Following a soft opening in late July, Neighbor Books in McKinney, Tex., will host a grand opening celebration tomorrow, August 10, Community Impact reported.

Neighbor Books resides at 208 E. Louisiana St. and features a general-interest, all-ages inventory spread across two floors. In addition to books, there are puzzles, games, and a variety of store-branded merchandise.

The grand opening event will feature children's storytimes in Spanish and English. After the grand opening, co-owners and married couple Joey and Ginny Honescko plan to expand their event offerings with author signings, puzzle nights, and book clubs. They also offer a store membership program that includes discounts, free drip coffee, and early access to events; around 200 people have joined as members so far.

Joey Honescko told Community Impact that community members have "rallied behind" the store, even going so far as helping the owners finish renovations and set up. The store's wide-ranging inventory, Honescko added, is meant to make everyone who enters "feel like this is a place for them."

Letters Bookshop in Durham, N.C., is switching from a traditional, privately owned business model to a community-supported cooperative.

"After 10 years of owning Letters Bookshop, and more than 20 years in bookselling, I am ready to hand over the reins," said store founder Land Arnold. "I believe a co-op is the best way to ensure a sustainable future for Letters and its staff, to build an even stronger reading community in Durham, and to strengthen a commitment to downtown."

The business is now called Letters Community Bookshop and is governed by an inaugural board of directors. Ownership shares are available for $116. Shares come with voting rights, enrollment in a frequent buyer program, 20% off select hardcover books, and a limited-edition tote bag. There is also an option for preferred shares that sell in increments of $250 and have a yearly dividend.

"I hope the new model will help us shore up the things we already do well and continue to evolve alongside a shop community that's wider and, inherently, deeper," said general manager William Page.

Arnold noted that since the Covid-19 pandemic, many office workers, events, and festivals have not returned to downtown Durham. And while the long-term outlook is positive, downtown retail faces significant challenges in the short term.

"The next step in bookselling is to become a model not only of retail survival but of community-supported retail vitality," Arnold said.

After 21 years in business, the Book Table in Oak Park, Ill., will close permanently, the Chicago Sun Times reported.

Co-owners Jason Smith and Rachel Weaver, who opened the bookstore in July 2003, told the Times that the decision to close was a personal choice and not a financial one. The pandemic, they explained, was extremely difficult and took a large emotional toll.

"We thought that after everything returned to normal, we would be able to shake it off, and everything would be fine," Smith said. "But we've found that we haven't fully shaken it off, and it's time."

When the store opened at 1045 Lake St., it was one of four bookstores in the neighborhood and focused only on used books. As nearby stores began to close, a need arose in the community for a bookstore selling new titles. In 2011, the Book Table took over an adjacent storefront and expanded the inventory.

"It's not just our love of books that kept us going this long; it was our love of this community," Smith added. "We have the world's greatest customers, and they have supported us in every way possible. We could not possibly be more grateful for every one of them."

Weaver and Smith have not set an official closing date, but on Thursday they discounted all books an additional 10%. They plan to increase the discount as they sell through their remaining inventory. The couple told the Times that they have not decided what they will do next.

After more than a decade away from the Harbison shopping district in Columbia, S.C., Barnes & Noble is planning to open a store at Columbiana Centre mall near Harbison Boulevard. The State (via AOL) reported that "there are Instagram, Facebook and X pages teasing a Columbiana location. In addition, as of Wednesday morning there was a Google listing for a Columbiana location, which lists a local phone number featuring a recorded message touting the coming store.

"Can't wait to meet our neighbors," the Barnes & Noble Columbiana Instagram page posted Monday alongside a photo of the mall's carousel. A B&N at 278-A Harbison Boulevard, in a shopping center across the road from the mall, closed in 2013.

Dana Adkins

Dana Adkins, longtime editor and literary agent, died last month at the age of 77. The cause of death was complications from a fall and head injury brought on by ehrlichiosis, a deer tick disease.

Adkins, born in 1947 in Akron, Ohio, joined the publishing industry after attending the Radcliffe Publishing Course at Radcliffe College. She began her career in Boston, Mass., before moving to New York City, where she worked as an editor at Viking Press and senior staff editor at Reader's Digest. Later she was partner at Adkins & Phillips Literary Agency.

Her friends described her as a "terrific editor," and as a "kind, gentle, and generous person who loved books, the arts, people, and her pets." She was a frequent visitor to museums, the opera, theater, and musical venues.

A memorial service will be held in New York in October, with details to be announced.

