"I've gotten good at sitting in this room and writing, but that doesn't get you a career, because no one would necessarily know. It's because of librarians or booksellers who make those connections and think, 'Oh, I know who might like this kind of book.'

"And just to put it over the top, my local indie is Northshire Bookstore in Saratoga [N.Y.], where my wife has worked since they opened. She's the events manager there. So we're not diversified at all in our family holdings. We're just all in on the indie book world."

BestCellar Book Bar will open tomorrow, November 12, in Clarence, N.Y., the Buffalo News reported.

Located at 9560 Main St., BestCellar will carry new general-interest titles, particularly historical fiction, romance, fantasy, young adult, and history. The bar will have beer, wine, and cider on offer, along with assorted nonalcoholic options. The bar and the bookstore share one contiguous space, with room for plenty of seating and an area that community members can reserve for their own events.

Devon Powers, who opened the store with her father, Peter Powers, intends to host author signings, trivia nights, and other events. Powers described the atmosphere as "calm and moody," with inspiration coming from antique libraries.

"I love to read in public by myself, but I just didn't ever feel like there was a space that was comfortable enough," Powers told Buffalo News.

Judy Hottensen is stepping down as v-p, associate publisher at Grove Atlantic, effective January 1. She will help lead the transition with a new hire and continue to work on independent projects at Grove in 2025.

Judy Hottensen

Hottensen has been with Grove Atlantic for a combined 32 years, in her present role since 2011. She was the director of publicity at Grove Atlantic and Grove/Weidenfeld for 20 years, and she held other publicity roles at Pantheon Books and Simon & Schuster.  She was also the publisher of Miramax/Weinstein Books for six years. At Grove, she worked on major projects such as Sex and the City, Valley of the Dolls, Cold Mountain, H Is for Hawk, The Sympathizer, The Covenant of Water, and many others, including books by Leif Enger, Lily King, Jim Harrison, Sherman Alexie, Mark Bowden, Francisco Goldman, Claire Keegan, and recent prize winners such as Prophet Song and Shuggie Bain.

Morgan Entrekin, CEO and publisher of Grove Atlantic, said, "For more than 30 years Judy Hottensen has been an essential part of the Grove Atlantic team, helping launch our authors and their books into the world with tireless enthusiasm, equanimity, and style. She has helped create the culture that makes us who we are, and we will always be grateful."

A new survey from the National Literacy Trust in the U.K. has found a "shocking and dispiriting" fall in children reading for pleasure, with only 35% of eight- to 18-year-olds enjoying reading in their spare time, an 8.8% drop from last year to the lowest figure yet recorded, the Guardian reported. 

The NLT said the results are part of a broader downward trend since 2016, when almost two-thirds of children said that they enjoyed reading. Reading frequency is also at a historic low, with 20.5% of those surveyed reporting reading daily in their free time, compared to 28% last year. The gender gap has also widened, with 28.2% of boys now saying they enjoy reading in their free time, compared to 40.5% of girls.

"For a report focused largely on reading enjoyment, much of this is not an enjoyable read," the report noted. "The declining levels of reading enjoyment and reading frequency are, frankly, shocking and dispiriting."

---

Thalia, Germany's largest bookseller, is taking over online bookseller buecher.de, effective immediately. DPA International (via Yahoo News) reported that all employees will be taken on and will keep their jobs under the same conditions. No purchase price was revealed.

Buecher.de currently belongs to the Weltbild Group, which filed for bankruptcy in June, pushing other companies in the group into insolvency. Thalia said the purchase price will be paid to the insolvency estate, from which the creditors will receive their stake at the end of the proceedings. 

Thalia chief executive Ingo Kretzschmar described buecher.de as "an excellent addition to the Thalia Group," adding that the online company "has loyal customers and will remain as a brand in the future."

--- 

Applications have opened for the third RISE Bookselling Conference, which will take place March 23-24, 2025, in Riga, Latvia. The first two conferences were held in Prague and Lisbon. Places are limited and you can register here.

The Rise Bookselling Conference gathers some 300 booksellers from Europe and the world, as well as representatives and industry experts from the entire sector (authors, publishers, distributors, etc.). This third edition of the conference is "dedicated entirely to the bookselling sector. Meet booksellers and book trade professionals from all around the world, and enjoy a packed two-day program of discussion panels, presentations, workshops, keynote speeches and networking opportunities! Discover new ideas to implement in your bookshop, learn how the bookselling business works in other countries, and make new friends," the organizers said.

In addition, on Saturday, March 22, participants have the opportunity to explore Riga and visit some of its bookshops. 

--- 

Staff meeting, NZ style: New Zealand bookseller Wardini Books, Havelock North, shared a video of the shop's "staff meeting at Wardini Towers with surprise guest--our Phoebe! She's back from the U.S. for a quick visit and executed her surprise in true Phoebe style." --Robert Gray

Dorothy Allison, "who wrote with lyrical, pungent wit about her working-class Southern upbringing--and about the incest and violence that shaped her--and whose acclaimed 1992 novel, Bastard Out of Carolina, based on her harrowing childhood, made her a literary star," died November 5, the New York Times reported. She was 75.

