James Patterson

Author James Patterson has selected the independent booksellers who are beneficiaries of his Holiday Bookstore Bonus Program, which in October he said would go to 600 booksellers in $500 increments. As he has done in previous years, Patterson pledged a substantial amount--$300,000 this fall--to fund the program. The complete list of recipients can be seen on the American Booksellers Association's website.

"Booksellers save lives. Period," Patterson said. "I'm happy to be able to acknowledge them and all their hard work this holiday season."

ABA CEO Allison Hill commented: "We appreciate Mr. Patterson's financial generosity as well as his generosity of spirit. We all continue to be awed by, and grateful for, Mr. Patterson's continuing support of independent booksellers. It means everything to have him recognize and reward the valuable role booksellers play in the industry."

Congratulations to the bookseller winners and many thanks to the ever-generous James Patterson! 

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

At Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y., the holiday season began with a strong Thanksgiving weekend and Small Business Saturday. Buying and inventory manager Matt Stowe reported that the bookstore was up 8.7% on SBS compared to the previous year, and has been up this holiday season so far. 

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney and The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates have been very strong sellers. Stowe noted that 2024 was "frontloaded" due to the election, so there is still "quite a bit of movement" on titles that were released earlier in the year, such as All Fours by Miranda July and Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. Major award winners like James by Percival Everett, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, and The Vegetarian by Han Kang have also seen some nice bumps. Since the election, Stowe added, there has been "renewed interest in books about fascism, resistance, and dystopias." The bookstore also had a very successful partnership with Justine Doiron for preorders of her debut cookbook, Justine Cooks.

On the subject of supply-chain issues, Stowe explained that he has been trying to "order a little tighter" this year, which means the store has been more susceptible. He said he was surprised to see Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner and The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer "immediately sell through their first printings" and go out of stock. Other issues have included some four-color cookbooks like Eat NYC by Yasmin Newman and Alan Benson, and The Four Horsemen by Nick Curtola, Gabe Ulla, James Murphy, Mike Paré, and Justin Chearno.

Based on how the season has gone so far, Stowe said he is "optimistic for the rest of the holiday season." While the fall was a bit light on major releases, "more and more people are outside, staying engaged with culture and politics, and looking for education and comfort through reading."

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In Petoskey, Mich., McLean & Eakin Booksellers has had a "great start to the season," reported general manager Zach Matelski. Black Friday and Small Business Saturday were very busy, but some severe weather did have an effect on sales early in the season. 

Now that the weather has cleared up, the store is "catching back up," and Matelski expects to have some "very busy weeks" leading up to 2025. Website orders have been "flying in," and there are "more and more people shopping in the store every day."

Major titles include some "obvious" ones, such as The Serviceberry, James, and Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten, as well as All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker and A Tiny Fart Diary mini-notebook from Brass Monkey/Galison. Matelski said the store is doing "exceptionally well" with the last two, and Tiny Fart Diary, in fact, will "absolutely" make the store's bestseller list this year.

Asked about supply-chain issues, Matelski said McLean & Eakin is "just starting to experience some" with books like The Serviceberry, which is now "sold out everywhere." Overall, though, the store is stocked up and restocking orders "are coming in quickly."

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"So far, so good," said John Cavalier, co-owner of Cavalier House Books in Denham Springs and Lafayette, La. He and his wife, Michelle Cavalier, opened a second location in Lafayette this summer, and Cavalier called this holiday season "a learning experience" for that store, as they try to get in sync with their new staff members and new community. For the original location in Denham Springs, Cavalier said that although he has not had time to do a thorough comparison with last year's numbers, he feels good about how things are going.

Touching on strong sellers, Cavalier said that "anything that's signed or that has sprayed edges" is moving very well, and with regard to supply-chain issues, reported "smooth sailing." Discussing the late start to the holiday season, Cavalier also pointed out that in Louisiana, there is Carnival season to look forward to every Q1. Mardi Gras isn't until early March, and "that extended Carnival season will see a lot of tourists coming into South Louisiana."

