Literally, A Bookshop will host a grand opening tomorrow in its new bricks-and-mortar space at 397 S. Gilbert Road, #140 in Gilbert, Ariz. The Gilbert Sun News reported that owner Laura Sharp "cherished a goal of setting up a bricks-and-mortar bookshop in the Southeast Valley," and will achieve it this weekend when she launches her 848-square-foot store in a 110-year-old preserved family home in Farmhouse Village.

"We've been really fortunate that the community has been interested in supporting us. Something like this can't happen without the support of the community," Sharp said. "So, it's been very much building over time, building a customer base, putting things out there."

Sharp began her bookselling career with small pop-ups at farmers markets, festivals, and special events, along with organizing homeschool book fairs. She did this for three years before setting up a self-checkout book space at the now-closed Peacock Wine Bar in Gilbert. Last July, she created a micro-store inside Dulce Vida Coffee in Chandler.

In addition, Sharp launched a newsletter; organized story times and two book clubs for children; partnered with local authors; and started a book club for adults at HD SOUTH: Home of the Gilbert Historical Museum.

"We've tried to give something back to the community at each stage of what we're doing, and I'm hopeful that's what we'll be able to do in the next space, too," she said, adding: "I think there are people who miss having bookstores to be able to go to physically in person. And I think independent bookstores offer a little bit of unique flair. Every independent bookstore is a little bit different than the next."

Regarding the new location, she noted, "I could not have asked for a better space. It has so much charm and character, which is something that we were looking for because I feel like a bookstore should be in a really charming spot. As a story lover, I love the idea that there's a hundred-plus years of history in this house already."

Sharp also said that from the beginning, she had "looked for books that create connection between people, that spark curiosity, and that inspire joy. That's what we're trying to bring out to the world through our store. That is the litmus test that I use before I submit every single book order."

Talia Whyte

Talia Whyte, worker-owner of Rozzie Bound Co-op in Boston, Mass., is joining the American Booksellers Association board to fill the vacancy created by the departure of Danny Caine, Bookselling This Week reported.

Located in Boston's Roslindale neighborhood, Rozzie Bound is the only cooperative bookstore in Massachusetts. Whyte handles the store's marketing as well as its institutional sales, and she "supports making diverse books accessible to everyone." Outside of being a bookseller, Whyte is also a freelance journalist and marketing consultant.

New Voices New Rooms, the joint conference hosted by the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) and the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA), will take place August 3-6 at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis in Atlanta, Ga.

SIBA and NAIBA founded NVNR in 2020. The first three meetings were virtual, with the first in-person NVNR taking place in 2023. That year and in 2024, it was held in Arlington, Va. In 2026 it will take place in Baltimore, Md., before returning to Virginia in 2027.

B&N in North Canton, Ohio

Barnes & Noble will open new stores next Wednesday, February 12, in Bryn Mawr, Pa.; North Canton, Ohio; and Issaquah, Wash.

The Bryn Mawr store is located at 720 W. Lancaster Ave., in a space that once housed an older B&N store that closed in 2007. Author Hannah Nicole Maehrer will be on hand for the ribbon cutting, after which she'll sign copies of her new novel, Apprentice to the Villain. The store will have a B&N cafe.

The North Canton B&N is in the Belden Park Crossings shopping center at 5501 Dressler Rd. NW. The store features an oversized fireplace as well as a B&N cafe. Anastasia Hastings, author of Of Hoaxes and Homicides, will be featured in a ribbon cutting and signing.

The Issaquah store, located at 775 NW Gilman Blvd. in the Issaquah Commons, will open with a ribbon cutting and signing featuring Marissa Meyer, author of The Happy Writer. It replaces a store that closed in May 2020, and it will have a B&N cafe.

B&N plans to open five stores in February and more than 60 before the end of 2025.