Dorothy Allison

Before her bestselling novel, Allison had published Trash, a collection of short stories, and a self-published poetry chapbook, The Women Who Hate Me. 

She "was flat broke in 1989 when she decided to try to sell Bastard Out of Carolina, the novel she had been writing for nearly a decade, to a mainstream publisher," the Times noted. The book was published in 1992 and quickly became a bestseller.

"I believe that storytelling can be a strategy to help you make sense out of your life," she told the Times in 1995. "It's what I've done. Bastard Out of Carolina used a lot of the stories that my grandmother told me and some real things that happened in my life. But I took it over and did what my grandmother did: I made it a different thing. I made a heroic story about a young girl who faces down a monster."

As the Times wrote, critics compared Allison with Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, and Harper Lee. Actress Anjelica Huston directed a 1996 TV movie based on Bastard Out of Carolina, which aired on Showtime.

Allison became a hero to incest survivors, young lesbians, and runaways, the Times noted, adding that she was mobbed at readings, but "there was blowback, too. The book was pilloried by some school boards as pornography, and banned at high schools in Maine and California."

In Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, her 1995 memoir adapted from a monologue she had been performing, Allison recalled a lesbian therapist friend who cautioned her about speaking frankly of her abuse. "People might imagine that sexual abuse makes lesbians," her friend told her. Allison replied: "Oh I doubt it. If it did, there would be so many more."

She was the first in her family to go to college--"armed with a National Merit Scholarship, a new dress and a new pair of glasses donated by a local civic group," the Times wrote. 

"Thank God it was the '60s and everybody was pretending to be poor anyway," she said later. "But I had to start dating upper-class girls to learn about shoes." Allison also discovered feminism and joined a lesbian collective. She opened a feminist bookstore and ran a women's center. 

In addition to teaching creative writing at Emory University, Davidson College, and other institutions, Allison wrote erotica, although she preferred the term "smut." Her most recent novel, Cavedweller (1998), was made into a movie starring Kyra Sedgwick and Aidan Quinn in 2004.

"Every time I sit down to write, I have a great fear that anything I write will reveal me as the monster I was always told I would be," Allison observed in an essay included in Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, and Literature (1994). "But that fear is personal, something I must face in everything I do, every act I contemplate. Writing is an act that claims courage and meaning, and turns back denial, breaks open fear."

Spoke & Word Books, Milwaukie, Ore., was the setting last Wednesday for an unusual reaction to Tuesday's election results. As owner Cierra Cook recounted, "Amidst the darkness of yesterday's election news, our neighbors Hailey and Ash made the beautiful decision to embrace love over fear, and get hitched in the bookshop! They reached out to us in the morning, and by 3 p.m. they were married."

Cook, an ordained minister, officiated and added: "Thank you so much, Ash and Hailey, for letting us be a part of your story. The joy and love radiating from you yesterday was palpable, and we all benefited from seeing your love flourish. Thank you to friend of the shop Stori Long for dropping everything and writing the most beautiful wedding ceremony in a few hours."

Part of the ceremony included these lines: "What is clear is that now, more than ever, it is the time for love. For a gritty love--a beautiful love--a love with teeth and claws that looks at the person standing across from them and says, 'I'm here. No matter what else may be true; know that I am here. I see you. I celebrate you. I know you. Wherever we go; we go together.'

"In a world that will tell us over and over that we aren't enough; that we aren't worthy; love becomes our most precious and most renewable resource. Now is not the time to be stingy with that love."

Congratulations to Albertine Books, New York, N.Y., which focuses on French- and English-language titles and is part of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. Albertine Books is celebrating its 10th anniversary from Thursday, November 14, to Saturday, November 16, with an extensive series of panels and events that include a children's drawing workshop and a tribute to the late Paul Auster.

Celebration participants include Nobel Prize economics winner Esther Duflo; Egyptian writer Alaa Al Aswany; Anne Berest, author of The Postcard; Prix Goncourt winners Patrick Chamoiseau and Hervé Le Tellier; former French Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak; comic book author Catherine Meurisse; author and artist Nora Krug; authors Colum McCann, A.M. Homes, and Katie Kitamura; professors Kaiama Glover and Emily Drabinski; journalists Laure Adler and Mona Chalabi; publisher Françoise Nyssen; children's books author Anne-Lise Boutin, winner of the 2024 Prix Albertine Jeunesse; and others.

For a full schedule of event, click here.

Jennifer Goddard has joined Hachette Book Group as senior director of communications. She has two decades of experience in communications, editorial, and marketing management in the academic, non-profit, and corporate worlds, most recently as director of marketing & communications at St. John's University and as associate v-p of communications for Barnard College at Columbia University. Earlier she worked for more than 10 years in CBS's corporate communications department.

Winter Light by Aaron Becker (Candlewick Press).

Today:
Good Morning America: Bola Sokunbi, author of Clever Girl Finance, Expanded & Updated: Ditch Debt, Save Money and Build Real Wealth (Wiley, $24.95, 9781394266944).
 