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And in St. Petersburg, Fla., Tombolo Books has had a "fantastic" season so far, reported owner Alsace Walentine. Back in October, the bookstore lost nine days of business due to hurricane-related closures, and many of the store's customers lost their homes. There was a "general sense of wanting to put October behind us," and by October 31, holiday titles were already filling the children's sections and customers were apparently hungry for it, as the first weekend of November saw "incredible children's book sales."

Some standout titles include James, God of the Woods by Liz Moore, We Solve Murders by Richard Osman, the pocket and graphic versions of On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, The Serviceberry, The Wager by David Grann, The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides, Playground by Richard Powers, and Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell.

Tombolo has yet to experience any shipping delays or supply issues, with Walentine saying vendors have been "excellent at communicating when stock is low." She is hopeful for the rest of the holiday season, noting that traffic has picked up in earnest, especially on the weekends, and this coming weekend marks the store's fifth anniversary. The celebration will include extended hours and a night market in the courtyard.

"Despite the depressing events of the fall, our customers have rallied around this community space and so far our sales are comparable to last year's sales," Walentine said. --Alex Mutter

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

Idler Books debuted recently at 734 Route 32A in Palenville, N.Y. The Daily Gazette reported that the November 1 grand opening was followed the next day by a celebration featuring performances by local bands.

"So far, it's working out really well," said owner Rachel Leal. "The first weekend was amazing. So many people from the community came out and seemed really excited to have a bookstore in the neighborhood."

In addition to mainstream adult titles, Leal is open to the type of books she will carry and has already received input from the community, including a suggestion to expand into children's books. 

"Before I even got the doors open, people in the community were asking if I was going to have kids' books," she said. "That was something people really wanted. I keep my [genre] sections very general, a little smaller, until I could fill out what people want here. For example, I know now that we're open that people like a lot of like board books and picture books."

The store will also feature used books. Leal told the Daily Gazette she hoped to create the "Strand style," which is modeled after the Strand Bookstore in Manhattan.

"If you go to the Strand in the city and say you go over like The Book Thief, there'll be the new copy, and if there's a used copy, it'll be right next to it, a nice copy, that will be a certain amount of money," she said. "But if it's a little more used, it'll be even cheaper."

She also wants to host many events, including art classes, book club meetings, and children's story times. "A lot of young people wanting to learn how to crochet and knit, and just getting people into the store and into the space, so it's important," she said.

Bob Miller has been named CEO of Phaidon Press and affiliated companies the Monacelli Press and Artspace, effective January 1.

Bob Miller

Miller was most recently president of Flatiron Books, which he founded at Macmillan in 2013. Under his leadership, Flatiron published 94 New York Times bestsellers (19 at #1), including books by Oprah Winfrey, President Joe Biden, Melinda French Gates, Michael J. Fox, Liane Moriarty, Leigh Bardugo, S.A. Cosby, Matthew Perry, and Brad Meltzer.

Before founding Flatiron Books, Miller had been group publisher of Workman Publishing, created HarperStudio at HarperCollins, and founded Hyperion at Disney, where he worked for 18 years.

Lili Lynton, representing the Phaidon board, said, "We've gotten to know Bob over the past several years, and he has impressed us with his creativity, innovative thinking, and love for our business. We are excited to see Phaidon flourish under his leadership."

Miller said, "Phaidon has been one of the great names in publishing since it was founded 100 years ago, consistently bringing books of extraordinary beauty and sophistication into the world. I look forward to working with the talented Phaidon staff to continue this dedication to quality in everything they do."

Founded in Vienna in 1923, Phaidon is a global publisher of the creative arts, working with influential authors to produce books on art, photography, design, architecture, fashion, food, travel, and illustrated books for children. It has more than 1,500 titles in print. Recent successes include books made in collaboration with Rihanna, Nike, photographer Annie Leibovitz, the Andy Warhol Foundation, and designer Sir Paul Smith.