In the fourth quarter ended December 31, net sales at Amazon rose 10%, to $187.8 billion, and net income nearly doubled, to $20 billion, compared to $10.6 billion in the same period a year earlier. For the full year, net sales rose 11%, to $638 billion, and net income also nearly doubled, to $59.2 billion, compared to 2023.

In the fourth quarter, North American sales rose 10%, to $115.6 billion, while international sales were up 8%, to $43.4 billion. Sales at AWS, Amazon's cloud operations, which are the most profitable part of the company, rose 19%, to $28.8 billion.

Like other tech companies, Amazon is investing heavily in AI and said it will spend $100 billion on the effort this year. It also warned that sales would slow somewhat this year, forecasting that first quarter 2025 sales will grow 5%-9%, to between $151 billion and $155.5 billion, and operating income will be between $14 billion and $18 billion, compared to $15.3 billion in the same period of 2024.

Although fourth-quarter earnings were above analysts' expectations, AWS sales and first-quarter forecasts came in below what analysts predicted. As a result, in after-hours trading yesterday, Amazon stock slipped about 4%.

BookPeople, the Australian booksellers association, has updated its Web presence with a dedicated membership website and a new consumer-facing site, Books+Publishing reported.

"Each site has been designed with a distinct audience in mind," said BookPeople operations manager Kate Sloggett. "The new member site is the face of our new association management software system that integrates many backend functions to streamline and create a central hub for our members. The consumer-facing website aims to celebrate and promote bookshops, making it easier for readers to find and connect with their local bookshop. It is the new home for the upgraded Find a Bookshop directory, reading guides, bestseller lists, and the annual Love Your Bookshop Day campaign."

BookPeople president Tim Jarvis added: "This is a systems improvement that will make a genuinely positive difference in the way BookPeople operates."

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Arnaud Nourry

Artemis, the holding company of the Pinault family in France, has acquired a minority interest in Les Nouveaux Éditeurs, the Paris publishing group founded by Arnaud Nourry. The Bookseller reported that the investment, "meant to support the development of LNE in the years to come, makes Artemis the second shareholder of LNE, alongside the Fondateurs LNE holding company. Together, they own 100% of LNE's capital."  

LNE currently includes eight publishing houses, two of which have been publicly announced: La Tribu and Maison Pop. The other six will be revealed gradually over the next few months, Nourry said in an interview with Livres Hebdo. The plan is to publish 20 to 30 books this year, 100 next year and, "if all goes well," 200 to 250 in 2027.  

Nourry, now CEO, said: "To have persuaded François Pinault and François-Henri Pinault [co-founders of Artemis] to support Les Nouveaux Éditeurs fills me with joy. Known for their deep commitment to culture and for their enduring support of innovative companies, their decision honors me. It is also great news for the publishing industry, whose role in culture, education and public debate has never been more essential than today."  

Pinault commented: "Les Nouveaux Éditeurs is a breath of fresh air in the publishing industry, and we are happy to seize the opportunity to partner with them. Our acquisition of an interest in LNE's capital is evidence of how much culture, innovation and entrepreneurial culture are essential to Artemis' strategy."  

LNE "offers publishers the opportunity to own a share of their publishing house's capital and their editorial freedom is guaranteed by the group's bylaws, while benefiting from the business and financial support of LNE," the Bookseller noted. 

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The Giller Foundation, which administers Canada's Giller Prize for fiction prize, has ended its 20-year relationship with main sponsor Scotiabank, "more than a year after members of the literary community began protesting the bank's ties to an Israeli arms manufacturer," CBC News reported.

"Following discussions, Scotiabank and the Giller Foundation decided that the best path forward was an end to the partnership," executive director Elana Rabinovitch said. "Their support has helped transform the Giller Prize into one of the foremost literary awards in Canada, and we look forward to building on that legacy as we move into an exciting new era."