Also on GMA: Bryan Ford, author of Pan y Dulce: The Latin American Baking Book (Voracious, $40, 9780316293259).
 
CBS Mornings: PJ Morton, author of Saturday Night, Sunday Morning: Staying True to Myself from the Pews to the Stage (Worthy Books, $28, 9781546006657).
 
The Talk: Paul Scheer, author of Joyful Recollections of Trauma (HarperOne, $29.99, 9780063293717).
 
Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, co-author of The Accomplice: A Novel (Amistad, $27.99, 9780063312906).
 
Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Aja Evans, author of Feel-Good Finance: Untangle Your Relationship with Money for Better Mental, Emotional, and Financial Well-Being (BenBella, $21.95, 9781637745434).
 
Today Show: Christina Tosi, co-author of Bake Club: 101 Must-Have Moves for Your Kitchen (Knopf, $35, 9780593802397).
 
Drew Barrymore Show: Martha Stewart, author of Martha: The Cookbook: 100 Favorite Recipes, with Lessons and Stories from My Kitchen (Clarkson Potter, $40, 9780593139202).
 
Kelly Clarkson Show: Connie Chung, author of Connie: A Memoir (Grand Central, $32.50, 9781538766989).

A trailer has been released for Paul Schrader's highly-anticipated Oh, Canada, based on the 2021 novel Foregone by the late Russell Banks. IndieWire reported that the film, which premiered in competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and went on to screen at TIFF, stars Jacob Elordi and Richard Gere as a documentarian in two different stages of his life. 

Schrader described the film to IndieWire as about "Canada being a metaphor for death," he said. "It's my Ivan Ilyich." Oh, Canada premieres in select theaters December 6 from Kino Lorber. Banks and director Schrader previously collaborated on Affliction.

A Stranger in Baghdad by Elizabeth Loudon (Hoopoe/the American University in Cairo Press) has won the 2024 International Fiction Book Award at the Sharjah International Book Fair. The press describes the novel as "an intergenerational drama rendered in beautiful prose featuring the struggles of a mother and daughter to navigate as outsiders in Baghdad and London."

Loudon said in part, "The characters in this novel mean so much to me. I'm grateful to the judges for helping to share this story of Baghdad as it used to be before the recent invasions and wars, and of the complicated--and often troubled--relationship between Britain and Iraq."

AUC Press executive director Thomas Willshire said, "We are thrilled that our literature imprint, Hoopoe, has another prize-winning title. Elizabeth Loudon's A Stranger in Baghdad tells a compelling story from the Middle East, and particularly from the heart of Iraq, perfectly aligning with Hoopoe's mission to publish significant narratives and cross-border voices while showcasing distinguished literary works. The novel has been warmly embraced by readers and book clubs, reflecting a strong interest in stories from the Middle East."

In The Verifiers, Jane Pek introduced readers to the quirky, clever Claudia Lin: book-loving, bike-riding English major in search of a meaningful career. The Rivals picks up seven months into Claudia working for Veracity, a kind of "online-dating detective agency" in New York City that verifies the accuracy of user information fed into the ubiquitous, big-tech matchmakers that dominate the not-too-distant future Pek imagines for the series. Having solved a murder and uncovered a corporate conspiracy in the previous novel, Claudia is now unexpectedly co-owner of the agency with her former coworkers, Becks and Squirrel. Now, the three colleagues are in a tentative partnership while trying to figure out why the "Big Three" matchmaker companies are developing artificial-intelligence driven "synths" to mimic human users on their platforms--and to stop them from reaching whatever sinister goal they are racing toward. After all, as Claudia herself muses, "What sort of self-respecting detective story stalls out with: and they sat back to watch the bad guys continue on forever after?"

Where The Verifiers drew heavily on murder mystery tropes (Claudia is inspired by her favorite fictional detective, Inspector Yuan), The Rivals blends the murder mystery genre with the "pea-souper of the espionage narrative: double agents, secretive organizations, ongoing machinations for influence and control." The resulting genre cocktail is a testament to Pek's skill in building a story arc, at once aware of its tropes and seamlessly threading them into a tightly woven plot that grows ever more complex from start to cliffhanger finish.

Within this, Pek nestles timely and increasingly relevant questions about the role of technology in our everyday lives, the risk of sharing data without understanding (or even reading) privacy agreements, and the part that AI could--or perhaps already does--play in shaping our interactions both online and off. In the end, every good spy operates from the belief that "there's another world shifting beneath the one we all see, and that it might be possible to change it"--and Claudia and her coconspirators are no exception. With enough detail for those unfamiliar with Claudia's backstory to start in media res, and enough left unanswered to tease another novel featuring the beloved heroine, The Rivals is the best kind of second-in-a-series: the kind guaranteed to leave readers eager for more. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

Shelf Talker: The second in a series featuring a quirky, literary-loving heroine living out the genre tropes of murder mysteries and spy novels as she works to take on the nefarious plots of big tech matchmakers.