Independent Publishers Group will host a virtual informational open house on Wednesday, January 15, for publishers affected by the upcoming closure of National Book Network. The open house is an opportunity to meet key personnel at IPG and hear about the turnkey sales, marketing, and distribution services it provides to publishers.

IPG CEO Joe Matthews said, "NBN has an exceptional list of publishers. IPG has the capacity to add a dozen or so, especially those that value independence and a more personal relationship." For NBN publishers that decide to transfer to IPG, moving expenses will be covered.

Publishers can sign up for the virtual open house here.

In brief:

Congratulations to Wonderland Books, Bethesda, Md., which is now open and will hold its grand opening this coming Saturday, December 14. See our recent story here. (The store's opening was pushed back a week because of a delay in getting a final permit.)

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Congratulations, too, to Mayhem's Bookstore & Board Game Café, which we wrote about in the spring. The store has opened in Lancaster, Pa., and features board games and graphic novels.

Nikki Giovanni, "the charismatic and iconoclastic poet, activist, children's book author and professor who wrote, irresistibly and sensuously, about race, politics, gender, sex and love," died yesterday at age 81, according to the New York Times.

Nikki Giovanni

As the Times noted, Giovanni was "a prolific star of the Black Arts movement," but was also independent of it. She was "a celebrity poet and public intellectual who appeared on television and toured the country. She was a riveting performer, diminutive at just 105 pounds--as reporters never failed to point out--her cadence inflected by the jazz and blues music she loved, with the timing of a comedian or a Baptist preacher who drew crowds wherever she appeared throughout her life. She said her best audiences were college students and prison inmates." She appeared regularly on Soul!, the Black culture program that aired on public television from 1967 to 1972. 
 
Giovanni wrote more than two dozen books, including volumes of poetry, illustrated children's books, and three collections of essays. Her early poetry included Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968), Black Judgement (1968), and Re: Creation (1970). In 1971, she published the memoir Gemini: An Extended Autobiographical Statement on My First Twenty-Five Years of Being a Black Poet. Her other poetry collections include The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni (1996), Blues: For All the Changes (1999), The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1998 (2003), and Bicycles: Love Poems (2009).
 
Her 2007 children's picture book Rosa, focused on Rosa Parks, won a Caldecott Honor Award, and its illustrator, Brian Collier, won a Coretta Scott King Award. Among Giovanni's many awards and honors were multiple NAACP Image Awards, the Langston Hughes Award, and the Rosa Parks Women of Courage Award.

Several indie booksellers paid tribute to Giovanni on social media, including Baldwin & Co., New Orleans, La., which posted, in part: "Nikki Giovanni taught us to see ourselves, to honor our stories, and to speak truth to power with grace and boldness. She dared us to dream beyond boundaries and loved our culture fiercely through her poetry, essays, and presence. As we reflect on her life and legacy, let us honor her by continuing to create, to write, and to uplift one another. Rest in power, Nikki Giovanni. You will forever be missed, but your words will live on in our hearts."

MahoganyBooks, Oxon Hill, Md., Noted: "Dearest Nikki Giovanni. Rest well.
Our prayer is that you knew how much so many of us loved you. That you felt it without one piece of doubt. Knew that we felt seen by your words so deftly written on each page and your imagination of what 'Us' could be. Whew! We were just with you in February and we chuckled at the shirts we wore... unplanned and all reveling in our continued boldness to celebrate our history, our books that others... think necessary to ban. Your light will remain lit for a lifetime."

Artists Char Jeré and Meaghan Elyse drew inspiration from the illustrations by Erin K. Robinson in Barefoot Books' Ayo's Adventure: Across the African Diaspora from Afro to Zulu to create an art installation that's part of the Concord [Mass.] Museum's Family Trees: A Celebration of Children's Literature exhibit. Museum visitors are greeted by a message from the book's author, Ain Heath Drew, and can participate in an interactive, kid-friendly activity inspired by the book. Barefoot Books, whose headquarters is in Concord, explained: "The tree highlights the profound influence of the African diaspora on traditions in the U.S. and around the globe, while underscoring the vital role of storytelling in connecting us to our shared heritage."

