Indie bookstores are the places where I've developed as a writer and a reader. I feel like I went to graduate school, a little underread in contemporary literature. I used to spend a lot of time in class listening to other students mention writers or books that they loved, and I would dash off to the indie bookstore--in St. Louis that was Left Bank Books--to see if they had it. They always did. I would buy it and go home and read it in one sitting. It was like the experience of reading as a child, where I was just constantly amazed by what I was reading, and all the different types of writers that were out there and always in these indie bookstores. That just set off my exploration of all that was possible in fiction and who I wanted to be as a writer and a reader.

Allison Espach

I live in Providence now, and I spend a ridiculous amount of time at indie bookstores, we have so many amazing ones--Riffraff, Twenty Stories, Books on the Square, just to name a few. My friends and I were actually just joking around that Riffraff has become our entire social scene.... So, they're still a huge part of my life, and I'm extremely grateful that booksellers and bookstore owners are out there making these spaces for people.

It's a Love Story, a romance bookstore and cafe, opened in Hayden, Idaho, earlier this summer, the Spokesman-Review reported.

Tyann Bjorkman at It's a Love Story

Owner Tyann Bjorkman and operations manager Ashley Yates first welcomed customers at 8927 N Hess St., Suite A, on June 1. The bookstore carries a wide range of romance subgenres, including contemporary, sports, thrillers, and LGBTQ+, with Bjorkman noting that romantasy and dark romance have proven most popular so far.

Bjorkman and Yates have already hosted some book signings with local authors and plan to work with more local authors going forward. Other event plans include game nights and book clubs.

"We really want to welcome people in to come and hang out and build those kinds of connections and relationships," Bjorkman told the Spokesman-Review.

They strive to make It's a Love Story a judgment-free zone where no one feels shamed for their reading habits, and Yates said one of the most gratifying things has been seeing "some of the older generations come in and you can tell it's one of the very first times they have gotten to talk out loud about books because it's always felt so taboo."

Bjorkman was inspired to open a romance bookstore of her own after seeing others on TikTok. Her goal is to "create somewhere people could come and hang out, and it can just be joyful."

Deadline reminder: RISE Bookselling, the program of the European & International Booksellers Federation, is offering scholarships for booksellers to attend the 2024 Booksellers Association of the U.K. and Ireland Conference, which takes place September 22-23 in Hinckley, England. This year's conference highlights include a panel discussion called "Bookshop Stories" featuring DJ Johnson (Baldwin Bookstore, New Orleans, La.) and Carolynn Bain (Afrori, Brighton); a keynote presentation on story branding by Matt Banker, founder of Banker Creative and Benchmark Growth Marketing; and skills labs on balancing business success and well-being, on running successful book clubs, and more. Scholarships include travel and accommodations. Applications are due by next Monday, August 12. For more information and to apply, click here.

Words Without Borders has appointed Elisabeth Jaquette as its next executive director, effective September 1. Currently the executive director of the American Literary Translators Association, she is an experienced arts administrator and the first professional literary translator to serve as executive director of WWB. 

Elizabeth Jaquette

"Lissie Jaquette is a prominent member of the translated literature community, both as a noted translator from Arabic and as the executive director responsible for transforming the American Literary Translators Association," said WWB board chair and founding editor Samantha Schnee. "In my role as board secretary at ALTA, I was privileged to work with Lissie for six years and witness her dramatically expand its budget, programs, and impact. The board's search committee was unanimous in its selection of Lissie as WWB's next visionary leader, and both staff and trustees who met with her during our search were enthusiastic about her candidacy. We're thrilled that she is joining us at this moment of organizational strength, as we expand our work to connect readers and students across the globe with translated literature."

Jaquette commented: "I have long been a great admirer of Words Without Borders: I have been a dedicated reader of the magazine from its beginning, and my very first paid work as a translator was published in its pages. As someone dedicated to serving our international community of readers, writers, translators, educators, and students, I look forward to carrying out WWB's mission of cultivating global awareness and expanding access to exceptional international writing. I am honored to join WWB's incredible staff and board at this moment of great organizational strength and possibility."

Alexander Waugh (photo: Carey Marks)

Alexander Waugh, "who throughout his varied career as a composer, columnist and historian bore lightly the weight of his literary inheritance--his father, Auberon, and his grandfather Evelyn were considered among the finest English writers of the 20th century," died July 22 , the New York Times reported. He was 60.

