Leviathan Bookstore in St. Louis, Mo., has launched a crowdfunding campaign while it moves to a permanent bricks-and-mortar home.

James Crossley and Amanda Clark

From its debut in April 2024 until the end of December, Leviathan operated as a pop-up store within Dunaway Books, a used bookstore located near St. Louis's Tower Grove Park. The store's new home is located at 3211 S. Grand Blvd., not far from Dunaway Books, and includes 900 square feet of selling space along with basement storage.

Leviathan owners James Crossley and Amanda Clark hope to soft open in the new space in early February; a grand re-opening celebration is scheduled for Saturday, March 1. The Kickstarter campaign has a $20,000 goal and has so far brought in about $4,700. Money raised through the campaign will go toward new inventory, new shelving and fixtures, occupancy costs such as rent and utilities, and assorted equipment and supplies.

Crossley noted that renovations aren't extensive, though he and Clark will be repainting the space "from top to bottom" in addition to adding shelving and other fixtures. They aim to have a "clean, open but inviting space that makes the books themselves the most prominent feature." They're also very excited about the location, which is "smack in the middle of a diverse and bustling urban neighborhood."

Bookstore move in progress

As the operation will effectively be quadrupling in size, "inventory will increase across the board," Crossley said. The mix of titles will remain similar, "with a healthy stock of NPR and New York Times bestsellers stacked side by side with more unexpected small press and international titles." There will be more room for oversized art and photography books as well as picture books.

"We couldn't be happier about being in the heart of the city," said Crossley, "and we're really looking forward to being part of the bookselling community here and growing the market for us all."

Thunder Road has closed its current store while it prepares for the move.

Thunder Road Books in Spring Lake, N.J., has closed its storefront while it moves into a new, larger space several doors down in the same building.

Store manager Katherine Czyzewski reported that the new space is roughly double the size of Thunder Road's original home, and she and the bookstore team expect to hold a grand reopening celebration in the new storefront this spring.

Czyzewski noted that while all of Thunder Road's inventory offerings will be expanded, the store's children's section will see the biggest change. The section will be larger, with Czyzewski estimating that it will span roughly half the new space, and it will include a reading area where students can hang out and work after school.

Recalling the bookstore's debut in 2021, Czyzewski said that if she and store owner Basil Iwanyk "knew then what we know now," they would have given more space to the children's section. It quickly became clear that the section should have been larger, especially once "storytimes took off."

On the subject of events, Czyzewski explained that currently, the store partners with a local theater for large-scale events, because anything held in-store is "bursting at the seams." In the new space, she and the team will be able to host events with up to 100 attendees, and having tables and displays that are all movable is one of the team's "big goals."

The move came about thanks to the owners of a furniture store in the same building, who were looking not to retire but to downsize. They approached Iwanyk about switching leases, and the process began officially this month.

Regarding the move, Czyzewski acknowledged there's "always a risk of doing something new," but the community has embraced and gotten behind the bookstore in a way that is "very moving for us." The team has been listening to what the community needs for the past few years, and when the new space is open, "it will be everything we didn't know we needed at the time."

Czyzewski also thanked all of the independent booksellers who have offered mentorship and assistance over the years: "We wouldn't be doing what we're doing without them."

Michael Jacobs, former president and CEO of Abrams, and Sheridan Hay, a writer, editor and teacher who works closely with the Center for Fiction, have formed Filmore Projects, a management and literary advisory firm that will have a publishing and packaging imprint.

The firm will focus on executive coaching, organizational development and board governance, structure and strategic advice for profit and nonprofit enterprises in publishing and the creative arts. It will also offer literary advice, including editorial development for writers and creative artists as well as marketing and sales strategies for book publishers and professionals and other content producers.

Filmore Projects is also launching Galpón Press, an independent book publishing and packaging imprint whose list will be comprised of projects of passion--local, seasonal and literary. It will make its debut in Fall 2025.

The principals said, "Having had successful and long careers in book publishing and literary endeavors, we're excited to bring our years of experience to clients and colleagues, new and old, and to have the opportunity to work with a select group of partners and friends on projects that matter to them and to us."

Before spending nearly 20 years leading Abrams, Jacobs worked at several major publishers. He started his career at Penguin, where he was named president in 1990. He also held senior leadership positions at Simon & Schuster, including as publisher of the Free Press, and at Scholastic, he oversaw the sales, marketing, and distribution of the first five Harry Potter books.

Jacobs has served as chair on the boards of the Academy of American Poets and the National Coalition Against Censorship and is currently on the board of governors of Yale University Press, the Corporation of Yaddo, and the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc) as well as Abrams and Chronicle Books, UK. He was an Eli Whitney scholar at Yale.

