven cat and tiny wonder, has passed on after a long and happy life. Before retiring from the store, her favorite thing was to trap people on the couch by refusing to get off their lap. We’re going to miss you, small one."

Ngaio retired from the store in November 2021 "to thrive in a quiet life as the only pet in a bookseller's home. She was 13 years old at the time and had spent a decade greeting and accompanying customers at the store," the Lawrence Times reported, adding: "Raven co-owner Danny Caine said at the time of her retirement that Ngaio was known to be snuggly with shoppers, especially during colder months."

"Read a book by candlelight" was the advice offered by the sidewalk chalkboard in front of Page & Flame Bookshop, Landrum, S.C., which also offers locally made candles from Green Creek Candle Co.

Effective September 1, Stanford University Press will be represented to the wholesale and trade retail by the Columbia University Press Sales Consortium. Ingram Academic and Professional will continue to handle distribution and fulfilment, and there will be no disruption in operations or logistics.

Stanford University Press publishes 140 books a year in the humanities, social sciences, law, and business and has some 4,000 books in print.

Christine Gillespie is joining Open Road Integrated Media as senior v-p and publisher. She has 30 years of publishing experience, including most recently senior v-p, publishing director for Knopf, and senior v-p, associate publisher of Knopf, Pantheon and Schocken Books. Earlier she worked at Simon & Schuster and Borders Group.

Mara Anastas, who has been v-p and publisher, has been named v-p, special projects.

Today:
Fresh Air: Chris Nashawaty, author of The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982 (Flatiron Books, $29.99, 9781250827050).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Missy Buchanan, author of Feeling Your Way Through Grief: A Companion for Life after Loss (Upper Room Books, $16.99, 9780835820653).

Kelly Clarkson Show repeat: Jamie Lee Curtis, author of Just One More Sleep: All Good Things Come to Those Who Wait... and Wait... and Wait (Philomel Books, $18.99, 9780593527047).

Late Show with Stephen Colbert repeat: Charlamagne Tha God, author of Get Honest or Die Lying: Why Small Talk Sucks (Atria/Black Privilege Publishing, $28.99, 9781982173791).

Judy Greer (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever) and Mark Hamill are the latest additions to the cast of The Long Walk, Lionsgate‘s adaptation of Stephen King's 1979 novel, which was originally published under the author's pseudonym, Richard Bachman, Deadline reported. 

They join Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Jordan Gonzalez, Joshua Odjick, and Roman Griffin Davis. Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) is directing from a script by J.T. Mollner. Production is underway and will continue in locations throughout the province of Manitoba in Canada during the summer.

The 13-title longlist for the £50,000 (about $64,140) 2024 Booker Prize has been released. The shortlist will be unveiled September 16 and a winner named November 12 during a ceremony in London. The shortlisted authors each receive £2,500 (about $3,205) and a specially bound edition of their book. This year's longlisted Booker titles are:

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
Wild Horses by Colin Barrett
Held by Anne Michaels
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
This Strange and Eventful History by Claire Messud
Playground by Richard Powers
Enlightenment by Sarah Perry
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
James by Percival Everett
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
My Friends by Hisham Matar
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel

Chair of judges Edmund de Waal said: "After seven months and 156 novels it is a great moment to be able to hand over this glorious longlist of urgent, resonant books for the Booker Prize 2024: a cohort of global voices, strong voices and new voices. One of the true markers of the novels that we have chosen is that we feel they are necessary books, fiction that has made a space in our hearts and that we want to see find a place in the reading lives of many others. To reach the end of a novel and to be deeply moved and be unable to work out quite how that has happened is a great gift. This is timely and timeless fiction, in which there is much at stake."

As some industry people have noted, the list of 13 includes six by U.S. authors and only two by British authors, a major turnaround from the days, just a decade ago, when only authors from the U.K., Ireland, and Commonwealth were eligible for the prize.

photo: Laura Metzler Photography

Sarai Johnson is a writer and writing educator who studied journalism and English at Howard University and later earned a Master's in Literature from American University. She has taught writing at both her alma maters and with several nonprofit writing programs in the D.C. area. She lives in Alexandria, Va., with her husband, daughter, and dog. Grown Women (Harper, July 9, 2024), her first novel, is about four generations of Black women contending with motherhood, daughterhood, and generational trauma.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

Grown Women follows four generations of a black family. The women--who are messy but likable, flawed but self-reflective--pursue happiness with varied results.

On your nightstand now:

I just started A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum. I was immediately swept up in the opening pages. I also have Neighbors and Other Stories by Diane Oliver, American Indian Stories by Zitkála-Šá, and a collection of Zora Neale Hurston's essays. I'm usually more of a novel person, but have become more interested in short stories and essays after becoming a mother, for the sake of being satisfied in one sitting.

Favorite book when you were a child:

I devoured anything about wealthy orphans for some reason. So, I read A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett repeatedly. If wealthy orphans weren't available, I could be appeased with children who were not appropriately supervised, and I was the right age for the initial release of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket and the Gossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar. I've really enjoyed sharing one of my childhood favorites, Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold, with my toddler daughter.

Your top five authors:

I'll read anything Tayari Jones or Kiese Laymon writes. I admire the way they both write about Black American life. I especially admire the way Laymon's prose still manages levity even when writing about weighty topics. Every time I teach something from Heavy, I notice something new. It's masterful. I loved Min Jin Lee's Pachinko, but became deeply engrossed with Casey from Free Food for Millionaires. I think Lee has a talent for characters. Leslie Jamison just has a way with words. And Toni Morrison.

Book you've faked reading:

I've definitely pretended to finish a book. I was assigned Clarissa by Samuel Richardson in my first semester of grad school. It's an 18th-century epistolary novel, considered one of the longest in the English language. I struggled mightily to finish it. Eventually, for the sake of my mental health and my other classes, I turned to Cliffs Notes and classmates for help.

Book you're an evangelist for:

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite because I love talking about it, so I recommend it all the time. It's a funny and dark romp, but also an interesting examination of familial and romantic relationships.

Book you've bought for the cover:

I bought The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai for its opulent, graphic, art-deco cover! I also really enjoyed it.

Book you hid from your parents:

I wish I had the good sense to hide Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov or Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. As a tween, I did successfully hide some teen romance novels with "suggestive" covers like When It Happens by Susane Colasanti or anything depicting what might be interpreted as a couple. I unsuccessfully hid the Georgie Nicolson series by Louise Rennison, namely Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging. That led to some awkward conversations.

Book that changed your life:

I've always been a reader, but re-reading Beloved by Toni Morrison as an adult inspired me to go back to school to get a Master's in Literature. I wanted to do more than just read. I wanted to study. I would say nothing, other than having a child, has changed my life more than getting a degree in literature.

Favorite line from a book:

I have two:

Sonia Sanchez said in Black Women Writers at Work (edited by Claudia Tate): "I don't write in spite of my children... I write because of them." I read this book at a time when I was struggling to stay motivated. I left with a new perspective on work and writing.

From Beloved: "Something that is loved is never lost." I think it speaks for itself.

Five books you'll never part with:

Mostly because I've marked them up so much that no one else will be able to read them: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson; Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo; Passing by Nella Larsen; The Awakening by Kate Chopin; and To Be Young, Gifted and Black by Lorraine Hansberry, adapted by Robert Nemiroff.

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

Passing by Nella Larsen because my interpretation changes all the time. I wish I remembered my first impressions so that I could compare how my perspective has shifted over time.

John Hendrix returns to the compelling style he employed in The Faithful Spy for The Mythmakers, a masterful graphic biography of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien told through a potent mix of narration, spot art, and comic panels. The graphic novel guides readers on a mythic journey through the lives of the two literary luminaries, alternating between the authors' experiences and the banter and adventures of two narrators, a wise wizard and a witty lion.

Both Lewis and Tolkien lost their mothers early in life, but still benefited from childhoods that nurtured their imaginations and love of stories. A stark difference in their upbringings was religious belief: Tolkien practiced Catholicism devoutly while Lewis was born a Protestant but "abandoned his Christianity and, rather unconsciously, made literature his true place of worship." Hendrix skillfully illuminates how this divide factored into the entirety of their friendship.

The First World War called both young men into battle, Tolkien in 1916 and Lewis in 1917. Hendrix deftly captures the horror of their wartime experiences in emotional, sepia-saturated illustrations and gut-punching prose: "It was then he met the 'lost' of the Somme./ The dead were everywhere./ Strung over barbwire like ragdolls./ Smashed and broken with vacant eyes./ Sunken like ghosts under the water of muddy shell craters."

Lewis and Tolkien met at Oxford in May of 1926. Hendrix leaves behind the dull brown of war and returns to the muted purples, teals, and yellows of the boys' early lives, lifting the book's tone. Lewis and Tolkien bonded over a shared love of Norse mythology, and Hendrix's wise wizard explains, "Each man deeply needed the other though they did not realize it yet." During the next two decades they supported, challenged, and inspired each other--and had a huge impact on the world of fantasy literature.

Hendrix uses his lion and wizard narrators to fantastic effect, picturing them venturing through a fantasy landscape that brings them to pivotal moments in the lives of Tolkien and Lewis. He packs this delightful adventure with fascinating tidbits, background on myth and world-building, and plenty of humor. A robust (illustrated) backmatter section offers readers additional information on British vernacular, Hendrix's research, and bibliographic resources. While the book's target audience is middle-grade readers, fantasy lovers of all ages will surely treasure this exquisitely fitting homage to the two men whose "mythic awakening can be seen in nearly every corner of modern popular storytelling and twenty-first century visual culture." --Jen Forbus, freelancer

Shelf Talker: Writer and illustrator John Hendrix examines the friendship of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis in a beautifully crafted graphic biography of two men who had an immense impact on fantasy literature.