Despite the decision, organizers of the No Arms in the Arts campaign said their boycott of the literary institution will continue. "The boycott will stand so long as the Giller retains the Azrieli Foundation and Indigo Books as sponsors, two entities also financing the ongoing oppression of Palestinians and the silencing of free expression in Canada," Michael DeForge, organizer with Canlit Responds and No Arms in the Arts, told CBC News. --Robert Gray

This past week, Shelf Awareness sent our monthly pre-order e-blast to more than 870,000 of the country's best book readers. The e-blast went to 877,645 customers of 259 participating independent bookstores.

The mailing features 11 upcoming titles selected by Shelf Awareness editors and a sponsored title. Customers can buy these books via "pre-order" buttons that lead directly to the purchase page for the title on each sending store's website. A key feature is that bookstore partners can easily change title selections to best reflect the tastes of their customers and can customize the mailing with links, images, and promotional copy of their own.

The pre-order e-blasts are sent the last Wednesday of each month; the next will go out on Wednesday, February 26. Stores interested in learning more can visit our program registration page or contact our partner program team via e-mail.

For a sample of the January pre-order e-blast, see this one from Roebling Books & Coffee, Covington & Newport, Ky.

The titles highlighted in the pre-order e-blast were:

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
Everything Is Tuberculosis (Signed Edition): The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green (Crash Course Books/Penguin Young Readers)
When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi (Tor)
Dream Count by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie (Knopf)
Twist by Colum McCann (Random House)
Kills Well with Others by Deanna Raybourn (Berkley)
This Book Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead (Sourcebooks)
Elphie (Deluxe Limited Edition): A Wicked Childhood by Gregory Maguire (Morrow)
33 Place Brugmann by Alice Austen (Grove)
Count My Lies by Sophie Stava (Scout)
They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran (Bloomsbury)

Getting ready for Sunday's Super Bowl game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, the Andrews McMeel team held a Spirit Day to support their beloved Chiefs.

"If there's ONE thing that we're going to do here at GGB, it's celebrate love all day, every day. Thank you, Moss and Barley, for letting us celebrate yours," Grand Gesture Books, Portland, Ore., posted on Instagram.

At Candlewick Press, Holiday House, and Peachtree Publishing:

Shaelyn McDaniel has been promoted to assistant director of consumer marketing. She was formerly senior digital marketing manager.

Neda Kamalhedayat has been promoted to senior consumer marketing coordinator. She was formerly consumer marketing coordinator.

The Social Biome: How Everyday Communication Connects and Shapes Us by Andy J. Merolla and Jeffrey A. Hall (Yale University Press).

Tomorrow:
Fox & Friends Weekend: Rebecca St. James and Cubbie Fink, authors of Lasting Ever: Faith, Music, Family and Being Found by True Love (David C. Cook, $22.99, 9780830787852).

Apple TV+ has released images that offer "a delicious first look" at the upcoming French-language series Carême, inspired by the book Cooking for Kings: The Life of Antonin Carême, the First Celebrity Chef by historian and actor Ian Kelly. The series will make its global debut on Apple TV+ April 30, with the first two episodes, followed by one episode weekly every Wednesday through June 11.

Directed by Martin Bourboulon (Les Trois Mousquetaires: D'Artagnan, Eiffel), the series stars César Award winner Benjamin Voisin (Lost Illusions, Summer of 85), César Award nominee Jérémie Renier (My Way, Saint Laurent), César Award winner Lyna Khoudri (Papicha, November), and Alice Da Luz (Hanami, And the Party Goes On). 

Carême is created by Kelly and Davide Serino (The Bad Guy, M: Son of the Century, Esterno notte). It is executive produced by Vanessa van Zuylen with VVZ Production and Dominique Farrugia with Banijay's Shine Fiction for Apple TV+. The series was shot on location in and around Paris.