Hay holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her first novel, The Secret of Lost Things (Doubleday/Anchor), was a Book Sense pick and a Barnes & Noble Discover selection, was shortlisted for the Borders Original Voices Fiction Prize, and nominated for the International Impac Award.

She has led the Center for Fiction's Moby Dick reading group many times, as well as leading a longstanding Henry James group, among others. She is currently leading the Metropolitan Opera's first reading group in collaboration with the Center for Fiction. Early in her career, Sheridan was an editor at Simon & Schuster and worked at HarperCollins and Penguin Books in New York and in Sydney, Australia, where she was born.

For the second year in a row, the Independent Publishers Caucus (IPC) is celebrating Indie Press Month this March. IPC will do so with a bookstore display contest and social media campaign that feature promotional titles from IPC member presses.

Through the Indie-to-Indie program, a partnership co-facilitated by the Independent Bookseller and sponsored by Bookshop.org and Shelf Awareness, IPC will award $500 to the winning bookstore display. Additionally, the first five bookstores to create a social media post of their display will receive $50 in co-op funds.

All participating bookstores will be able to download social media and in-store marketing assets, and the full list of stores will be featured in the press campaign and on the IPC website. Additionally, bookstores attending Winter Institute will receive a bundle of Indie Press Month bookmarks.

Sign-ups will be accepted until February 26, the final day of Winter Institute. Full contest guidelines are available on the sign-up page. Winners and runners-up of the display contest will be announced in Shelf Awareness on March 25.

Marketing assets are also available for press use. Additional information is available on the Indie Press Month website.

Belinda Jones, a British-born author of 16 books who eventually settled in California, died December 1, the Coronado Times reported. She was 56. After studying journalism at the London College of Printing, Jones began her writing career as a journalist, writing for women's style and film magazines, as well as becoming a familiar voice on British TV and radio.

Belinda Jones

Her career evolved into travel writing, and during a 1998 visit to Coronado Island, she fell in love with California and relocated to the U.S. Her extensive travels inspired two travel biographies, On the Road to Mr. Right and Bodie on the Road: Travels with a Rescue Pup in the Dogged Pursuit of Happiness. 

Between 2001 and 2024, Jones published 14 novels, including Divas Las Vegas, I Love Capri, The Paradise Room, Cafe Tropicana, The Love Academy, Living La Vida Loca, California Dreamers, Winter Wonderland, and The Travelling Tea Shop. Her final book, a reissue of her previously self-published time-travel novel The Hotel Where We Met, will be published by Quercus in April.

Emma Capron, editorial director of Quercus Fiction, told the Bookseller: "It has been my great honor to be Belinda's publisher these past five years. I was a fan long before I became her editor and she lived up to every expectation. Belinda was a kind-hearted and warm individual, who brightened every room she walked into. I hope we can all take comfort in having that warmth reflected back to us by way of her incredible legacy. Her books will stay with me for life. Belinda, you will be sorely missed."

"The best way to avoid cold weather is to stay inside and read." That was the seasonally apt sidewalk chalkboard message from Schuler Books, which operates stores in Grand Rapids, Okemos, Ann Arbor, & West Bloomfield, Mich.

"Caught ya winking! Say hello to the newest two bookstore cats-in-residence, Roxy and Lucy. Lucy had been with us a couple months ago and Roxy is a brand-new-to-us kitter. THEY ARE SO CUTE. (Lately we've been fielding more phone calls about the kitties than the bookstore side of things)," Sower Books, Lincoln, Neb., posted on Instagram.

In Putnam publicity:

Katie McKee has been promoted to associate director of publicity. She was previously assistant director of publicity.

Jazmin Miller is promoted to associate publicist. She was previously publicity assistant.

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At Phaidon:

Anastasia Scott has joined the company as senior trade sales manager, overseeing the book trade, including Barnes & Noble, and managing external trade reps.

Olivia Weiss has been promoted to Phaidon account manager, New York & special markets.

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At Berkley:

Alicia Ross has been promoted to associate manager, digital marketing.

Elise Tecco has been promoted to marketing associate.

Same Page by Elly Swartz (Delacorte Press). In the trailer, Swartz asks middle school students why the Right to Read is important to them. (The book is about a student who unites friends with a group of rockstar librarians known as the Book Warriors to fight a book ban happening at her middle school.)

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Jamie Oliver, author of Simply Jamie: Fast & Simple Food (Flatiron, $39.99, 9781250374004).

Today Show: Tyler Moore, author of Tidy Up Your Life: Rethinking How to Organize, Declutter, and Make Space for What Matters Most (Rodale, $26.99, 9780593797839).

Kelly Clarkson Show: Mel Robbins, author of The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About (Hay House, $29.99, 9781401971366).

Sherri Shepherd Show: Alexander Smalls, co-author of The Contemporary African Kitchen: Home Cooking Recipes from the Leading Chefs of Africa (Phaidon Press, $49.95, 9781838668457).