Shelf Awareness for Readers, our weekly consumer-facing publication featuring adult and children's book reviews, author interviews, backlist recommendations, and fun news items, is being published today. Starred review highlights include Shalom Auslander's "outrageously funny second memoir," Feh, and French novelist Adèle Rosenfeld's debut, Jellyfish Have No Ears, "a strange, haunting story of sensory presence and absence, language and loss, relationships and choices." And for younger readers, we spotlight We Are Definitely Human by X. Fang, "a fabulously illustrated, rib-tickling, and affecting testament to the benefits of kindness and community spirit"; and Mama's Chicken and Dumplings by Dionna L. Mann, a "sweet and funny novel" about a Black girl in the 1930s with a matchmaking plan for her mother. In The Writer's Life, conservationist authors Maya Gabeira (Maya and the Beast and Maya Makes Waves) and Hayley Rocco (Hello, I'm a Pangolin and Hello, I'm a Sloth) share their passion for the natural world and a vision for the future of animal life. Plus, rediscover the late author and longtime editor-in-chief of Harper's Magazine, Lewis H. Lapham.

Today's issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers is going to more than 690,000 customers of 251 independent bookstores. Stores interested in learning more can contact our partnership program team via e-mail. To see today's issue, click here.

"One of the best things about an independent bookstore? When two wonderful people run over to your store on their wedding day! Thank you, Stephanie and Marién, for sharing your special day with us. Cheers to many years of books and love!" Exile in Bookville, Chicago, Ill., posted on Instagram.

Stéphanie d'Hubert

Stéphanie d'Hubert has been named head buyer for the Seminary Co-op Bookstore and 57th Street Books, Chicago, Ill., and continues as deputy director. D'Hubert joined the store as a bookseller in 2017 and has worked as inventory coordinator and publisher relations manager.

Gaslight by Miles Joris-Peyrafitte and Sara Shepard (Blackstone Publishing).

Today:
Fresh Air: Evan Thomas, author of Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II (Random House Trade Paperbacks, $23, 9780399589270).

Apple TV+ has released a teaser trailer for Disclaimer, the limited series based on the 2015 bestselling novel by Renée Knight. Created and directed by five-time Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuarón, the series will make its debut October 11 with the first two episodes, followed by new episodes every Friday through November 15. Disclaimer stars Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen, Lesley Manville, Louis Partridge, Leila George, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Hoyeon.

The series is co-produced by Esperanto Filmoj and Anonymous Content. Cuarón executive produces for Esperanto Filmoj alongside Gabriela Rodriguez. In addition to starring, Blanchett serves as executive producer. David Levine and the late Steve Golin executive produce for Anonymous Content. Emmanuel Lubezki, Donald Sabourin, and Carlos Morales also executive produce. Knight serves as co-executive producer. Lubezki and Bruno Delbonnel serve as directors of photography. The score is composed by Finneas O'Connell.

Kwame Anthony Appiah has been awarded the Library of Congress $500,000 Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, which recognizes "individuals whose outstanding scholarship in the humanities and social sciences has shaped public affairs and civil society." 
 
"Dr. Appiah's philosophical work is elegant, groundbreaking and highly respected," said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden Hayden. "His writing about race and identity transcends predictable categories and encourages dialogue across traditional divisions. He is an ideal recipient for the 2024 Kluge Prize, and we were thrilled to select him for this award."
  
Appiah is the Silver Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University and the author of more than a dozen books, including In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture, a major work in contemporary Africana studies.

Appiah is the current president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has served as a member of the Advisory Board of the National Museum for African Art, chair of the board of the American Council of Learned Societies, and president of PEN America Center, the Modern Language Association, and of the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division.

photo: Valentina Cy

Jay Ellis was born in Sumter, S.C., to a military family. After college, he decided to take his one-man show to Hollywood, where he got his start in a recurring role on BET's The Game. Now an actor, philanthropist, and entrepreneur, Ellis is best known for his role as Lawrence on HBO's Insecure, for which he won an NAACP Image Award. His memoir, Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)? (One World, July 30, 2024), is about growing up with an imaginary best friend that was part Dwayne Wayne from A Different World and part Will Smith from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Handsell readers your book in 30 words or less:

Stories of an only child with an overactive imagination coming of age, through heartaches, road trips, and basketball games with an imaginary friend in the chaotic '80s and '90s. 

On your nightstand now: 

When Crack Was King by Donovan X. Ramsey--Donovan and I grew up at a similar time in different parts of the country, and I love this exploration of finding understanding in how something so ever-present in the '80s had such different effects on so many people even though we're led to generalize that all people affected by crack were the same. 

Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg--I love reading about how and why people communicate the ways we do. From the on the nose to the nuanced, it's fascinating.

Favorite book when you were a child:

NEATE to the Rescue! by Deborah M. Newton Chocolate--It felt like I was reading about my friends and me. And most books I read at that time, primarily through school, didn't have anyone like me in them.

Your top five authors:

Colson Whitehead
Toni Morrison
James Baldwin
Maya Angelou
Paul Beatty

Book you've faked reading:

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. I just couldn't bring myself to do it in school when I was growing up. So I asked my friends what it was about before the pop quiz. 

Book you're an evangelist for:

All About Love by bell hooks. As the great Tupac would say, "I'm a sucker for love." All About Love is such a great exploration and understanding of how we love, why we love, why we search for love, and how we find it.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Subway Art by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant--I'm obsessed with graffiti as art and a culture.

Book you hid from your parents:

R.L. Stine's Fear Street books--all of them because my mom didn't want me reading "horror" books that would give me nightmares.

Book that changed your life:

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho--life is about the journey!!!! So simple but at the end I was like, "Damn!"

Favorite line from a book:

"Remember that just because something is, doesn't mean it can't change, and just because you haven't seen something before, that doesn't mean it's impossible." --from Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

I read it recently and that line always floats around in my head as something to remember whenever I'm stuck.

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

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

Other books that are your favorite reads:

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, and Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss.

Zambian author Mubanga Kalimamukwento's Obligations of the Wounded contains 16 stories, all but one spotlighting the lives of Zambian women in and out of their native country: they're victims and survivors, resigned and ferocious, trapped and free. Obligations won the 2024 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, which has honored writers of short fiction since 1981, chosen by Angie Cruz (Dominicana), who deemed Kalimamukwento's work "a graceful, touching, and generous collection."

The wounds of familial relationships loom throughout. Two sisters populate "Azubah," in which the older sister stayed in Zambia while the younger immigrated to the U.S.; she is now called home because "Mama is really bad"--shattering confrontations are inevitable. In "A Doctor, a Lawyer, an Engineer, or a Shame to the Family," a new aunt writes a five-part "cheat sheet for how to not disappoint your Zambian parents" for her infant niece, which already demands the impossible: "Be born first (and male) AND MALE." A woman concurrently becomes a mother and loses her own mother in "Mastitis," but her dead mother proves more nurturing and helpful than her detached husband. In "It Will Be Beautiful Again," a dying mother wonders "How do you cram a lifetime of lessons into one moment?" as she holds her 10-year-old daughter.

Young girls face fearful futures in "Inswa," about a 13-year-old who is married off to the old, already-many-times-married village chief, seemingly in retaliation for discovering her sexuality with her best friend; in "Chess Pie," about a young schoolgirl learning too soon to be silent; and in "Chidunune," about a small child kidnapped while playing hide-and-seek. But women impressively rebel in "Whisper Down the Lane," when students return their teacher's zealous abuse; and in "#BaileyLies," in which a struggling journalist publicly exposes a foreign humanitarian's mendacious memoir. The final, most poignant story, "Where Is Jane?," features a young girl watching other children play a chanting game in which the lines mirror how her mother torments her in increasingly horrifying ways.

In a few stories, Kalimamukwento strikingly experiments with form--visual layout, inventive punctuation, extended white spaces--emphasizing a sense of elliptical not-knowing. Crossed-out text cleverly reveals the unfiltered, honest conversations social norms won't allow. For the dispossessed and discarded--too many of them "wounded" women--independence and agency are hard-won victories. Kalimamukwento, a Zambian Fulbright scholar with a U.S. law degree, writes with empathic knowing, deftly treading between resignation and hope. Her enigmatic storytelling underscores that silence is not an option, that bearing witness is obligatory. --Terry Hong

Shelf Talker: Mubanga Kalimamukwento's superb 16-story collection, Obligations to the Wounded, illuminates the complicated experiences of Zambian women on both sides of the globe.

Geeks find enthusiasm where others see boredom. They are the ones with true imagination--and big futures. 

--Washington Post, "Nerds & Geeks Are Taking Over the Paris Olympics"

At Bert's Books, Swindon

Although I wrote about the bookish Olympic Games in Paris in last week's column, I couldn't resist returning to the scene as prevailing themes continued to get refreshingly nerdier and indie booksellers kept upping their own game on social media. 

The momentum has even inspired at least one book buyer at Inkwood Books, Haddonfield, N.J., who posted on Facebook: "Monday morning book ordering. If you notice an unusual number of books about sports and badass women you’ll know why. #inspiration #olympics2024 #booksellerlife."