The most popular book club titles at Reading Group Choices in November were Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear (Soho Crime) and The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins (St. Martin's Griffin).

Bookstore on the Square, Fort Collins, Colo., shared a photo of the shop's holiday-themed sidewalk chalkboard message: "A book is a gift you can open again & again."

Chronicle Books has expanded its sales leadership team with two hires:

Jenny Goodman Abrami returns to Chronicle Books as executive director of global sales, overseeing all of Chronicle Books' trade, mass market, and specialty sales teams in the U.S. and around the world. Abrami has worked in book publishing sales management for more than 25 years, most recently at Sasquatch Books, where she was v-p, sales & strategy, and associate publisher of the Little Bigfoot imprint. Earlier Abrami worked in trade sales at Chronicle Books for seven years.

Amanda Weirich joins Chronicle Books in the newly created position of director of international sales and subsidiary rights, reporting to Abrami. She formerly worked at Ingram Publisher Services, leading international sales, marketing, and promotional activities for hundreds of independent publishers across all of Ingram's distribution brands. Most recently, Weirich led global retail marketing strategy for Ingram's publisher distribution business. Earlier she worked at Perseus Books Group and Penguin Random House.

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Todd Doughty has been promoted to senior v-p, deputy publisher, publicity and communications, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, and will take on the additional responsibility of overseeing the subrights group. He joined Random House more than 25 years ago. After 16 years at Doubleday overseeing publicity, he began to lead marketing strategy for the imprint as well, before taking on a group-wide leadership role at Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group in 2021.

Dolphin Entertainment has acquired rights to The Woman Who Saved the Children, Clare Mulley's 2010 biography of Save the Children founder Eglantyne Jebb, for development as a film, Deadline reported.

"With The Woman Who Saved the Children, we're showcasing a story of extraordinary vision and resilience that is both globally relevant and emotionally powerful," said Bill O'Dowd, Dolphin's founder and CEO. "As our development expands to include our return to scripted content, The Woman Who Saved the Children reflects our commitment to developing films that not only captivate audiences but also continues to reinforce Dolphin as a key player in meaningful, story-driven filmmaking within today's entertainment landscape."

Mulley commented: "Eglantyne was a true revolutionary, breaking all the rules, defying convention and transgressing the law in her determination to save the lives and improve the life-changes of every child, everywhere. Witty and wayward, she burned fast through life, dying all too young, but her enduring legacy remains as relevant and urgent as ever."

"Save the Children was founded in the wake of World War I on the belief that all children have rights, a radical idea at the time," said Janti Soeripto, president and CEO, Save the Children U.S. "We look forward to seeing our founder's lesser known, yet transformative life story told on the big screen."

Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World by Parmy Olson (published in the U.S. by St. Martin's Press) has won the £30,000 (about $38,320) 2024 Business Book of the Year Award, sponsored by the Financial Times and Schroders and recognizing a book that offers "most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues."

Roula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times, said: "Hassabis and Sam Altman are two of today's most influential entrepreneurs. In her deeply reported account, Parmy Olson brilliantly frames the development of artificial intelligence as a thrilling race to master the technology, build a business, and dominate the technological future."

Schroders's outgoing group CEO Peter Harrison called Supremacy "timely and compelling" and said it "provides deep insights into the defining technology of our age that are impossible to find elsewhere."

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ISDAL by Susannah Dickey won the inaugural PEN Heaney Prize, which recognizes a single volume of poetry by one author, published in the U.K. or Ireland, "of outstanding literary merit that engages with the impact of cultural or political events on human conditions or relationships." The award is presented by English PEN, together with Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann and the Estate of Seamus Heaney.

The judging panel said: "Susannah Dickey's ISDAL is an astonishingly inventive look at a cold case, that of an unidentified woman found in 1970 near Bergen in Norway. Armed with a wide variety of forms and a formidable vocabulary, Dickey explores and satirizes the true crime genre, and specifically our culture's obsession with female victims."

