The Last Bookstore, Los Angeles, Calif., which announced plans last summer for a new location, at 4437 Lankershim Blvd. in the Studio City neighborhood, will open the store December 12 for customers enrolled in a membership program, and then host a grand-opening celebration December 14, the Los Angeles Times reported. 

"I've started to have trouble sleeping the last few nights," said Josh Spencer, creator of the original Last Bookstore in downtown L.A. He added that the new location came about by pure chance when his wife, Jenna, saw that the current tenant, Designers View, was subleasing part of its space. Spencer struck a deal for 10,000 square feet and agreed to sell some Designers View items on consignment. "Everything is for sale here except the shelves," he noted.

"We always want something different," he said. "We don't like to repeat ourselves. This will be a wabi-sabi, minimal vibe. We'll have nature sounds on the speakers more than rock music, and maybe some water fountains."

Noting that he has found himself increasingly stuck in the company's two warehouses out of town, he said, "I created the downtown store, set it in motion, but I just haven't been able to be there to supervise and add my two cents, so it feels less under my control. To me that now belongs more to the people and the staff there. It has a life of its own, and that's a unique honor. It's amazing."

Spencer also envisions a move into publishing in the future, but he is excited to get back on the store floor: "Selling books is not a way to get rich. You have to really love it. You work hard, but it's worth it because people love books. It also offers endless creativity, if you want. Selling books by itself can be boring for me, but I like creating a space, an experience."

Booksellers from around the U.S. offer their assessment of the holiday shopping season so far:

In Brookline, Mass., Brookline Booksmith co-owners and managers Lisa Gozashti and Peter Win reported that spirits have been good, and Thanksgiving weekend was a "good, busy weekend" that tracked with 2023. Win noted that many people were out shopping early this year, possibly because of the late Thanksgiving, with Gozashti adding that the late start, combined with a late Hanukkah to extend the season, is "working to our advantage."

The late start has given the Brookline Booksmith team more time to prepare and be a "little more thoughtful and careful about everything." Gozashti called this season's holiday merchandising "better than it's ever been," and with the holidays already so close, customers seem a bit more anxious about gift-giving and "are being swayed by merchandising." The team has also been able to take additional measures to make sure that the store's booksellers will be well taken care of during the busy season.

Win pointed to James by Percival Everett and Intermezzo by Sally Rooney as strong sellers so far, and said that offering signed copies of Ketanji Brown Jackson's Lovely One led to a "nice boost" for that title. The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gozashti said, is "flying off the shelves," and she has been "blown away" by how well expensive photography and gift books have been selling this year, including This Is Football by Daniel Melamud, with contributions by Robbie Earle and Christian Pulisic.

Gozashti remarked on a positive feeling in-store that has arisen from future uncertainty. "We don't know what's going to happen in 2025," she explained, and people feel it's "time to treasure all the things that we value."

So far, there haven't been any big supply-chain issues, and overall, Win said, the season is projected to be quite similar to the 2023 season, "which is good."

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At Excelsior Bay Books in Excelsior, Minn., Christmas stock went on display shortly after Halloween, reported owner Ann Woodbeck, and sales in that category "have built steadily every week since." All together, the store was down about 3% this Thanksgiving weekend compared to 2023; in addition to the late Thanksgiving, Woodbeck pointed to very cold weather during a Thanksgiving weekend holiday market as a possible cause. 

Big sellers this season include The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson, The Wager by David Grann, The Gray Wolf by Louise Penny, James, Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell, and Dog Man: Big Jim Begins by Dav Pilkey. In paperback, The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon has proved popular, along with The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian Miller. Staff picks have seen a boost across the board. Asked about supply-chain issues, Woodbeck said she has had difficulty with a couple of titles already.

Woodbeck noted that since buying the store in 2020, sales have increased steadily year over year until 2024. "I think the election season had people holding their breaths and maybe tightening their purse strings. In our somewhat progressive area, spirits took a bit of a hit and concerns about tariffs and economics seem to already be in play."

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The King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah, saw holiday shopping begin a little bit before Thanksgiving weekend, reported co-owner Calvin Crosby. So far in the season, the store has been "up a little over last year," with Crosby calling Small Business Saturday "so much fun." It was a "joy" seeing "the people who really want to support you."