Market Block Books in Troy, N.Y., served as the filming location recently for the pilot episode of the TV sitcom Books. The Times Union reported that the show "follows recently canceled author Wren Wild (Rick and Morty star Spencer Grammer) who escaped to her deceased father's bookstore following public outrage over her fourth novel. Helping her keep the store alive is an eclectic staff and her former agent, Murry Shankman (Office Space favorite Ajay Naidu), a well-meaning, not-so-silent partner of the shop."

"We pictured this whole world where the show about books could be an incredible place to go, but it could also get people more excited to go to their bookstores and to think of those bookstores as community places," said Books co-creator Kristina Libby.

Susan Novotny, owner of Market Block Books as well as the Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany, told the Times Union she thinks the team has a hit, and one that will resonate with her indie bookstore-owning peers: "Something we've all fantasized about is having a sitcom done that's set in a bookstore. In the bookstore, there's this beautiful symphony of humor and absurdity and intellect and politics and more humor, hopefully, next to the politics, and enlightenment and craziness."

Now that the pilot has wrapped, two paths are available to the team, the Times Union wrote. The first is to get an experienced showrunner who will let co-creators Libby and Tim Cahill remain head writers attached to the project, with Mikah Khan directing. The other option is to raise money, independently produce the series, and license it out. 

Either way, Libby said, "I want to do it in this store with these people. We would want to come back here. This bookstore is special, this area is special and this talent is really special."

Judith Rosen, former longtime bookselling editor and New England correspondent for Publishers Weekly, lives in Cambridge, Mass., with her husband and dog, and loves to visit bookstores. She is the author of Bookstore Romance: Love Speaks Volumes, which will be published February 1 by Brandeis University Press.

Tell us a bit about the book.

Bookstore Romance: Love Speaks Volumes combines interviews and photos of 24 couples who got engaged or married in a bookstore. There are also a few brief essays on The Ripped Bodice, which arguably helped launch the romance bookstore trend; date night at the bookstore; and a small bookstore that specializes in weddings, or elopements.

To share the love, I'm donating a portion of my royalties to Binc. And my publisher, Brandeis University Press, is also donating to them.

As you researched and interviewed couples, were there any surprises? Major similarities?

I was surprised by how much people wanted to keep their partners guessing about their engagements, including a trip to Paris for a surprise engagement at Shakespeare and Company. She was thoroughly surprised, and a bit jet lagged, because they went straight from the airport to the bookstore.

Although many proposals in the book were private, I was surprised that one man chose a very public setting, the Texas Book Festival. He also enlisted the help of writer and actor Tom Hanks to read his proposal from the stage.

What were you most impressed by?

I was really impressed by how bookstore staff went out of their way to help nurture weddings and engagements, whether it was hiding the engagement ring in a hollowed-out book and placing it on display at Northshire Books in Manchester Center, Vt., or taking a photo of the big moment at City Lit Books in Chicago.

Equally impressive was how bookstore owners like Laurie Raisys of Island Books on Mercer Island, Wash., made their stores available as wedding venues for local couples whose destination weddings were canceled at the last minute due to Covid restrictions.

Judith Rosen

Did any bookstores stand out in terms of helping and encouraging bookstore romance?

Many bookstores go above and beyond for young couples, from letting them take engagement photos like RJ Julia Booksellers in Madison, Conn., or bridal photos at Brazos Bookstore in Houston. At Brazos, staff even helped move furniture so that the bride, a regular customer, could get the shots that she wanted. And for those who wonder, yes, it can be challenging to change into and out of a poufy wedding dress in a bookstore bathroom. But so worth it.

And based on my own experience, bookstores should just keep hiring great staff. I met my husband of 40 years when he was a bookseller at the Coop in Harvard Square.

What are "best practices" for bookstores in hosting proposals or weddings?

Proposals go smoothest at bookstores where the managers know the couple and get a lot of advance notice so that they can work out the best date and time for the couple.

Bookstores that host a number of proposals, like The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles, with its wonderful book arch, make it easier for couples by having readily available rental information. There are also popular bookstore wedding venues like Housing Works Bookstore in New York City and More Than Words in Boston that also have readily accessible fee information.

How have trends in online dating and the pandemic affected bookstore romance?

Although a number of couples I talked with met through online dating sites, most book lovers like Lee (Kim) Hooyboer, director of education at the American Booksellers Association, had profiles stating that their partner must love books. Obviously visiting bookstores was a natural for them and their wife, Erin, even during the pandemic.

Some small bookstores like Philadelphia's The Head and the Hand made it easy for couples to date by letting them rent the entire space, roughly the size of a nice-sized living room. That way couples worried about the virus could have a safe space to get to know each other. It was so successful that the store has continued date night.

What kind of promotions and events are you doing for the book?