As a former high school and college nerd/athlete, I've particularly enjoyed the focus on athletes at these Games who do not fit the Olympian stereotype. And, as proud, lifelong eyeglass-wearing book nerd, I was happy to see the Games get off to an epic start with the stellar, bespectacled American gymnast and "pommel horse guy" Stephen Nedoroscik, now a double Bronze medalist. When asked who the most famous person to reach out to him on social media had been, he replied: "The guy that wrote Fault in Our Stars tweeted about me. That was insane.'' 

Bestselling author John Green had posted "Stephen Nedoroscik just struck a blow for nerds everywhere. Beautiful.... People who aren't nerds don't understand how long we've been waiting for an electrical engineer from Pennsylvania POMMEL THE HELL OUT OF A HORSE." Reacting to Nedoroscik's name-drop, he added later: "THIS IS THE GREATEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE. LOVE YOU @GymnastSteve!" 

Both New York magazine ("Big Year for Olympians Who Wear Glasses") and the Wall Street Journal ("The Biggest Spectacle at the Olympics Is Everyone Wearing Glasses") highlighted the trend of Olympic medalists wearing glasses, including Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade, Yusuf Dikeç of Turkey (10-meter air pistol), France's Félix Lebrun (table tennis), as well as swimmers Kaylee McKeown of Australia and Daniel Wiffen of Ireland. 

And then there is Noah Lyles, the gold medal winner of the 100-meter dash who, after the Games, will "get back to the things he really loves: manga, Magic: The Gathering, and other geeky endeavors, including Yu-Gi-Oh!," the Wall Street Journal wrote ("He Is the World’s Fastest Man--and a Hero to Nerds").

At the Understudy

As the Olympic athletes shared their nerd creds, indie booksellers at Second Star to the Right, Denver, Colo., featured videos of the shop's bookseller athletes competing in events like book stacking and alphabetization; while booksellers at the Understudy, Chicago, Ill., were "going for the gold."

Bookstores highlighting Olympic-level reading picks included Murder by the Book, Houston, Tex. ("Looks like we have a bit of that Olympic spirit over at MBTB! Come visit us for some gold medal recommends."), Malibu Village Books, Malibu, Calif. ("What you should read next based on your favorite Olympics activity? Stop by any day of the week... to get your newest read!"), and The Briar Patch, Bangor, Maine ("Simone Biles's name has been everywhere recently as she has medaled again and again in what could be her last Olympics. But who is she? We've got books to answer that for your young readers and budding gymnasts! Drop in and see us.").

Also displaying bookish Olympic spirit were Three Bells Books, Mason City, Iowa ("In honor of the Olympics being in Paris this month, one of our endcap displays for August celebrates all things French!"), Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, Mass. ("Congrats to @simonebiles on winning all-around gymnastics gold! The Olympics are in full-swing and we have some great books on our kids seasonal display shelves to keep the momentum and excitement going."),  Browseabout Books, Rehoboth Beach, Del., and Storyline Bookshop, Upper Arlington, Ohio.

I almost made it through two columns about the Olympics without mentioning the River Seine's dubious impact on these Games, but Zibby's Bookshop, Santa Monica, Calif., reminded me: "We've got Olympic fever!!! (hopefully not an actual fever from swimming in the Seine). Come on by the bookshop to check out our new table featuring memoirs and other books by famous athletes and Olympic champions. Who knows, maybe they will inspire you to go for gold!!!"

As it happens, swimming in the Seine does have an even more direct bookseller connection. Salt Lake City, Utah's KSL TV reporter Tamara Vaifanua, who has been in Paris covering the Olympic shopping beat, found a local book and gift shop called MessyNessy’s Cabinet at 19 Rue de Bièvre, near Notre Dame Cathedral. Owner Vanessa Graal is an author, publisher, and founder of MessyNessyChic.com. Her books include Don't Be a Tourist in Paris, Don't Be a Tourist in New York, and Don't Be a Tourist in London. 

One of the more popular items in her shop is Eau de Seine. Graal told KSL TV she fills a jug with river water, filters it through a Brita filter four or five times, puts it in small glass bottles and sells it for €20 ($21.80). She describes the final product like this: "The Paris souvenir nobody asked for. Do not drink but DO manifest your Parisian dreams with it sitting pretty on your bookshelf.... Warning: may contain the tears of poets, artists, flâneurs and lovers, as well as traces of nostalgia, splashes of inspiration, and the soul of Paris itself. Believed to have auspicious powers to draw its bearer back to the city's cobblestone streets and moonlit bridges."

Let the bookish, nerdy Games continue!