Postcard Bookshop, a bookstore dedicated to travel and tourism, opened recently in the Cargo Inc. marketplace at 81 S.E. Yamhill St., Portland, Ore. Owner Patrick Leonard told the Portland Business Journal he wanted to create an educational space for people to access travel guides, international literature, cookbooks and more when learning about a new region and planning trips.

"As a kid, I never did any international traveling so the way I traveled a lot was through reading about other places," he said. "But when I do travel, I love to pick up a book from that place to hear more first-hand experiences and I feel like I have a newfound interest in this destination."

Leonard, who had worked for a cookbook publisher in New York City, moved back to Portland in 2016 with the goal of starting a bookstore. His bookstore's selection of guides, phrase books, cookbooks and other materials is organized by geographical region. 

"People are really hungry for those experiences to get back out in the world," he noted. "People are now wanting to go on food tours, see heritage sites and have the once-in-a-lifetime experiences where they can feel like a local."

Sidetrack Bookshop, which opened two years ago in downtown Royal Oak, Mich., is expanding with the Caboose, a bookshop focusing on children's titles. FOX2 reported that the new space is located just a few doors down the street, at 220 W. 4th St. 

"I just kept wanting more space so that we could introduce more people to more books, really almost from the beginning," said co-owner Jenny Carney, adding that it was sometimes challenging to showcase children's books in the store because of their size. The Caboose will help alleviate this issue.

The decision to expand nearby rather than elsewhere was motivated by their experience with Sidetrack Bookshop. "We love this community," Carney said. "This community is clearly hungry for the store, so I think it's a perfect place, and the space became available, and so, here we are."

With the Caboose focusing on books for young readers, the expansion will also allow Sidetrack to carry more adult titles.

Carney and her wife, Jen Brown, had originally planned to give Sidetrack two years and see how it went, but they quickly learned the shop would work out. "Almost immediately we were wildly exceeding all of our expectations and plans," Carney noted, adding that an important aspect of Sidetrack is bringing people together.

"The idea is when you bring people together, you're bringing like-minded people together," she said, "whether it's you're having a conversation with somebody that walks into the bookstore, and you find that you both love a particular subset of fantasy books or whatever, you're creating community through our book fairs, our book clubs, all of those things in person. And also you are sharing the values--the local values. We're giving back to our schools. We are doing book fairs in the schools. We share those values."

A reorganization and renovations are underway at Powell's flagship location in Portland, Ore., Willamette Week reported.

The reorganization includes moving the science fiction, fantasy, and romance genres from the relatively small Gold Room on the store's first floor to the larger Purple Room on the second floor. Those genres are among Powell's biggest sellers, and the move will allow the bookstore to expand them.

At the same time, what was once Powell's Orange Room will be renamed the Home and Garden Room, and will include architecture and decor books as well as plants from local nurseries. Books related to film and TV, which previously resided in the Orange Room, will move to the Pearl Room.

The Powell's team is also taking the opportunity to freshen up some paint jobs, move displays, and do other renovation work. The goal, Powell's marketing director Jeremy Solly told Willamette Week, is to "have it be a place people feel relaxed and can come in and take the time." He noted too that it is the first remodel that Powell's has done in a "long, long time."

Work has been ongoing for about a month, and Powell's hopes to have it all complete by the end of November.

Parable Christian Store in St. Joseph, Mich., will close permanently at the end of this year after more than 50 years in business, Moody on the Market reported.

Owner Lorraine Valk, whose parents founded the bookstore, said the decision was not an easy one, and explained that she is closing the bookstore because of a "deep desire to focus my creativity and energy creating beautifully crafted laser items. As much as I've loved every moment of connecting with wonderful customers like you, managing our store has required immense dedication and time, often leaving me stretched thin."

In the months ahead, Valk will open a new Christian store and boutique in Lawrence, Mich., called Sonlight Gifts, where her laser-engraved items will be a major focus.

Valk wrote to Parable's customers: "With all my heart, I want to thank you for your unwavering support throughout this incredible journey. Your encouragement has meant the world to our family for 53 years, and I hope you’ll cherish these final months in St Joseph, and I anticipate your joy as you discover our store just off I-94 at exit 52."