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation released the longlist for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Finalists will be unveiled in early March, with the winner named in April. The longlisted titles are:

Ghostroots by 'Pemi Aguda (W. W. Norton)
Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj (HarperVia)
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich (Harper)
James by Percival Everett (Doubleday)
Small Rain by Garth Greenwell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Scribner)
There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes Jr. (Mariner)
Colored Television by Danzy Senna (Riverhead)
The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck (Viking)
Devil Is Fine by John Vercher (Celadon)

Awards committee chair Lauren Francis-Sharma said: "This year's list teems with the personal and the historic, offering us humor, tenderness, and hardship, all while confronting readers with a clarity that is reflective of the exciting breadth of American fiction." 

photo: Sarah Creighton Kirley

Samantha Schoech was the founding director of Independent Bookstore Day. She's a former bookseller and is still doing her best to champion indies as a staff writer for the New York Times Wirecutter. She lives in San Francisco with her bookseller husband, her twin teens, and two incredibly frustrating cats. Her debut collection of short stories, My Mother's Boyfriends (7.13 Books), is a witty and empathetic exploration of family, morality, and the mistakes we make despite our best intentions.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

These short stories are traditional in form but filled with imagination, wit, and a deep empathy. They're kind of Lorrie Moore meets Gina Berriault.

On your nightstand now:

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan because Kevin at Green Apple Books just called it the best novel he's read in five years. I also have a TBR copy of North Woods by Daniel Mason. And I always have Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things and Jen Gunter's comprehensive, informed, and compassionate The Menopause Manifesto nearby for reference.

Favorite book when you were a child:

When I was really young, it was a picture book called My Donkey Benjamin by Hans Limmer that was originally published in German in 1969. It is the story of Susi and her donkey, Benjamin, getting lost on a Mediterranean island and it's illustrated with the most beautiful black-and-white photos by Lennart Osbeck. Sadly, it's long out of print.

By the time I was in sixth grade I discovered The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and was done for. I don't know how many times I read it, but it was a lot. I recently saw the musical adaptation in New York and cried like a baby.

Your top five authors:

I'm terrible at these kinds of questions because I always forget something or someone and because these answers change throughout life, but here goes.

I discovered Lorrie Moore in grad school in the '90s and she completely blew my mind. I couldn't believe someone could be a serious writer and so damn funny, and I immediately started imitating her.

I will read anything Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes. She's such a gifted storyteller that you don't even notice how much you're learning about the world in her novels because you're so absorbed.

Same goes for Colson Whitehead, who can seemingly do anything. When I read The Intuitionist, I hated it. I'm still not a fan of that book, but I'm so glad I stayed with him because The Underground Railroad is sheer brilliance.

I must shout-out John Irving because The World According to Garp was the first real adult novel I read, and it was such a revelation and a joy. I went on a huge Irving bender after that. I haven't read him in decades, but I still think about A Prayer for Owen Meany often. And the short story master, Alice Munro, now tinged with sadness, for obvious reasons.

Book you've faked reading:

Time to come clean; I've never finished a novel by William Faulkner. Don't come for me.

Book you're an evangelist for:

The Deluge by Stephen Markley. No one will ever read it because it's 1,000 pages, but this novel has changed (ruined) my life more dramatically than any other. I will never see the world the same way.

Book you've bought for the cover:

I know I've done this, but I can't recall specific books right now. When I was 16, my dad and I both gave each other Ellen Gilchrist's Light Can Be Both Wave and Particle because of the title. It was a nice Christmas morning moment of kismet.

Book you hid from your parents:

When I was 13, my dad told me that if I continued to read bad books, I'd be a bad writer. So I hid my collection of Sweet Valley High novels from him.

Books that changed your life:

So many books have left me feeling utterly transformed. Sometimes when I finish a book that has deeply affected me, I literally clutch it to my chest just to sort of seal the deal. When I was 17, I was transformed by the adventure and bravery in Robyn Davidson's Tracks. When I was 23, the honesty and humor in Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott made me feel like I had a new best friend. At 26, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien opened my eyes to non-traditional storytelling. At 43, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra was the most sensitive and modern war novel I'd ever read. At 50, I was so impressed with Anthony Doerr's inventiveness and sheer ambition in Cloud Cuckoo Land, I felt giddy. I really could do this forever.