Much of the promotion is centered on Valentine's Day. I'm excited to be appearing at a trio of established and new bookstores in the Boston area--Brookline Booksmith, Harvard Book Store, and Lovestruck Books--in February, as well as a bookseller panel at the Ford Hall Forum, the oldest continuously operating lecture series in the country.

Brandeis will likely make another push in April around Independent Bookstore Day and August for Bookstore Romance Day.

Have bookstores always been a place for proposals and weddings or is it a relatively new phenomenon? How long ago was the "oldest" marriage or engagement you wrote about?

I think the recent growth in the number of independent bookstores has contributed to an increase in proposals and weddings. It's hard to image someone getting down on one knee in the book department at Costco or Target. You might get run over by a shopping cart, stuffed with other goods.

I thought that recent weddings might be more relatable. Also, I didn't want a book filled with Covid weddings, although there are a few. Instead I aimed to look at weddings and proposals from the past decade. But then I'd hear about one that I had to include, like a bookseller wedding in July 2011. That's the oldest that we included.

In some ways, bookstore romances are simply an extension of what Ray Oldenburg wrote about in his 1989 book, The Great Good Place, where he described bookstores as serving as "a third place" that's neither home nor work. Bookstores make people relaxed and comfortable and serve as a safe place in the community.

Are the many new romance bookstores helping the bookstore romance trend?

I think that with the word "romantasy" having been considered as the word of the year for 2024, it's clear that romance is literally in the air, and on the ground. New romance bookstores are opening almost daily, like Lovestruck Books in my own neighborhood, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Stores like The Ripped Bodice and those that have come after it are not just helping to promote the romance category but the importance of romance books in general, as a long-standing literary tradition.

Where did you get your inspiration for the book?

Sue Ramin, director of Brandeis University Press, came up with the idea one day when she was looking at a photo of a bookstore wedding in Shelf Awareness. The photo made her smile and wonder why no one had ever thought of collecting bookstore wedding and proposal photos. She and I had worked together in the past, so she asked me if I would like to reach out to bookstores and tell the stories behind the pictures. A year and a half later, a finished copy is sitting on my desk.

Nick Newman's The Garden is a shape-shifting novel, an enigmatic fable that twists slowly into a more sinister dystopian narrative with a surprising turn at the end. The questions it asks and the hard truths its protagonists turn away from will keep readers intrigued.

Evelyn and her younger sister, Lily, have lived in the garden all their lives, more or less. They remember little from before, although in the early years there were parties, their father holding court, their mother overseeing. Then the people went away, and the gates were locked, as were the doors to the bulk of the sprawling house. The sisters live now out of the kitchen, which "still [feels] too large," and in the garden, where they keep bees and a few aging chickens and grow vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Their mother's handwritten almanac directs their daily work, which is getting harder as their bodies grow older, but the garden provides everything they need and nothing is expected to change--until it does.

The sisters haltingly identify the creature that appears in their kitchen, stealing their honey, as a boy. Aside from its sheer novelty, the situation is frightening. The boy is unknown and therefore unsafe, a curiosity and a threat. "You know what boys turn into, don't you, Sissie?" Lily speculates, "He's probably poisonous." But Evelyn considers, "Boys did become men, Lily was right about that, but what her sister actually had in mind, she did not know. A cocoon, perhaps. A chrysalis... Evelyn could not deny a perverse desire to learn firsthand, to feed and water the grub and see what it might grow into." As they wrestle with this new challenge in their long-immutable garden--perhaps less an Eden than a prison--the sisters find themselves facing new choices and turning against each other in new ways.

Newman's gifts lie in the quiet accumulation of his novel's unsettled atmosphere, its changeable nature. The garden provides food, sustenance, and floral beauty; it is also constantly threatened by dust storms capable of burying the known world. Readers know both more and less than Evelyn and Lily do, and knowledge and its absence are increasingly terrifying, especially as the sisters begin to confront long-buried secrets about their own past. The possible and the inexorable collide in this parable of change, which probes the promises and terrors of personal choice and portrays various approaches to possibility. "The vagueness of their mother's threats had made a blank space... and only now was Evelyn realizing that she and her sister saw that blankness quite differently. It excited Lily. It terrified Evelyn." The dystopia it represents may be more real than readers originally understand. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: This eerie, thought-provoking novel combines sisterly love and end-of-the-world horrors in an unforgettable pairing.

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

1. Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
2. Hunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
3. The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden
4. Twisted Love by Ana Huang
5. On Being Jewish Now, edited by Zibby Owens
6. God of Malice by Rina Kent
7. Hooked by Emily McIntire
8. Mom, I Want to Hear Your Story by Jeffrey Mason
9. The Ritual by Shantel Tessier
10. Dad, I Want to Hear Your Story by Jeffrey Mason

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]