WH Smith total group revenue increased by 7%, to £1.9 million (about $2.4 million), for the year ending August 31, compared to the same period in 2023, the Bookseller reported. Total revenue in travel was up 11%, with travel U.K. up 12%. High street trading profit remained steady at £32 million (about $40.1 million). The retailer expects to open 40 stores this financial year in travel. 

"Our most exciting opportunity for growth is in North America," group CEO Carl Cowling said. "We are very pleased to have recently won some significant new airport business, including wins at Dallas, Denver and Washington Dulles airports, and we are the preferred bidder for a further 15 stores across two major U.S. airports. Our store opening program is on track and we have a new store pipeline of c.60 stores already won....

"We are making excellent progress in the U.K. as we continue to benefit from the rollout of our one-stop-shop format which is creating significant opportunities to further grow profitability." 

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The State of Publishing in Canada 2023 has been released, marking the eighth edition of BookNet Canada's industry survey. Offering a comprehensive look at the Canadian English-language publishing landscape, this study includes data from Canadian publishers of all sizes and explores publishers' operations and staffing; revenue and sales; distribution; format-specific publishing programs; and more. Download a PDF copy here.

The majority of publishers surveyed offered their employees a hybrid work arrangement (68%), 20% were entirely remote, and 12% worked entirely in person. In 2023, 65% of print and digital sales were backlist and 35% were frontlist titles. The average return rate in 2023, as a percentage of books shipped for all trade publishers, was 9%, down from 16% in 2021. Other highlights from the report:

• Most publishers reported that their revenue increased marginally from 2022 to 2023.
• Canadian publishing divisions published on average 35 books in 2023 and multinational companies published an average of 752 books across all divisions in Canada in 2023.
• Over three-quarters of publishers have scaled down their print runs to decrease waste, mitigate risks, limit overstock, and increase efficiencies (79%).
• The majority of publishers described the health of their company as fair, based on their ability to withstand challenges, adapt, and change (63%).

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Jean-Luc Treutenaere, European & International Booksellers Federation co-president, has stepped down after 10 years in his position. EIBF noted that Treutenaere has played a major role in furthering EIBF as the voice of booksellers and always strove to represent all booksellers, no matter their size or country. Treutenaere is president of the Syndicat des Distributeurs de Loisirs Culturels (SDLC) and director for external affairs at Cultura, France.

EIBF added, "Under his leadership, together with EIBF's other co-president, Fabian Paagman, the organization saw notable achievements, such as the launch of the international bookselling markets report, the expansion in the outreach of the EIBF network, the creation of RISE Bookselling, and the safeguard of the sector in numerous legislations, such as the Digital Markets Act or the Late Payment Regulation. We thank him once again for his long-lasting commitment to EIBF and wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors." --Robert Gray

Boulder Book Store, Boulder, Colo., hosted author Katy Bowman in conversation with KGNU science show host Beth Bennett, discussing Bowman's new book, My Perfect Movement Plan (Uphill Books).

Congratulations to Content Bookstore, Northfield, Minn., which is celebrating its 10th anniversary tomorrow, Saturday, November 16, with coffee and donuts, prize drawings throughout the day, and a fundraising drive for books for Operation Joy, its annual collaboration with the local Community Action Center, to help families in need get great gifts for their kids for the holidays. The store is also offering swag, including candles, sweatshirts, and stickers.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar with Content Bookstore owner Jessica Peterson White.

In addition, the store wants to hear from customers about their favorite books and memories of Content over the years. Content is encouraging customers to "stop in and snap a photo with your favorite book at our photo booth and add it to our collection of Northfield's favorite reads, or leave us a love note on our vintage typewriter."

Incidentally, owner Jessica Peterson White traveled this week to Washington, D.C., as a member of Main Street Alliance to represent bookstores and other small businesses at an event on fair competition and anti-trust action with Senators Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Chris Murphy, as well as some House members. The event was organized by Fight Corporate Monopolies and the American Economic Liberty Project.