Favorite line from a book:

I so wish I was better at remembering great lines or at least writing them down, but I'm hopeless.

Five books you'll never part with:

I can't part with my copies of A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, City of Thieves by David Benioff, Old School by Tobias Wolff, and Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez because they are all perfectly structured novels, and I need them for stealing purposes.

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

I will never again get to be an 18-year-old senior in high school reading Superior Women by Alice Adams for the first time and feeling the feminist in me awaken.

Writers you envy:

Junot Díaz and Zadie Smith because they are so distressingly talented. No one else writes like either of them, and they share an ability to create wholly original voices that seem easy and natural and effortless. [Shakes fist at sky.]

Robots are ubiquitously integrated into human society throughout Silvia Park's extraordinary debut novel, Luminous--as servants and staff, but also as daughters, sons, siblings, friends, even lovers. In a fast-approaching future, Korea is reunified, and robots and humans coexist symbiotically. A robot named Yoyo, once a son and a brother, is the focal point amid a disparate cast of characters who come together via serendipitous meetings, unexpected reunions, and wrenching losses.

Ruijie is the first to encounter Yoyo. She's not healthy: "the doctors lobbed acronyms, like ALS, PMA, and MMA." None of the letters stuck, but her young body continues to break down, forcing her to resort to customized "robowear" for mobility. Ruijie, a precocious three-time science fair winner, regularly scavenges the salvage yard next door to her school, looking for usable parts to enhance her failing form. Meeting irresistible Yoyo engenders easy friendship.

Out in the adult world, detective Jun of Robot Crimes--who was born human, but now lives in a 78% rebuilt body after a horrific accident seven years prior--is summoned to investigate a missing robot child. Unlike her "ungrateful son," the owner insists, "Eli is special." The search leads Jun to his younger sister, Morgan, from whom he's been estranged for years. Morgan is a robot designer at Imagine Friends, the pioneering, trend-setting company that originally issued Eli. Morgan is consumed at work with the latest secret project, Boy X, but at home, she's fielding robot challenges with her live-in creation, Stephen, whose interactions are becoming increasingly human--devoted, needy, even demanding. "I wanted someone to love me," she admits, unlike their fractured family. Growing up, Jun and Morgan had a third sibling, Yoyo, who disappeared. Their father, once the world's top neurobiotics innovator, unexpectedly transitioned to zoobiotics at the height of his career: "It was like watching a famed brain surgeon put down his scalpel to become a horse doctor," a colleague summarized. Soon Dad arrives in Seoul, expecting to see both his human progeny. None are ready for Yoyo's reappearance.

Park is a remarkably agile writer, moving seamlessly from speculative ingenuity to poignant family drama to deeply philosophical ruminations on humanity's future. "Bionic. Transhuman. Posthuman... death is a problem that can be solved." But at what cost? In her brilliant new world, Park transforms machines into the truest barometers of humanity. --Terry Hong

Shelf Talker: Set in a not-too-distant future, debut novelist Silvia Park's Luminous gloriously explores the unpredictable, fading lines between man and machine.

I live just outside a city in upstate New York. When I drive the four or five miles from my house over to the entrance ramps for Interstate 87, there are two large green signs, offering me alternative destinations: Albany to the south and Montreal to the north. Canada is, if not quite "just up the road," then close enough to feel like the next stop. So when the on-again off-again tariffs news broke recently, my neighbor was on the radar even more than it usually is.  

"With the new tariffs coming into effect, we want to remind you to shop local and please support your locally-owned businesses," The Book Keeper, Sarnia, Ont., posted on social media. "While many of these small businesses continue to learn and navigate what this means for them and their customers (including us) it’s clear to assume that big corporations like our biggest Canadian competitor are more easily able to absorb these extra costs and negotiate better deals with their suppliers with their gigantic purchasing power. Small businesses? Not so much."

Independent Canadian book publishers "face escalating costs and rampant confusion" as they navigate Trump's proposed 25% tariffs "at a moment in which they also feel squeezed by major multinationals and fearful of public funding cuts," the Globe & Mail reported.

Even with the current 30-day pause, publishers must contend with the uncertainty driven by long lead times required to price, print, and ship books. Douglas & McIntyre and Harbour Publishing proactively moved inventory across the border and are reconsidering where to print their books, the Globe & Mail noted, adding that Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press are weighing whether absorbing any added cost would make it worth selling some titles in the U.S. 

"If we raise the price beyond what the market can bear, and then there is no tariff, two months from now when the book ships, we've kind of screwed ourselves," said David Caron, co-publisher of ECW Press.

Norm Nehmetallah, publisher of Invisible Books, said, "If I have to send, say, 1,000 books from the printer to the U.S. warehouse, if I'm literally going to get a bill in the mail for 25% of the manufacturing cost of those books, then probably we're done shipping books to the U.S."

Noting BookNet Canada has previously reported that Canadian-owned publishers account for a small percentage of sales of English-language print trade books, ECW's Caron told the Globe & Mail that this was evidence of a trade deficit favoring the U.S.: "Far more American books are sold in Canada than Canadian books are sold in the U.S." 

Jack Illingworth, executive director of the Association of Canadian Publishers, said he was still analyzing the technical details ahead of potential tariffs: "Is the tariff going to be on the manufacturing cost of the book, or the discounted cost at which it's sold to a bookseller, or on the full retail cost? Due to the way the Trump administration has rolled this out, answers are pretty thin. I think we're all prepared for a massive slowdown of trade across the border as they actually work these kinks out."

Canada's list of goods that will face retaliatory tariffs does not yet include books, but the government could expand that list in three weeks, depending on the situation then.

Cross and Crows Books, Vancouver, B.C., offered some momentary reassurance for its customers in a social media post: "When a question is asked five times in a day, it is worthy of a post. At present, books are not included in the new tariffs. Books typically are regarded in trade agreements as a type of socially and morally important cultural property that should not be subject to tariff or duty. Since many books sold in Canada (even titles by Canadian authors or published by Canadian branches of U.S. publishers) are warehoused and distributed in the U.S., this is a good thing. So yes, books ordered from the U.S. are still coming!"

Noting that it is "proudly Canadian-Owned and proudly support Canadian authors every chance we get," the Book Keeper posted: "The vast majority of our author events that we bring to Sarnia are Canadian authors. We employ local people who spend their money locally, and we also have small business entrepreneurs working on our staff. It’s a stressful time to be a small, local business owner who is responsible for supporting their staff while facing unknown financial implications of a trade war. We commit to shopping local and shopping Canadian and we hope you will too. To those who continue to support us--we love you all! Thank you!"

In recent days, many indie booksellers have been showcasing Canadian writers in their social media posts, including the Spaniel's Tale Bookstore, Ottawa, Ont., which highlighted "Canadian Author" cards: "You may have seen these in the store before while perusing the shelves. We've always believed in supporting Canadian authors. That's true now more than ever. Independent bookstores are proud to punch above their weight when it comes to supporting Canadian authors and publishers. Indies often shop local themselves and sell a higher proportion of Canadian authored books than the chains and American-owned Amazon. Nearly one quarter of the books sold at the Spaniel's Tale in 2024 were Canadian-authored, compared to just 12% across the industry overall."

Brome Lake Books, Knowlton, Que., noted: "We have started a collection of Canadian authors with books printed in Canada. More to come! Stay tuned! Here is a link to the list on our webpage."

And Cedar Canoe Books, Huntsville, Ont., extended an invitation: "Looking for more way to support Canadian authors and businesses? We can help with that!"