Continuing a trend that Crosby has noted over the last few years, this year's sales have been remarkably spread out across genres and publishers rather than dominated by a handful of huge titles. That said, Crosby remarked, Playground by Richard Powers is "going gangbusters." The supply chain has also "been good so far."

The bookstore held its last event of the year Tuesday night, and looking ahead, Crosby expects the late Hanukkah to extend the season a bit. The first night of Hanukkah will coincide with the bookstore's annual Boxing Day sale, and he is excited to see what comes from that combination. Overall, Crosby said he's optimistic and, touching on the atmosphere in store, he described people as "having anxiety about what the new year is going to be like," and they are looking for "a bit of joy" for themselves and their loved ones.

Crosby added that it's been "lovely" to see people being very generous to Brain Food Books, a nonprofit that provides free books to those in need in and around Salt Lake City. Since Crosby became executive director in 2020, Brain Food has distributed nearly 35,000 books. "People are finally understanding the work that Brain Food does."

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In Columbus, Ohio, Prologue Bookshop had a "complicated" Small Business Saturday, reported owner Dan Brewster, due to Ohio State University having its biggest football game of the year on the same day. Ohio State's football games, as well as things like move-in day, spring break, or graduation, can have a variety of effects on sales, but Thanksgiving weekend was "really surprisingly positive for us." He called it an "optimistic signal" heading into the season.

Asked about major titles, Brewster said sales have been more spread out this year than they have in past years, though there are some standouts. Those include The Serviceberry, Wicked by Gregory Maguire, Us Fools by Nora Lange, James, The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami, and Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer. On the subject of supply-chain issues, Brewster called things "pretty smooth so far," and remarked that the situation was so drastic during Covid that anything "close to normal feels fantastic."

Touching on his outlook for the season, Brewster said the "uncertainty with what's to come" has made him very reluctant to forecast anything. That aside, Brewster had hoped the bookstore would at least come out level with 2023, and as things stand, "we might be able to hit that."

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The American Booksellers Association noted earlier this week that online sales for IndieCommerce 1 and 2 were up this November compared to November 2023, with online sales up by double digits on both Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. A detailed breakdown can be found here. --Alex Mutter

If you are interested in having your store appear in a future Holiday Hum article, please e-mail alex@shelf-awareness.com.

Citing research in the U.S. and the U.K. that show reading by children for fun has declined, David Shelley, CEO of Hachette Book Group and Hachette UK, has launched an initiative called Raising Readers, under which a page at the back of many Hachette adult books will talk about "the value of fostering a lifelong habit of reading for pleasure and tips on how to do so." As Shelley indicated in a letter to Hachette authors, illustrators, and translators, "Ideally, this letter would be signed by whoever created the book, either based on a template we'll provide or in your own words."

He emphasized that the voluntary effort could be highly effective "because across Hachette in all English language markets we sell around 220 million of your books a year (across print, ebooks and audio--the letter will be included in print and ebook formats alike, as well as audio editions), so the reach of this campaign could be very wide. The plan is for this letter to be featured in as many of our black and white adult fiction and nonfiction titles as possible. For all other authors and artists, we will be sharing other important ways you can support this initiative and help get the message out there with us."

David Shelley

Shelley said, too, that the company aims to spread "this message as widely as possible. There are many big issues out there for our industry, but this decline in reading for pleasure amongst kids is one of the most serious, especially as it appears that reading for pleasure amongst kids also correlates with socio-economic background." This effort will include increasing partnerships with literacy charities, continuing to oppose attempted book bans in the U.S. and elsewhere, and support for the creation of more school libraries.

"I know I'm preaching to the choir here," Shelley wrote, "but we also know from a vast amount of research that reading for pleasure in children increases empathy, promotes social mobility, and ultimately increases opportunity. So, as well as being concerned for the future commercial health of the ecosystem of which we're all a part, the overwhelming concern is that this trend is going to negatively impact the life chances of a great many kids.

"It is fair to say that book sales have been remarkably resilient in 2024 at Hachette and in the industry generally--and book publishing remains one of the most successful creative industries. However, given the trend we are seeing in relation to kids reading for pleasure, we can't rely on this continuing to be the case if we don't nurture the readers of the future. Kids need to read for their own enjoyment if they're to read for enjoyment as adults."