At Scholastic:

Abby McAden has been promoted to associate publisher and senior director.

Melanie Wann, formerly sales coordinator, has been promoted to associate manager, trade sales.

Annie Krege, formerly sales assistant, has been promoted to sales coordinator, national accounts.

Jennifer Rivera, formerly sales assistant, has been promoted to library/ed sales coordinator.

Zoe Kelley, formerly marketing assistant, has been promoted to marketing coordinator.

Sydney Niegos has been promoted to associate marketing manager, middle grade.

Matt Poulter, formerly senior marketing manager, has been promoted to associate director, Graphix marketing.

Victoria Velez, formerly publicity coordinator, has been promoted to associate publicist.

Ingram's Two Rivers Distribution will provide North American distribution services for City Owl Press, effective February 2025.

Founded in 2014, City Owl Press is an independent book publisher dedicated to bringing diverse voices and captivating stories to readers. It has published more than 300 titles, showcasing the work of both established and emerging authors across romance and speculative fiction.

Tina Moss, COO at City Owl Press, said in part, "Working with Two Rivers on the expansion of our print distribution has been a long-term goal for City Owl Press. Seeing that come to fruition and having the opportunity to work with all the amazing people at Two Rivers is the realization of a dream. We look forward to the collaboration and discovering what we can do together to bring our authors' incredible books to a wider audience."

Nick Parker, v-p of Ingram Publisher Services, said in part, "Tina Moss and Yelena Casale have built an independent publishing house focused on author driven promotion, quality branding and beautiful books that resonate with today's readers. We can't wait to expand their reach in North America."

Today:
Science Friday: Elsa Richardson, author of Rumbles: A Curious History of the Gut: The Secret Story of the Body's Most Fascinating Organ (Pegasus Books, $28.95, 9781639367245).

PBS Masterpiece has announced that the four-part period drama Miss Austen, based on the 2020 novel by Gill Hornsby, will premiere May 4, 2025. The series is adapted by award-winning writer Andrea Gibb (Elizabeth Is Missing, Mayflies).

Starring Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard, The Durrells in Corfu), the project's cast includes Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones), Synnøve Karlsen (Last Night in Soho), Patsy Ferran (Living), Max Irons (The Wife), Alfred Enoch (How to Get Away with Murder), Calam Lynch (Bridgerton), and Phyllis Logan (Downton Abbey).

Miss Austen "takes one of the most prominent literary mysteries in history--Cassandra Austen notoriously burning her famous sister Jane's letters--and reimagines it as a fascinating, witty and heart-breaking story of sisterly love, while creating in Cassandra a character as captivating as any Austen heroine," PBS Masterpiece noted. 

The Canada Council for the Arts revealed the 2024 winners of the Governor General's Literary Awards, which celebrate remarkable literary works published in Canada, in both official languages, across seven categories.

Each winner receives C$25,000 (about US$17,860), with the publisher getting C$3,000 (about US$2,145) to promote the winning book; finalists receive C$1,000 (about US$715) each. This year's winning titles are:

English-language
Fiction: Empty Spaces by Jordan Abel
Poetry: Scientific Marvel by Chimwemwe Undi
Drama: There Is Violence and There Is Righteous Violence and There Is Death, or the Born-Again Crow by Caleigh Crow
Nonfiction: Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre by Niigaan Sinclair
Young people's literature/text: Crash Landing by Li Charmaine Anne
Young people's literature/illustrated books: Skating Wild on an Inland Sea by Jean E. Pendziwol
Translation (from French to English): Nights Too Short to Dance by Katia Grubisic, a translation of Un cœur habité de mille voix by Marie-Claire Blais

French-language
Fiction: Lait cru by Steve Poutré
Poetry: poème dégénéré by névé dumas
Drama: Wollstonecraft by Sarah Berthiaume
Nonfiction: Hors jeu: Chronique culturelle et féministe sur l'industrie du sport professionnel by Florence-Agathe Dubé-Moreau
Young people's literature/text: Une bulle en dehors du temps by Stéfani Meunier
Young people's literature/illustrated books: Le premier arbre de Noël by Ovila Fontaine and Charlotte Parent
Translation (from English to French): Ristigouche: Le long cours de la rivière sauvage by Éric Fontaine, a translation of Restigouche: The Long Run of the Wild River