Dickey commented: "The Heaney family continues to do such brilliant work in Seamus's name, and the mission statement of this prize is such a necessary one. I believe poetry to be uniquely capable of querying and critiquing the linguistic structures that underpin the systems which dictate our lives, and in my mind there's no doubt that Heaney was one of the very best to do it. I'm very grateful that [the judges] may have thought my work somewhat successful in this regard, and I'm so happy to be a fragrant blight on the poetry landscape."

photo: Nadia Roumani

Rhonda Roumani is an award-winning Syrian American author and journalist. She is the author of the middle-grade book Tagging Freedom (Union Square, 2023), which received an Arab American Book Award honor, as well as the picture book Insha'Allah, No, Maybe So (Holiday House, 2024), which was named a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. Her nonfiction picture book, Umm Kulthum: The Star of the East, is now available from Interlink Publishing. She lives in New Haven, Conn., with her husband and two kids.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

It is a biography about the daughter of a poor sheikh who shattered conventions with her powerful voice to become the Arab world's greatest singer.

On your nightstand now:

Fledgling by S.K. Ali  
Libertad by Bessie Flores Zaldívar
Girls That Never Die: Poems by Safia Elhillo
Let Me Hear a Rhyme by Tiffany D. Jackson
The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Favorite book when you were a child:

Romana Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary. I absolutely loved all the Ramona books. They were the reason I started reading and the only series that I ever read more than once when I was young. Ramona was a character I could relate to, even though I was nothing like her. I was the eldest daughter of Muslim immigrant parents from Syria. If anything, I was much more like Beezus, her rule-following, quieter older sister. But, still, Ramona spoke to me. I loved her spunky personality: she was mischievous, curious, and a troublemaker. Maybe, deep down, I wished I was more like her. Or maybe, Ramona did all the things I never dared do. I could relate to her big tears and big feelings. She was real and unreserved. I absolutely loved her.

Your top five authors:

Ta-Nehisi Coates: I admire him both as a journalist and as a writer. He's curious, which leads to real intellectual honesty. His writing is gorgeous and poignant and raw and real. Just one of the most brilliant writers and thinkers I've read.

Safia Elhillo: I simply love her poetry and her novels in verse. Her book Home Is Not a Country grappled with questions that I obsessed over for years.

Jason Reynolds: A great storyteller. So fun to read; his words jump off the page. I see my son's eyes light up when I read his books with him. He's maybe the best middle-grade author out there today.

Viet Thanh Nguyen: I think he is one of the most important thinkers of our day. The Sympathizer is perfection.

Hala Alyan: A beautiful, powerful writer and poet. Her characters are so authentic. I love how she writes about generational issues and the ways families are connected and interact through time and places. 

Book you've faked reading:

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I carried it around when I was a pre-teen. I have no idea why.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. As someone who has always been a minority in majority cultures--in the U.S. and even in Syria--this book is everything. The writing is perfect: a sweeping family drama, woven together with such seamless ease. I am the daughter of Syrian immigrants living in the United States. In Damascus, my family was one of the few Shi'a families in our city. Although I didn't really identify as Shi'a, I was constantly in the position of hearing how others spoke about the parts of my identity that were not the majority culture. So, even as the daughter of minority immigrants from Syria, I found myself relating to a Korean family growing up in Japan. Lee says she had this book in her for 30 years. Sometimes the best books need time. I think this is one of those books.

Book you hid from your parents:

I didn't need to hide books from my parents because they had no idea what I was reading.

Books that changed your life:

Orientalism by Edward Said and The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley. I don't think I can choose only one because both spoke to me as the daughter of Muslim Arab immigrants raised in the United States. Orientalism gave me the framework with which to understand how the West viewed the Arab world. The Autobiography of Malcolm X helped me better understand the country I was growing up in--to connect the way Islam became the means to fight injustice in the face of colonial histories both in the United States and abroad. Malcolm X became the first American figure I truly looked up to and the first figure I wanted to know everything about.