Shelley thanked Megan Tingley, president and publisher of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, for coming up with the idea and helping to make it a reality.

Speaking at the Bookseller's 2024 FutureBook conference last month, Fleur Sinclair, owner of the Sevenoaks Bookshop in Kent and president of the Booksellers Association, warned that the recently announced budget in the U.K. is destined to have a "colossal impact" on bookshops across the country.

Fleur Sinclair

Sinclair noted that larger indies will be most affected by the budget, which introduced changes to minimum wages, a reduction in business rates relief and increased national insurance for businesses, the Bookseller reported.

"The bookshops most in the firing line are the larger indies, those with bigger workforces and bigger premises, who have thrived in recent years despite all the hard work and the long hours," she said, adding: "Making small changes in terms, increasing discounts offered to the indie sector in particular, could make a significant difference. Being supportive and imaginative with opening stock terms for new entrants will make it far more likely that those shops will survive and, in time, thrive."

Noting that booksellers "know their customers and understand what readers want," Sinclair said that the industry could benefit by harnessing this expertise: "If opportunities were created for booksellers to work with publishers at every stage of a book's journey, it would serve us all. It takes a village to raise a book."

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In 2023, the Portuguese Publishing and Booksellers Association (APEL) introduced BOOK 2.0, an event that "acts as a convening platform between the public, the publishing industry and the government to shape future projects and policies that will shape education, reading culture and sustainability in Portugal," the International Publishers Association reported.

Book 2.0 recently wrapped up its second edition in Lisbon, and the IPA spoke with APEL president Pedro Sobral about how the project generating a focus on reading and literacy and its impact so far in Portugal. Book 2.0 2024 sessions are available on the YouTube and Spotify channels. Among the highlights from the q&a:

Are people in Portugal buying and reading books?
One of the most significant moments of the first day of Book 2.0 was the presentation of the study Book Market: Buying and Reading Habits in Portugal, developed by Nielsen/GFK for APEL. This study revealed that the Portuguese publishing market experienced significant growth of around 7% in 2023. According to the study, the percentage of Portuguese people who bought books increased to 65% in 2023 (vs. 62% in 2022), but the most noteworthy change was in the profile of buyers: the 25-34 age group became the top purchasers (76%), and the 15-24 age group was the one that reported buying more books than in 2022, with 41%.

What do you hope the legacy of Book 2.0 will be for the Portuguese publishing industry and beyond?
My hopes for Book 2.0 are to ensure that publishers remain forward-looking. In Portugal, we hope this platform will not only serve as a blueprint for modernizing the publishing industry but also as a catalyst for innovation and future proofing across the entire literary and educational ecosystem. We want Book 2.0 to leave an enduring impact by encouraging collaboration and dialogue between publishers, authors, educators, the public and tech innovators, ensuring that the Portuguese book market evolves while preserving its rich literary heritage.

--- 

Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, has stepped back from involvement in the operations of her independent bookstore Onul Books in Seoul, South Korea, which she founded in 2018, the Korea Herald reported, noting that following the announcement of her Nobel Prize win in October, "the bookstore saw a major influx of visitors, prompting it to close temporarily." The shop reopened on November 13.

Han Kang had left her position as the bookstore's CEO in August 2021, but continued to serve as an internal director. Since her Nobel win, the author has made few public appearances. The Korea Herald noted that she is currently preparing for the Nobel Prize award ceremony and related events, which will take place in Stockholm, Sweden, later this month. --Robert Gray

Sourcebooks is launching Stonefruit Studio, an imprint focused on creative children's books across all age categories and formats. Stonefruit will publish 16-24 titles annually, starting in Summer 2026, and will include picture books, middle-grade, YA, graphic novels, and nonfiction titles. The imprint will be a place, the company said, "where authors and illustrators can showcase their bold narrative voices and distinct styles that bring the joy of reading to children of all ages."

Stonefruit Studio will be headed by editorial directors Ben Rosenthal and Mabel Hsu under the leadership of Jenne Abramowitz, editorial director for Sourcebooks Fire, Young Readers, and Jabberwocky. The team includes Mikaela Luke, editorial assistant, and Celeste Knudsen, senior art director. Erin Fitzsimmons, associate creative director at Sourcebooks, designed the logo for the new imprint.

The imprint's first year of releases will include a celebration of imaginative dreaming by Matthew Burgess and Matthew Forsythe; a hilarious tale about a princess pony by Jordan Morris and Charlie Mylie; the adventures of the last living dinosaur by Skylar Hogan; and a surreal chess-themed story by Jacob Sager Weinstein and Victo Ngai.

The middle-grade list will include a wildly reimagined hero's journey by Daniel Nayeri; a spooky, tech-twisted series by Erin Entrada Kelly and Eliot Schrefer; a humorous graphic novel about a secret organization of pests by Michelle Sumovich; and an adventurous graphic novel about a family taking on the Aztec underworld by Yehudi Mercado.

For young adult readers, the lineup features an Enola Holmes-meets-Buffy fantasy adventure by J.A. Morgenstein; and Firstborn, the first in a fierce romantasy trilogy by M.J. Hastings.

Rosenthal commented: "Stonefruit Studio is about celebrating stories that are fresh, diverse, and unexpected--in other words, 'stories that refuse to be eaten politely.' We're building a space where authors and illustrators can explore big ideas and take creative risks."

Hsu added: "Having an imprint team that spans departments--from marketing/publicity to editorial to design--all dedicated to the same books and mission will help us create better books. Stonefruit's approach will be highly collaborative, which means we're looking for creators who want to partner in how we edit, design, produce, market, and publish these books together."

Sourcebooks publisher and CEO Dominique Raccah said, "Stonefruit Studio exemplifies what Sourcebooks does best: empowering stories and their creators to connect with readers in profound ways. I'm so thrilled to see this talented team bring their passion and creativity to life with this new imprint!"

Jenn Gonzalez, senior v-p, publisher of children's, added: "With Stonefruit Studio, Ben and Mabel are creating something truly special, bringing an exciting array of stories that will inspire and captivate young readers. We are excited to offer a dynamic platform for authors and illustrators to push boundaries and redefine the landscape of children's books."

Stephen M. Williamson, former publisher and longtime commission sales representative in New England, died November 29 at age 68. He retired from New England Book Reps in 2023 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Williamson began his publishing career at Capra Press in Santa Barbara, Calif., and was instrumental in the 1983 publication of The Official Couch Potato Handbook. From there he moved on to publishing sales and marketing positions in New York and then Massachusetts, where he met his future wife, Betsy, at the U.S. office of Faber and Faber.

For a time, he was Consortium's sales manager, commuting from Massachusetts to the Twin Cities, handling all retail and wholesale accounts for the distributor. In the early 1990s, he founded the rep group Wilson/Williamson Associates with Stephen Wilson, covering sales from Massachusetts to Maine. After Stephen Wilson retired, he continued repping under the New England Book Reps banner, later partnering with the Rovers Group until those principals retired and he continued as a sole proprietor. He was also a longtime officer of BPRNE, Book Publishers Representatives of New England.

His family remembered: "Stephen made a habit of getting up early and having several cups of coffee (Café Bustelo, black) while doing the New York Times crossword puzzle--in ink. He was thrilled when a puzzle [his daughter] Clara cocreated was published by the NYT while she was in college. In addition to reading, his favorite pastimes included listening to his vast catalogue of music at high volume; seeing live music and movies; playing his guitars; and meeting with his Buddhist book group. He had a wonderfully quirky sense of humor and could be counted on for hilarious (and usually inappropriate) remarks. A talented cook, Stephen made fabulous spaghetti sauce that could never be replicated, even by those who watched him closely many times. Stephen's devotion to his cats was legendary, and he reliably ceded ground during nightly competitions for his favorite chair. He loved vacationing on Cape Cod with his family and friends, watching Fourth of July fireworks from the porch while Betsy cowered inside. He was always game to have his picture taken with his head stuck through a cutout. And he was the proud owner of what might be the largest Gumby collection on the East Coast."

A celebration of his life is planned for a later date. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Binc Foundation or the Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem, Mass., or buy a book in his memory at an independent bookstore.

"There's Snowplace like Flyleaf"--that's the colorfully seasonal sidewalk chalkboard message in front of Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C.