Michelle Chawla, Canada Council for the Arts director and CEO, said, "Each of this year's Governor General's Literary Awards winning books offers readers a fresh and unique journey through storytelling. The 2024 GGBooks are remarkable for how they capture the essence of today's world, inviting us to reflect and engage deeply. The works are being celebrated not only for their brilliance on the page but also for the lasting impact they will have on literature and future generations of readers."

photo: Nina Subin

Sarah LaBrie is a TV writer, memoirist, and librettist. She was most recently a producer on the HBO and Starz show Minx. She has also written for Blindspotting, Made for Love, and Love, Victor. Her libretti have been performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall with music written by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid. Her fiction has appeared in Guernica, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. No One Gets to Fall Apart (Harper, October 22, 2024) is a poignant memoir about the love and resilience of a mother and daughter in the midst of mental illness.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

No One Gets to Fall Apart is about the year my mother was diagnosed with late-in-life schizophrenia and our genetic legacy of mental illness.

On your nightstand now:

The Barn by Wright Thompson, about the true story of the murder of Emmett Till, which took place near where Thompson grew up. I saw the author speak at a conference and his rage and passion about what he uncovered made me want to read it the second I could.

Favorite book when you were a child:

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley. It's a fantasy novel about an outcast princess who is half witch. I read it until the pages crumbled, and when I came across a copy in a Little Free Library earlier this year, I was thrilled. It felt like running into an old friend.

Your top five authors:

For nonfiction, I don't really think in terms of authors, but in books: Problems by Jade Sharma, The Recovering by Leslie Jamison, Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan, How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell, Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot.

For fiction: Octavia Butler, W.G. Sebald, Shirley Jackson, Joy Williams, Franz Kafka. I like surrealist fiction that keeps me in a state of bewilderment and curiosity, because that's what being alive feels like.

Book you've faked reading:

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was on the bookshelf of a guy I was dating, and I wanted to impress him. He's my husband now, so I guess it worked--plus, as far as I can tell, he never actually read it either. They say you're either a Tolstoy person or a Dostoevsky person, and I've tried and failed with Dostoevsky enough times to know which one I am.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown, which is a book about how our individual actions and thoughts can lead to large-scale social change. It's similar to Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human by the neurobiologist Dan Siegel. Siegel makes the point that the mind is not just the brain, but consists of our relationship with our communities and with the world.

My book is about trying to understand the past and how it creates the self. Those books both reminded me throughout the writing process that, to answer that question, I had to look outward. Because the self is not just you--it's everywhere.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot, and thank sweet baby Jesus I did because that book taught me what was possible when it comes to writing about your own life and pain: You can be funny! You can be dark! You can be weird! You don't have to bend over backwards to give people the story you've been told they want!

Book you hid from your parents:

Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin. I bought it at Half Price Books in Houston. I was too embarrassed to read it, so I hid it behind the bookshelf at home, which, in retrospect, was not very smart. When I went back to find it later, it was gone. No one ever said anything to me about where it went, and I wasn't in a position to ask. My guess is that my grandmother found it and got rid of it so my mom wouldn't find it and punish me.

Book that changed your life:

Schizophrenia by Orna Ophir. It's a history of the literature on schizophrenia and the eternal controversy surrounding its very existence. It helped me understand what I was dealing with when it came to trying to help my mom. Rachel Aviv also covers this controversy in her excellent book, Strangers to Ourselves.

Favorite line from a book:

"Do not the laws of natural forces always conform to the secret laws of harmony?" --Gustav Eiffel as quoted in The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin, translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin.

Benjamin was a German critic and philosopher who tried to write a history of modern Paris focused on covered outdoor shopping malls. He died before he could finish it, having killed himself while trying to escape Vichy France. I found his life and work fascinating and spent years trying to write a novel about him. I failed miserably around the time my mother was diagnosed and that failure and her diagnosis were what drove me to write this memoir.

Five books you'll never part with:

Soil by Camille T. Dungy because I aspire to write books people love about our relationship to the natural world.

Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke and translated by A. Poulin Jr. When I read Rilke's poetry, I find myself thinking, "This. This is how it feels," which is exactly the feeling I want to give anyone who reads my writing.

The Overstory by Richard Powers, which is a perfect book about trees.

The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson, which is a perfect book about eels (and climate change).

Conversations with Octavia Butler (edited by Consuela Francis), a book of interviews full of gems and insights that double as writing prompts.

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

I mainlined all of James Baldwin's essays in graduate school, and I remember feeling like my brain was opening up, like something in me was unfurling, becoming freer, as I read them. I loved that feeling.

Five great new (or new-ish) books you've read this year:

Everything/Nothing/Someone, which is a fantastic book about dissociative disorder by Alice Carrière; Beautiful Days by Zach Williams, which is a book of funny, dark short stories that remind me a lot of Joy Williams; Everything's Fine by Cecilia Rabess, which is a very funny novel about class striving and perfect if you like love the HBO show Industry, which I do; Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte, which is hilarious and smart about technology. I managed to get an early copy and forced everyone I know to read it, which left me feeling incredibly validated when it was recently longlisted for the National Book Award; Whiskey Tender, a coming-of-age memoir by Deborah Taffa about leaving her family's reservation and the Indigenous civil rights movement. It's one of the best books I've come across this year, and I think everyone in the country should be required to read it.

In Erika Krouse's fourth book, the sparkling short story collection Save Me, Stranger, chance meetings prompt realizations and momentous choices.

These 12 first-person narratives are voiced by people in crisis, whom Krouse adroitly and compassionately connects readers to, despite their sometimes extreme cases. But encounters with strangers tender the possibility of transformation. In the title story, the narrator is taken hostage during a convenience store hold-up. Seeing that she is shielding her 10-year-old daughter, a teenage boy steps forward to take the woman's place--and is soon shot dead by the robbers. This single mother's struggle to string together seedy cleaning jobs fades into insignificance compared to the mission of learning about and memorializing her savior. "Wounds of the Heart and Great Vessels" also epitomizes the title phrase. When Rachel meets anesthesiologist David through Internet dating, he's distraught over missing a fatal allergic reaction. By providing David with nourishment, rest, and reassurance, Rachel saves him--and that good deed gives her courage to face a tragedy from her past.

Krouse (Tell Me Everything) frequently focuses on young women presented with dilemmas. In "The Pole of Cold," Vera meets Theo, the son of the American weather researchers who died in the same Siberian plane crash that killed her reindeer herder father. Although Theo represents an opportunity to escape her harsh environs, home still exerts a strong pull. Elsewhere, in "When in Bangkok," a 12-year-old learns a secret about her father and considers revealing it during a disappointing family vacation. And in "The Blue Hole," a college junior contemplates what to do about her unplanned pregnancy while on a dicey scuba-diving trip.

Travel is a recurring element, with stories set in Thailand and Japan as well as various U.S. states: Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio. Krouse doesn't shy away from contentious matters, including suicide, domestic violence, abortion, and the handling of Nazi loot and Confederate artifacts. Sex work and gun culture creep into a racially divided Midwestern town in "North of Dodge," while "Eat My Moose" features veterans offering an assisted suicide service to the terminally ill. "Fear Me as You Fear God" adds a dollop of magic realism as a hotel ghost helps a woman confront her abusive husband.

Krouse exhibits tremendous range, imagining herself into a myriad places, minds, and situations. She often eschews tidy endings, leaving characters on the brink and allowing readers to draw inferences about what they will decide. Fans of Danielle Evans and Lauren Groff have a treat in store. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck

Shelf Talker: The dozen stories in Erika Krouse's sparkling second collection feature travel, controversial issues, and chance meetings as the characters approach epiphanies and decisions.

"I write better poetry than you do," said EPICAC, coming back to ground his magnetic tape-recorder memory was sure of. 

--Kurt Vonnegut, from his short story "EPICAC" (1950)

Why should I weigh in on AI? Well, I've written a little about it before. Maybe I just have to occasionally, if only to make sure the voices in my head are still primarily OI (Organic Intelligence).

I read some of the experts, of course, but no one knows everything, including AI itself. Not yet. Still, I'm curious about what's here already and what may be coming, especially in my world, the world of books. So I scan the splashy headlines and read the big stories, but I'm more interested in peeking into the virtual corners for signs. And, yes, I often go back to Vonnegut for fictional/historical precedent/prescience. 

Just paying attention to the little things, the things that matter to book people like me. Here are some things I found recently:

"The most popular way publishers were considering leveraging AI was for marketing materials (49%)," BookNet Canada noted in its just released eighth edition of The State of Publishing in Canada 2023. The report added that while there was not much training provided on AI to publishing employees last year, publishers were thinking about how best to leverage the technology, with the primary areas being in marketing materials, including summary blurbs, promotion plans, etc. (49%) and metadata creation and management (19%).

In addition, small Canadian publishers were thinking of ways to implement AI across more areas than mid-sized and large publishers, though over half of small publishers were not considering leveraging AI at all (55%).

Before that survey was released, the Bookseller had reported that the largest book publisher in the Netherlands confirmed plans to use AI to translate some of its books into English. A spokesperson for Veen Bosch & Keuning said, "We are working on a limited experiment with some Dutch authors, for their books to be translated into English language using AI. There will be one editing phase, and authors have been asked to give permission for this."

In the U.K., AI-generated images were being used by a creative agency to promote Jodi Picoult's new novel on posters and social media, without the publisher's knowledge. A distorted poster for the U.K. edition of By Any Other Name, featuring a woman writing, demonstrated some of the typical signs of AI-generated images, the Bookseller reported. "AI was used without our knowledge," said Laura Gross, Picoult's agent. "Obviously, Jodi and I are extremely dismayed to discover this fact."

Last month, the Authors Guild announced it would offer its 15,000 members a new, "Human Authored" sticker to place directly on their book covers. "It isn't just to prevent fraud and deception," said Douglas Preston, bestselling writer and member of the Authors Guild Council. "It's also a declaration of how important storytelling is to who we are as a species. And we're not going to let machines elbow us aside and pretend to be telling us stories, when it's just regurgitating literary vomitus."

Wherever you turn...

Earlier this year Connor Osborn of the Bookworm, Omaha, Neb., told KETV that behind the counter the shop keeps an example of what you might get if you fall for an AI-created book scam. Osborn read from the book: "he go directly to room and saw Jacob romancing a lady."

Osborn said he shows that book to customers who ask to special order a title that raises red flags, including low page count and a lack of author information online, adding that mass-produced AI is flooding online marketplaces. He also noted that some books in the store have AI-generated cover art. "AI can only go off what already exists," Osborn said. "The whole part of art... is to create new things."

I was also intrigued by a recent Fast Company piece that noted: "As a society, we face a conundrum: It seems that no one, or no one thing, is morally responsible for the AI's actions--what philosophers call a responsibility gap. Present-day theories of moral responsibility simply do not seem appropriate for understanding situations involving autonomous or semiautonomous AI systems. If current theories will not work, then perhaps we should look to the past--to centuries-old ideas with surprising resonance today."

Fast Company time traveled the 13th and 14th centuries, when a similar question perplexed Christian theologians: How can people be responsible for their actions, and the results, if an omniscient God designed them--and presumably knew what they would do?

"Clearly, the relationship between AI developers and their creations is not exactly the same as between God and humans," Fast Company noted. "But as professors of philosophy and computing, we see intriguing parallels. These older ideas might help us today think through how an AI system and its designers might share moral responsibility."

The more I read about AI, the more it feels like I'm on a starship entering warp speed, with everything rushing past instantaneously--time, distance, information, etc.--and I'm sort of "keeping up," whatever that means now.

I don't think I'm ready for a medieval, theological perspective on AI, but I do seem to increasingly find a little consolation in the mindset of another literary tech icon. In his novel Slapstick, Vonnegut writes: "History is merely a list of surprises.... It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again."