Noting that the Waugh family is one of Britain's greatest literary dynasties, the Times wrote that Alexander "followed their leads in style and attitude, though his oeuvre ranged much more widely. What he lacked in academic or professional credentials he made up for in writerly energy and general learnedness." Trained as a musician, he was an opera critic for the Mail on Sunday and then the Evening Standard. He and his brother, Nat, wrote an award-winning musical, Bon Voyage!, which they produced in 2000 in London. 

Waugh went on to write book reviews for the Daily Telegraph. His own books include Time: From Micro-Seconds to Millennia; A Search for the Right Time (1999), a "biography" titled God (2004), and The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War (2008). He also founded Travelman, a publishing company that specialized in short stories that could be folded like a map, and were sold around train stations for £1. In addition, Waugh hosted the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Awards, presented annually to writers for excellence in overwrought descriptions of sex in their works.

In 2016, he took over as chairman of the De Vere Society, a group committed to the proposition that "William Shakespeare" was actually a pseudonym for the real author of the plays and sonnets, Edward de Vere. When literary historians Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells published Shakespeare Beyond Doubt in 2013, Waugh countered with his own book, Shakespeare Beyond Doubt?.

Politically conservative and "culturally contrarian," Waugh ran unsuccessfully for Parliament on the Brexit Party ticket in 2019 and opposed vaccine mandates during the Covid pandemic. But he could also be self-deprecatory regarding his positions, observing in Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family (2004): "My various solutions to the problems which beset the nation are intended as suggestions to be thrown around in pubs, clubs and dining rooms. If the government adopted even a tenth of them, catastrophe would surely result." 

Waugh "was by all accounts well-adjusted, at peace with the onus of his ancestors' accomplishments and happy to keep any sibling rivalries on the tennis court," the Times wrote, citing a 2002 Independent article in which he had said: "We're very competitive at tennis, but it doesn't spill over into writing at all. But when it comes to tennis, I want to smash them all to smithereens."

"Going to the chapel and we're gonna get married... but, first!... We must stop at City Lights for a little book loving," City Lights Books, San Francisco, Calif., posted on Instagram.

Stephanie Fidis has joined Dover Publications as an inside sales specialist for independent bookstore and gift accounts.

Adela's Mariachi Band by Denise Vega, illustrated by Erika Rodriguez Medina (Charlesbridge).

Today:
Good Morning America: Nancy Pelosi, author of The Art of Power: My Story as America's First Woman Speaker of the House (Simon & Schuster, $30, 9781668048047). She will also appear tomorrow on CBS Mornings.

Also on GMA: Melissa Urban, author of The New Whole30: The Definitive Plan to Transform Your Health, Habits, and Relationship with Food (Rodale, $35, 9780593235713).

CBS Mornings: John J. Sullivan, author of Midnight in Moscow: A Memoir from the Front Lines of Russia's War Against the West (Little, Brown, $32.50, 9780316571098).

Also on CBS Mornings: Neil Gorsuch, author of Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law (Harper, $32, 9780063238473).

Fresh Air: Theodore H. Schwartz, author of Gray Matters: A Biography of Brain Surgery (Dutton, $32, 9780593474105).

Tomorrow:
Morning Joe: Shad White, author of Mississippi Swindle: Brett Favre and the Welfare Scandal That Shocked America (Steerforth Press, $29, 9781586423865).

Good Morning America: Ian K. Smith, author of Eagle Rock: An Ashe Cayne Novel (Amistad, $24, 9780063253759).

CBS Mornings: Rachel Eliza Griffiths, author of Promise: A Novel (Random House, $18, 9780593241943).

Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) and Emily Bader (Fresh Kills) will star in 3000 Pictures and Netflix's adaptation of People We Meet on Vacation, based on Emily Henry's bestselling 2021 novel, Deadline reported. 

Directed by Brett Haley, the project will be produced by Temple Hill's Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, and Isaac Klausner, with Laura Quicksilver serving as executive producer. Erin Siminoff is overseeing the project for the studio. 

South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry (Ecco) has won the inaugural Inside Literary Prize, the first U.S. literary prize judged exclusively by incarcerated people and sponsored by Freedom Reads, the National Book Foundation, the Center for Justice Innovation, and Lori Feathers, co-owner of Interabang Books, Dallas, Tex.

The shortlist was chosen from the 2022 National Book Awards finalists. Incarcerated people from 12 prisons in six states--Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, and North Dakota--were sent the books to read and consider. Freedom Reads led an Inside Literary Prize tour, where representatives from the sponsoring organizations visited the 12 prisons and held conversations with readers inside who then each voted for their choice to win the prize.

The shortlist:
The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty (NBA fiction winner)
The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories by Jamil Jan Kochai (NBA fiction finalist)
Best Barbarian by Roger Reeves (NBA poetry finalist)
(South to America was the NBA nonfiction winner)

Perry said, "In this honor, I renew my sense of responsibility to the millions of people incarcerated and under state supervision. Not as a matter of charity, but rather out of the deepest respect for the insight that comes from seeing society from the corners that it keeps hidden. And for the wisdom of those whom it keeps out of view. But most of all out of care for those in the grasp of confinement. I think this prize is most of all a recognition of readers and may this recognition of the intellectual life that exists behind bars extend much further... God bless the organizers who believe in freedom. And, to the people inside, please know when I say 'we' and when I refer to 'my people,' I mean you too."

In addition to a hand-crafted, natural wood trophy, Perry was awarded $4,860. This amount, as explained by author and Freedom Reads founder & CEO Reginald Dwayne Betts, represents five years of work at 54-cents-per-hour, the wage earned by Betts when he was incarcerated and worked in the prison library.

British playwright, poet, and author Deborah Levy shares illuminating glimpses into her writing life and engages readers on topics as varied as French writers, automobiles, and wisteria plants in The Position of Spoons and Other Intimacies. Elevated by Levy's sharp eye and her wry, humorous observations, readers will experience through her words the sensation of "rat-grey" London skies and the "fresh and full aroma" of female hysteria lingering across generations of trauma.

Within this marvelous montage of essays and vignettes exploring the emotional and intellectual contours of her interior world, Levy's opening essay pays homage to literary hero Colette. Colette's "self-possessed" beauty and "transgressive and sensuous" style resonated with a teenage Levy, who was also preoccupied with "the theatre of inventing herself." In this she was assisted by a pair of much beloved "brothel creepers," shoes that elevated her confidence and "put the world in perspective."

The Position of Spoons collects previously published pieces and a handful of original compositions. It is in part a manifesto on the profound influence of brilliant women who jolted the author's sensibilities through their work, including the way the courageous model-turned-combat journalist Lee Miller "pointed her camera at terrible things." Levy singles out those who have unapologetically pushed boundaries, admiring the beguiling paintings of Portuguese figurative artist Paula Rego and how her art "dismantles the patriarchal story that has flattened girls and women everywhere."

Levy (The Man Who Saw Everything; Swimming Home; Hot Milk) navigates intense personal moments of lightness, joy, and despair, including, in the essay "A Roaming Alphabet for the Inner Voice," the devastating moment she knew the "crashed aeroplane" of her marriage had sputtered out. Also alphabet-themed, "A to Z of the Death Drive" remembers celebrities who lost their lives in car accidents, among them Eddie Cochran, James Dean, Grace Kelly, and Jackson Pollock. God, she dryly notes, is our "global positioning system."

A trove of memories tumbles forth in the title essay, in which a 26-year-old Levy ponders the difference between a voyeur and a spy. Reading from this collection of 34 pieces, one is privy to some of the author's most heartfelt reflections. Ultimately, The Position of Spoons is a celebration of the freedom to write, the freedom to create and flourish. As Levy reminds us, "No one will give you freedom/ You have to take it." --Shahina Piyarali

Shelf Talker: This marvelous montage of essays and vignettes offers glimpses into the author's writing life and her engaging observations on French writers, automobiles, and female hysteria, among other topics.

The bestselling Libro.fm audiobooks at independent bookstores during July:

Fiction
1. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (Penguin Random House Audio)
2. All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker (Penguin Random House Audio)
3. The Women by Kristin Hannah (Macmillan Audio)
4. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (HarperAudio)
5. James by Percival Everett (Penguin Random House Audio)
6. Sandwich by Catherine Newman (HarperAudio)
7. All Fours by Miranda July (Penguin Random House Audio)
8. Funny Story by Emily Henry (Penguin Random House Audio)
9. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Simon & Schuster Audio)
10. The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley (HarperAudio)

Nonfiction
1. The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (Penguin Random House Audio)
2. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance (HarperAudio)
3. Divergent Mind by Jenara Nerenberg (HarperAudio)
4. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Tantor Media)
5. The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben (HarperCollins)
6. The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson (Penguin Random House Audio)
7. I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy (Simon & Schuster Audio)
8. The Future Is Disabled by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Tantor Media)
9. Against Technoableism by Ashley Shew (HighBridge)
10. Democracy in Retrograde by Sami Sage and Emily Amick (Simon & Schuster Audio)