Posted on Facebook by Nest & Nook bookstore cafe, Purcellville, Va.: "Before the lights get turned on. Before we begin work. I say a small prayer that everyone feels welcomed and at home here. Yes, every purchase helps keep us afloat in our first year... but every connection stays with us for a lifetime."

Lerner Publisher Services, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, will be the exclusive distributor in the U.S. and Canada of Beetle Books, an imprint of the U.K. publisher Hungry Tomato, beginning in January. The Beetle Books imprint joins the rest of Hungry Tomato's publishing program already distributed by Lerner Publisher Services.

Lerner Publisher Services distribute 35 backlist titles for Beetle Books, as well as 14 Spring 2025 releases. Notable backlist titles include the single titles Plant and Tree and series such as What's That? and Secret Squid. Spring 2025 releases include two single titles and 12 books in the Big Questions Answered series, a new approach to young science that tells the compelling story behind major discoveries in various fields of science.

David Wexler, executive v-p of sales for Lerner Publishing Group, said, "With the addition of Hungry Tomato's Beetle Books imprint, Lerner Publisher Services expands its offerings of highly engaging, illustrated nonfiction that educates as it entertains. We have had great success with Hungry Tomato's nonfiction series for many years and look forward to continuing our strong partnership with the addition of Beetle Books."

Meet the Kellys: The True Story of Machine Gun Kelly and His Moll Kathryn Thorne by Chris Enss (Citadel Press/Kensington Books).

Today:
Fresh Air: Werner Herzog, author of Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir, translated by Michael Hofmann (Penguin Books, $20, 9780593490310).

Science Friday: Dava Sobel, author of The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science (Atlantic Monthly Press, $30, 9780802163820).

Emily in Paris creator Darren Star and Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas will co-write and executive produce a series for Universal Television based on the latter Goldsmith-Thomas's debut novel, Climbing in Heels, Deadline reported. The studio preemptively acquired the rights to the book, which will be published next April.

"I am thrilled to be partnering with Darren Star and Universal Television to bring life to these complicated, colorful women who refused to be sidelined or silenced," Goldsmith-Thomas said. 

Star added: "I'm excited to team up with Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas to bring Climbing in Heels--her addictive fictional account of Hollywood in the 1980s through a female lens--to the screen. It's the ballsy and bawdy love child of Mad Men and Sex and the City. I can't wait for audiences everywhere to meet this indomitable ensemble of female characters who broke all the rules to make their own." 

Palestinian publisher Samir Mansour was awarded the International Publishers Association's 2024 Prix Voltaire, which honors publishers--individuals, groups, or organizations--who have "typically published controversial works amid pressure, threats, intimidation or harassment, be it from governments, other authorities or private interests. Alternatively, they may be publishers with a distinguished record of upholding the values of freedom to publish and freedom of expression." The awards took place at a ceremony during the IPA Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. The IPA also announced a Prix Voltaire Special Award for murdered Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina. The Prix Voltaire has a prize of CHF 10,000 (about $11,320).

The Samir Mansour Bookshop for Printing and Publishing was cited by the IPA for being "a critical part of the local community in Gaza, publishing the works of Palestinian authors and housing thousands of books in various languages. Destroyed in 2021 and rebuilt through community efforts, the bookshop has once again been a victim of the Israel-Hamas conflict. The bookshop has continued its efforts to bring books to Palestinian youth, visiting evacuation centres and providing books and gift packages to displaced children."

Amelina was cited for having "put her fiction writing on hold during the war in Ukraine to become a war crimes investigator. She gathered testimonies from survivors and witnesses of the war, also ensuring to document the killings of fellow writers, including last year's Special Award recipient, Volodymyr Vakulenko. Victoria found Vakulenko's occupation diaries hidden in his family's garden and played a key role in bringing them to publication this year. Amelina had attended the 2023 Prix Voltaire ceremony to receive the Special Award on his behalf."

IPA president Karine Pansa said, "Our two laureates this year as well as our shortlist encourage us to think about the role of publishing for peace and the relationship between conflict and publishing. This year's Prix Voltaire laureate and nominees embody publishers' efforts to promote books and the dissemination of information to prevent conflict and foster peace, even while facing extreme dangers themselves. Their commitment to publishing and the dissemination of knowledge becomes a beacon of hope amidst immense devastation."

Stephen Fry is an award-winning comedian, actor, presenter, and director. He rose to fame alongside Hugh Laurie in A Bit of Fry and Laurie (which he co-wrote with Laurie) and Jeeves and Wooster, and he was unforgettable as General Melchett in Blackadder. He hosted more than 180 episodes of QI and has narrated all seven of the Harry Potter novels for the audiobook recordings. He is the bestselling author of the Mythos series, which includes the most recent Mythos: The Illustrated Edition (Chronicle Books), where he draws out the humor and pathos in each story and reveals its deep resonance with our own lives. He also wrote four novels and three volumes of autobiography.

Handsell readers your book:

Mythos: The Illustrated Edition with beautiful artwork from Jésus Sotés is an almost lickably lovely edition of my first book in the Mythos series. Hope you love it.

On your nightstand now:

Someone recommended Simon Mason, so I picked up A Killing in November, a crime novel set in Oxford. Astonishingly good writing. Brilliant, not "cosy."

Favorite book when you were a child:

Favourite Greek Myths by Lilian Stoughton Hyde. She started my love affair with it all.

Your top five authors:

Really? Crumbs.

Charles Dickens
Oscar Wilde
James Joyce
Anton Chekhov
P.G. Wodehouse

Book you've faked reading:

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence, the U.S.A. trilogy by John Dos Passos, Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, The Ambassadors by Henry James.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Thomas Mann's Little Herr Friedermann and Other Stories in Penguin Modern Classics with its George Grosz portrait on the front. What a cover!

Book you hid from your parents:

Querelle of Brest by Jean Genet. The cover, Panther Books if I recall aright, was a little too...

Book that changed your life:

Escape from the Shadows by Robin Maugham. A story of growing up gay that so mirrored my own experience.

Favorite line from a book:

"He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad," from the epigraph to Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini.

Five books you'll never part with:

The Complete Works of Shakespeare (obv.), the Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, The Jeeves Omnibus by P.G. Wodehouse, Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh, The Oxford Book of English Verse edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch.

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

Bleak House by Charles Dickens.

Your favorite Greek god:

I sometimes reply Athena, because she is wise and strong and powerful. I do admire her enormously, but in the end it has to be Hermes: god of liars, story-tellers, thieves, rascals, and travelers. He was charming, but impertinent and cheerful. These are all aspects and qualities that mean a lot to me.

Readers of well-crafted historical fiction such as Trust by Hernan Diaz will be drawn in by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith's sure-footed Mutual Interest, which is set in turn-of-the century Manhattan, in the aftermath of the Gilded Age, with occasional excursions to Hollywood, Calif., and Utica, N.Y. Wolfgang-Smith (Glassworks) is nothing short of virtuosic in her wry and witty world-building, which immediately immerses readers into a rough-and-tumble capitalist quagmire where the stakes are incredibly high and safety nets are totally absent.

Protagonist Vivian Lesperance comes of age in a home where she's been underwhelmingly and antagonistically parented, and her prospects are limited. She quickly realizes that if she's going to survive, she must rely on her charm and manipulative abilities, primarily with the women she seduces, who provide her with economic support for a time. When that time is clearly up and her appeal with her most recent lover, a diva, has worn thin, Vivian needs a new plan, which she finds in the form of awkward, sexually surreptitious, socially ascendent Midwestern transplant Oscar Schmidt, who is "caught between his old life and his new, his farm boy accent and his fourteen-step toilette."

Vivian assists Oscar in navigating the competitive waters of his business and muffles the potential reputational damage of both of their same-sex adventures by marrying him. Her skills are such that she manages, in dramatic fashion, to provide Oscar with professional and romantic riches via his business rival, Squire Clancy, another misfit, though one from a higher social class. This she does by spontaneously engineering Squire's plunge into a walrus-filled pool, necessitating a heroic rescue by Oscar.

Their three-way alliance yields enormous benefits for all, and their lives achieve a stability that none of them had enjoyed before, which lasts for well over a decade. "Landlords and bank tellers and office supply salesmen all attended to Vivian without the need for any dazzling charm or misdirection, without any of the thousand invisible and exhausting steps that went into living on someone else's credit."