Favorite line from a book:

"I was that man of two minds, me and myself. We had been through so much, me and myself. Everyone we met had wanted to drive us apart from each other, wanted us to choose either one thing or another, except the commissar. He showed us his hand and we showed him ours, the red scars as indelible as they were in our youth. Even after all we had been through, this was the only mark on our body." --from The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

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

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.

Top nine children's dooks--four picture books and five middle-grade--I wish I had as a kid:

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander--I was basketball-obsessed.

Amina's Voice by Hena Khan--First traditionally published middle-grade book with a Muslim main character where the subject was not about war.

Kareem Between by Shifa Saltagi Safadi--I know that this book is about the Muslim ban, but the Syrian representation is perfect.

I Was Their American Dream by Malaka Gharib--This graphic novel would have spoken to me as the daughter of Arab immigrants on so many levels.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead--I think this is the perfect middle-grade book.

Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine by Hannah Moushabeck--Palestine was always a subject of conversation in our home, so seeing a book about Palestine would have helped me feel seen.

Eleven Words for Love by Randa Abdel-Fattah, illustrated by Maxine Beneba Clarke--Arabic words being represented in the ways that I heard them growing up!

Dear Muslim Child by Rahma Rodaah, illustrated by Aya Ghanameh--This love letter to me as a Muslim child would have meant everything.

The Book That Almost Rhymed by Omar Abed, illustrated by Hatem Aly--Arab authors, a brilliant book, and the characters look a bit like us! It's one of the most perfect picture books I've ever read.

The past feels astonishingly present in Debbie Levy's comprehensive and conversational A Dangerous Idea, a nonfiction work for young readers about the 1925 battle over evolution in the classroom which features a book ban, sensationalistic journalism, celebrities turned politicians, and sparring over curriculum.

John T. Scopes was fresh off his first year of teaching when "the leading citizens of the tiny burg of Dayton, Tennessee" summoned him to the drugstore for a chat. Scopes had unwittingly violated the Butler Act, a newly enacted law in defense of biblical literalism that prohibited teaching evolution. Scopes did so by employing Tennessee's standard biology textbook. Would Scopes, the Dayton citizens asked, "be willing to stand for a test case?" Dayton hoped for "a little publicity," but the subsequent trial turned into a full-fledged media circus when legendary charismatic soliloquists and lawyers William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow came to town. The two faced off in "a celebrity slugfest" in what became the first trial broadcast on radio. The famed orators had circled one another for decades, espousing opposing views on science and faith before arriving in that Dayton courtroom. There, Bryan and Darrow effectively "put creationism and biblical literalism on trial." The town flooded with visitors, and newspapers across the country published daily updates: "There was never before, and has never been, another day in court like it."

Sibert Honor winner Debbie Levy (This Promise of Change; We Shall Overcome), herself a lawyer, carefully traces the tandem meteoric rises of Bryan and Darrow and the evolutionary opposing views that led to their involvement in the Scopes "Monkey Trial." The final chapter brings the conflict over Darwinism into the modern era, and Levy's epilogue puts a finer point on the trial's uncanny parallels to the current climate of book challenges and scientific skepticism. The text is richly enhanced with archival photos while cinematic descriptions of trial scenes benefit from transcript excerpts and pithy newspaper quotes. Levy's conversational tone pokes particularly sharply at the trial's unorthodox courtroom procedure. "For five minutes, the judge posed as if reading the [decision]. And then he read it aloud, for real. Finally... the real trial could begin. After a lunch break, that is." Thorough backmatter includes a timeline, source notes, and bibliography.

A Dangerous Idea should hold appeal for readers in search of historical context around politically shrouded efforts to shelter students from information. Though when history repeats itself, we should all pay attention. --Kit Ballenger, youth librarian, Help Your Shelf

Shelf Talker: A thorough and conversational middle-grade book chronicles the battle between two charismatic speechmakers over the teaching of evolution in Tennessee classrooms during the 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial."