Birdhouse Books & Gifts, an all-ages, general interest bookstore, will open soon in Austin, Tex.

Located at 5925 Burnet Rd., the store will span 1,900 sq. ft. and have a particularly large selection of middle grade and YA graphic novels and fiction, with store owner Abby Strite noting there will also be prominent banned books, local author, and LGBTQIA+ sections.

The store's interior will feature a reading nest, where customers can relax and enjoy their books, as well as a mural depicting Texas birds and wildflowers that Strite described as "stunning." Alongside books, Strite will carry locally- and regionally-sourced gifts like bookish apparel, journals, candles, and coasters.

Strite's event plans, meanwhile, will primarily focus on local authors, especially early on. The bookstore's first two months will include children's and middle grade author readings nearly every weekend. And in the lead-up to Halloween, the store will participate in a block party and host costumed storytime sessions.

Prior to starting Birdhouse Books & Gifts, Strite had no experience in bookselling, though she described herself as a "10 book-a-month reader" who tracks everything she reads in a spreadsheet. Her career background includes 20 years spent in military and government intelligence, as well as 10 years in Austin's tech industry as a product manager. It was her "lifelong dream" to build a "truly community-centered business."

"As a queer, veteran, mom of 2, I always say that I'm a lot of things, and I know that most people are more than one thing," Strite said. "I want to bring this bookstore to life in a way that recognizes and celebrates all the different parts of people, and provides an inclusive space where patrons can truly breathe freely and bring their full self."

Strite expects to have the bookstore open by early October.

Godmothers, "a local bookstore with a global dream," hosted its grand opening celebration last weekend at 2280 Lillie Ave. in Summerland, Calif. People magazine described the opening as a "star-studded bookstore launch" that included Meghan Markle, her "friend and neighbor Oprah Winfrey, author Shaka Senghor, astrologer Jennifer Freed and the new bookstore's co-founders, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh and Victoria Jackson."

Godmothers is "in the center of design-focused Summerland, but the volumes on the shelves are not mere decoration," Santa Barbara magazine wrote. The bookstore "pays homage to the 'godmothers who lit our way,' according to an entryway sign; that is, women who are often unsung supporters and advocates."

The shop's book offerings include a window display, "when you first walk in," highlighting the works of several high profile local authors, Walsh said in an Instagram video, adding that "authors who are local to the area know that this is their hometown bookstore and we celebrate our hometown authors as if they were our hometown heroes, because to us they are." 

Walsh and Jackson have big plans for the renovated 1920s barn. There is now a fireplace, a couch and some chairs on a raised spotlit platform, "underlining the fact that Godmothers is destined to be a gathering space for Summerland, which the pair felt was in need of a cultural hub, a place to discuss books and ideas," Santa Barbara magazine noted, adding that Walsh, a former literary agent, and Jackson, a cosmetics entrepreneur, "are determined to remedy that."

In an Instagram post, the co-owners noted that Godmothers "is not just a bookstore, but a place for community, connection, and creativity. With our passion for design and an inviting space, we're transforming the bookstore experience into a retreat where readers and writers come together to celebrate the power of storytelling."

The Book Industry Charitable Foundation announced yesterday the winners of two scholarships: the Macmillan Booksellers Professional Development Scholarship and the George Keating Memorial Scholarship.

The Macmillan scholarship, which was created in 2017 to provide professional development opportunities to booksellers traditionally underrepresented in the industry, awards $500 to each recipient to help them attend their regional association's fall trade show. The winners are: Karen Ugarte, of Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural and Bookstore in Los Angeles, Calif.; Sarah Wordhouse, of the Word House in Winona Lake, Ind.; Rome Puente, of Bookworks in Albuquerque, N.Mex.; Claire Van den Brock, of Huxley & Hiro in Wilmington, Del.; Coco Zephir, of Phoenix Books in Burlington, Vt.; John Hart, of Always Here Bookstore in Portland, Ore.; and Eden Haymon, of Cavalier House Books in Denham Springs, La.

The Keating Memorial Scholarship, meanwhile, awards $500 to one bookseller in the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association, one in the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, and one in the New England Independent Booksellers Association. Julie Wernersbach of Hive Mind Books was the recipient from NAIBA, and Preet Singh of Eagle Eye Book Shop in Decatur, Ga., was the recipient from SIBA. NEIBA deferred the scholarship for this year.

"Binc is honored to help book people expand their knowledge and grow in their roles," said Binc executive director Pam French. "Partnering with Macmillan Publishers, the friends of publishing sales rep George Keating and regional associations whose values align with the foundation allows us to support booksellers across the country. Thanks to these two scholarships as well as an additional scholarship for each region, Binc will distribute approximately $11,000 to ensure increased access to professional development."