But threats to their unconventional union--blackmail, social expectation, and justified labor unrest--loom, and any of them could dismantle the home they've so carefully constructed for themselves.

This is a novel of families won and lost, love, envy, and betrayal told in a remarkably fresh and entertaining way, with immersive period detail and compelling emotional stakes. Mutual Interest is essential reading for lovers of historical and accessible literary fiction. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.

Shelf Talker: Olivia Wolfgang-Smith's Mutual Interest is the best of what historical fiction can be: immersive, enlightening, entertaining, and deeply engaging.

After the retail craziness of last weekend, maybe it's time to slow down briefly and gain a little perspective on the moment, not to mention the next three weeks. Here's something you already know: indie bookshops are both the perfect resource for and refuge from the holiday season madness, with well-considered staff book recommendations, beautiful decorations inside and outside the stores, cozy atmospheres befitting of this time of year, and so much more. 

As British bookseller Afrori Books in Brighton and Hove put it earlier this week: "It's officially Christmas at Afrori! We've got some amazing things happening this month, from this evening's event with @cebocampbell to our Children's Christmas Party and New Year's Eve Celebration. But most importantly we're here to spread hope, joy, and continue to build community. So whatever your December looks like, come and spend a little bit of the Christmas season with us at Afrori Books."

Something you also know: the best gift is a book, or many books, including some for yourself (even if you're a bookseller).

So, in some ways, the recent news that "brain rot" was named Oxford Word of the Year 2024 seems counter-intuitive to those of us who live in BookWorld. It's not that we don't spend more time than we should on our devices, but our major passion, the printed book, is decidedly offline.

Following a public vote in which more than 37,000 people participated, Oxford University Press reported that its language experts "created a shortlist of six words to reflect the moods and conversations that have helped shape the past year. After further public voting and conversation, they considered the public's input, voting results, and their own language data before declaring this year's winner."

According to OUP, "brain rot" is defined as "the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration." The term increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024.

"Looking back at the Oxford Word of the Year over the past two decades, you can see society's growing preoccupation with how our virtual lives are evolving, the way Internet culture is permeating so much of who we are and what we talk about," said Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages. "Last year's winning word, 'rizz', was an interesting example of how language is increasingly formed, shaped, and shared within online communities. 'Brain rot' speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time. It feels like a rightful next chapter in the cultural conversation about humanity and technology."

The first recorded use of "brain rot" was in Henry David Thoreau's classic book Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854), where he criticizes society's tendency to devalue complex ideas in favor of simple ones: "Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring.... While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?"

In 1866, a few years after Thoreau's death, his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson offered his take on a new technology's effect on the brains of his contemporaries: "I think the habit of writing by telegraph will have a happy effect on all writing by teaching condensation."

And in 1873, Harper's magazine observed: "When we consider the immense number of people that every day by writing a telegram and counting the words are taking a most efficient lesson in concise composition, we see in another way the influence of this invention on the strength of language."

Perspective is everything.

Ironically, the Guardian featured an online pop quiz: "Do you have 'brain rot' from endless social media? Try our quiz. As the Oxford word of the year for 2024 is announced, here are 12 questions to determine if you an overconsumer of mind-numbing online content."

In my paper-based world, I still have the battered old Modern Library edition of Walden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau that I purchased in the late 1960s. At the time, I was possessed by the Concord gang, and often visited Walden Pond to commune with my favorite ghosts. 

Nearly every page of my copy of Walden is marked by underlined passages; I was an impressionable lad. The "brain-rot" sentence comes just a couple of paragraphs before one of Thoreau's much more famous lines ("If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."). That one is no doubt featured on more than a few 2025 calendars in a shop near you.

This year, I'm opting for a "bookish brain enhancement" December as an antidote to "brain rot." Maybe I'll even re-read Walden.

Indie booksellers, of course, prescribe the best antidote. For example, Bromleys Books, Marquette, Mich., just posted this to get patrons in a bookish holiday spirit: "Have yourself a literary Christmas! Countdown the 12 days of Christmas with our book adventure calendar, and open a new surprise book each day!... We can't wait to celebrate the season with you."