Half Price Books will close its location in Cedar Hill, Tex., on September 29, WFAA reported.

The Cedar Hill store is located at 711 N. Highway 67 and first opened in 2004. A Half Price Books spokesperson told WFAA that customer traffic had declined there over the years, and keeping it open was "no longer financially viable."

Based in Dallas, Half Price Books operates some 120 locations spread across 19 states, with around 40 in Texas. The company closed a store in Mesquite, Tex., earlier this year.

Stevie Cameron, a Canadian journalist, author and philanthropist whose work spanned decades, died August 31, CBC News reported. She was 80. During her journalism career, which began in the mid-1970s and lasted until the early 2000s, Cameron worked at many of Canada's major news outlets--including the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Ottawa Citizen, and Maclean's--as a columnist, editor or reporter. She also hosted CBC's The Fifth Estate in the early 1990s.

Cameron was not just a political journalist, but also a food writer, the author of six books, a social activist and feminist who gained the loyalty and admiration of fellow journalists and a wide circle of friends, the Globe & Mail reported. When she published On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years in 1994, it was an instant bestseller that "turned its author into a national media star, a controversial figure in her own right, and [former prime minister] Brian Mulroney's nemesis." 

"She was a pioneer in investigative journalism in Canada," said Bob Rae, Canada's ambassador to the United Nations and former Ontario premier. "She was hugely courageous and fearless."

Cameron's investigation for On the Take, which involved revelations about the purchase of new Airbus jets, was assailed by her critics, especially allies of Mulroney, who denounced her work. While Mulroney said nothing publicly, he fumed privately. The Toronto Star noted that Cameron was accused of being an informant for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police when they launched their own investigation--a characterization that was later called into question and that she strongly denied.

Amy Cameron said her mother believed in speaking truth to power, but power sometimes fought back, and the accusation that she was a police informant was particularly hard: "It was an incredibly difficult position for her to be in because how do you defend yourself when you've spent a lifetime trying to keep yourself out of the story? And she truly was not a part of the story and yet had been painted in that way.... She knew that when people reacted in that way and when power reacted that way, that she had touched a nerve and she felt, on balance, that it was important to tell that story."

Cameron's other works include two books on serial killer Robert Pickton--The Pickton File (2007) and On the Farm: Robert William Pickton and the Tragic Story of Vancouver's Missing Women (2010), as well as Blue Trust: The Author, the Lawyer, His Wife and Her Money (1998). Cameron was named a member of the Order of Canada in 2012 for her journalism career and volunteer work.

"She had gotten many of her scoops in Ottawa about politicians because she knew all the decorators and designers and the food people," author and journalist Jan Wong told the Toronto Star. "It's a huge loss for Canadian journalism because she was one of the most skilled investigative reporters." 

To commemorate the legendary debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858 in Illinois--the forerunners of modern-day national debates like the one coming up tonight--Powell's Books, Portland, Ore., set up a display in its Rare Book Room highlighting a first edition, first printing of Political Debates Between Hon Abraham Lincoln & Hon Stephen A Douglas (published in 1860 by Follett, Foster & Co., and worth $2,400 in 2024 dollars) and an early printing of Lives & Speeches of Abraham Lincoln & Hannibal Hamlin (also published in 1860 by Follett, Foster & Co., and worth $500).

The latest Open Book with David Steinberger podcast is called "From Politics to Publishing" and features Allison Dobson, president of the Penguin Publishing Group. They discuss in part Dobson's transition from working on presidential campaigns for Senator Bill Bradley and Senator John Kerry to executive roles at Random House and Penguin, the challenges of merging company cultures, and much more. The podcast is available here.

Briana Williams has been promoted from marketing associate to assistant marketing manager of children's & YA titles at Bloomsbury US.

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At Sourcebooks:

Ashley Mallick has joined Sourcebooks as key account fulfillment representative.

Cara Nesi has joined Sourcebooks as senior inside sales manager.

Rebecca Atkinson has been promoted to associate manager: international marketing and publicity.

Zoya Boskovic has been promoted to digital marketing specialist.

Alexandra Derdall has been promoted to digital marketing manager: special projects.

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Catherine Araimo has joined HarperCollins as marketing associate in the academic marketing department. She was mostly recently a production assistant in the art and set design departments at Kaufman Studios in Astoria and earlier worked in editorial at Dover Publications.

Atlas of Finance: Mapping the Global Story of Money by Dariusz Wojcik, illustrated by James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti (Yale University Press).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Jayson Tatum, co-author of Baby Dunks-a-Lot: A Picture Book (Abrams Books for Young Readers, $19.99, 9781419771460). He will also appear on the Tonight Show.

Also on GMA: DeMar DeRozan, author of Above the Noise: My Story of Chasing Calm (Harmony, $28, 9780593581261).

Today Show: Debra Whitman, author of The Second Fifty: Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond (W.W. Norton, $29.99, 9780393867657).

British sci-fi novelist Adrian Tchaikovsky (Children of Time book series) has adapted Stanislaw Lem's novella, The Inquest of Pilot Pirx, as a movie project. Variety reported that Nafta Films, led by Esko Rips, and Film and Music Entertainment, headed by Sam Taylor, have teamed up to produce the movie. 

Lem's story was previously adapted as a film by Polish director Marek Piestrak in 1979. The new project has garnered support from the Estonian Film Institute, the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, and the Creative Europe MEDIA Program.

"We are over the moon to team up with Esko Rips and Nafta and bring the combined vision of science fiction's two most brilliant authors to the big screen," Taylor said. "Both writers are my personal heroes and the deep theme of artificial intelligence set within an epic galactic setting will make the film both timely and timeless."

Rips commented: "Nafta Films prides itself on our story-first approach to filmmaking and could not be more thrilled to bring to life this thought-provoking tale by one of the greatest science-fiction writers of all time. Sam Taylor and the FAME team are the perfect partners with whom to bring this intelligent and dynamic story to life."

A longlist of 21 writers has been unveiled for the 2024 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers, awarded in memory of Hachette Australia's former CEO Matt Richell, who died in a surfing accident in 2014. The award is sponsored by the publisher and the Richell family, in partnership with the Emerging Writers' Festival and Simpsons Solicitors. 

A shortlist will be released October 17 and a winner named November 27. The winner receives A$10,000 (about US$6,670), donated by the Richell family, along with a 12-month mentorship. Hachette will work with the winning writer to develop their manuscript, with the first option to consider the finished work for publication. Check out the longlisted authors here.

Life is unpredictable. And Kate Gladdin, a life coach, understands this better than most. In Okay, Now What? she offers pragmatic motivational advice to those trying to cope with the lingering anguish of painful experiences.

Gladdin's own personal testimony drives this inspiring narrative. In 2012, Gladdin's beloved older sister was killed in a road accident. Shocked by the sudden death, then-20-year-old Gladdin spiraled into "a dark fog of grief." Later, when the driver who caused the accident was not properly charged for her sister's death, Gladdin further struggled with a sense of injustice that spawned even deeper issues of anger and bitterness.

Absorbed by interminable despair and victimhood, Gladdin (Mini Habits for Teens) came across a quote by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl on her Pinterest page: "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances." This idea became a watershed, lifting the hopelessness that had been paralyzing Gladdin's perspective. She started to examine stories of others who sustained and overcame shattering losses. In the process, she realized the best way to honor her sister and their relationship was to focus on what she was grateful for in her own life, including an "air conditioned home with a fridge full of food and loving parents I could hug at any minute." This simple act of recognition snowballed into a much larger, longer-term quest to help others struggling with depression and anxiety--common byproducts of trauma and adversity.

Gladdin's method is straightforward. She walks readers through a process of answering tough questions in order to identify and define the crux of deep-seated feelings. She then suggests reflecting on how those feelings impact thoughts and responses in order intentionally to redirect energies more positively. Through practical, well-explained examples from her own life and stories from others, she demonstrates how to stay in control and manage feelings by focusing on things that can be controlled in order to live more purposefully.

Readers will come away with a greater understanding of how hardships do not have to harden the heart and/or break the human spirit. Rather, via Gladdin's sensible, affirming approach, seekers will grow and cultivate resilience, discovering ways to turn uncertain, painful experiences into "something that makes you fall back in love with life again." --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Shelf Talker: A life coach with a personal understanding of grief and loss shares inspirational strategies for becoming empowered by hardships.

The bestselling self-published books last week as compiled by IndieReader.com:

1. Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
2. Twisted Love by Ana Huang
3. The Ritual by Shantel Tessier
4. Anarchy by Tate James
5. The Inmate by Freida McFadden
6. It's Time to Give a Feck by Chaz Ebert
7. Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman
8. 7th Circle by Tate James
9. Wild Eyes by Elsie Silver
10. The Devious Husband by Catharina Maura

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]