Ann and Dale Woodbeck are looking to sell Excelsior Bay Books, Excelsior, Minn.

In a message to customers announcing their decision, the owners wrote: "After many wonderful years of ownership, we are looking for a new owner for the bookstore. We're hoping that you--or someone you know--will want to be the next owner of Excelsior Bay Books, so that it continues in its role at the core of our community."

They are looking for someone "who is passionate about books, who genuinely loves people and wants to be of service, has good judgment and a keen sense of what it takes to operate a retail business."

The Woodbecks noted that the "key ingredients" for future success are already in place at the bookstore, including "a loyal customer base, the technology tools to remain current and relevant, and a beautiful environment that appeals to customers of all ages." They also intend to "work with the new owner to ensure a smooth transition."

In 2019, Ann Woodbeck bought Excelsior Bay Books from previous owners Anne Nye and Ellie Temple. Before that, Woodbeck had worked at the store as a bookseller from about 2006 to 2018. The bookstore has been in business for 28 years.

Interested parties can inquire via e-mail or by calling 612-702-9700.

Angel Wings Bookstore & Bistro celebrated its grand opening earlier this month at 205 Williamsboro St. in Oxford, N.C. A former teacher, owner Mandy Harris said she launched an online and pop-up bookstore in 2019 as a passion project before deciding to fulfill her dream of having a bricks-and-mortar location.

"We are the only independent bookstore in Granville County and in several of the surrounding counties as well," Harris noted. "Although we specialize in children's books and North Carolina Authors, we pride ourselves on having something for everyone."

Angel Wings had some issues with its first location choice and were never able to move in, but opened instead at the local brewery in Oxford on the day before Christmas Eve in 2023. Harris described it as a great partnership, featuring many events like Book Fair for Grownups, book clubs, and more. 

"In the summer of 2024 we found our dream location and purchased it," she said. "We opened in stages with the bookstore opening the first week of November 2024, the bistro opening the weekend of Thanksgiving, and coffee coming in the first week of January 2025. With all of us in and set up we celebrated our grand opening on February 1."

She added: "We strive to provide a place where anyone can come in and feel welcomed no matter what. Angel Wings Bookstore & Bistro is well known for our events, such as themed tea parties, date night bookstore scavenger hunts, cozy nights in, and especially our book clubs."

Ink & Ivy Book Boutique opened on February 1 in Madison, Wis., the Wisconsin State Journal reported.

Located in a 950-square-foot space at 2134 Regent St., Ink & Ivy carries general-interest titles for all ages, with an emphasis on inclusivity. The store's front room displays most of the book inventory, while the back room contains children's books and space for events. Alongside books, owners and mother-daughter team Shannon and Eden Anderson sell artwork, baby clothing, locally made jewelry, and an assortment of other nonbook items.

Their event offerings include art shows, author readings, and weekly storytime sessions on Saturday mornings. They also host four book clubs, each with a different focus: adult fiction, romance, cooking, and postpartum.

So far, cookbooks have proven very popular, and banned and challenged titles make up roughly 40% of the book inventory. Eden Anderson told the Wisconsin State Journal, "I was really intentional with all of the titles I chose. I wanted it to feel very inclusive. I wanted someone to come in and find something they're looking for."

The idea to open Ink & Ivy came about last summer, after Shannon Anderson's recovery from surgeries related to a seven-year struggle with breast and thyroid cancer. Initially, Anderson considered finding another job in HR, but felt she needed a change. Her daughter, who previously worked in a hospital trauma center, also wanted to pursue something else.

"Our perspectives have changed quite a bit about what's important," Shannon Anderson remarked. "We're really excited because we get to hang out with nice people. When someone comes in to look for a book or look for a gift, it's usually a joyous occasion. And it's an honor to be a part of that."

Once they decided on opening a bookstore, they figured it would take at least a year to get one up and running. In August, however, Eden Anderson found an ideal space and they signed a lease in September. They spent the next several months doing renovation and design work as well as planning their opening inventory. Eden Anderson also learned some bookselling skills from Rye Kimmett, owner of Kismet Books in Verona, Wis.

"Independent bookstores don't feel like they're competing against each other," Anderson said. "They're on the same team. And they're all great people who make [the local book scene] better."

Lit Twis't, a Black-owned mobile bookstore with a mission to amplify the voices and stories of Black women, has debuted in Phoenix, Ariz., AZFamily reported.

The bookstore launched officially on January 26, with a ribbon cutting and appearance at the Onyx Art Gallery in Phoenix. Accessibility is a major emphasis of Lit Twis't, and owner Petra Sherbin-Fox also offers a book swap program through the mobile bookstore.

Sherbin-Fox said she was inspired to start a bookstore of her own due to the lack of titles by and about Black women at established bookstores. She started working toward Lit Twis't in March 2024, and she decided on a mobile bookstore because she is part of a military family and because it gives her the ability to bring books to community members directly. Prior to the launch of the mobile bookstore, Sherbin-Fox started a monthly book club, which continues.

She told AZFamily: "Our work, our voices, our culture. It's underrepresented and I feel it's my responsibility to do what I can to highlight our voices in any way that I can do that."

In the weeks and months ahead, Sherbin-Fox plans to bring Lit Twis't to a variety of locations around the greater Phoenix area.

Darick Spears, owner of Darick Books in Milwaukee, Wis., is seeking to redevelop a long-vacant city property into a community hub. The Business Journal reported that the two-floor complex would include a co-working space, gym, laundromat, and cafe, as well as book sales and printing services. The property would require an estimated $965,000 to repair and renovate. Spears has offered to buy the city-owned building for $15,000.

He proposes developing the building into Darick Books Café Complex as part of a "lifelong mission to create a space where Milwaukee residents can write their own story of possibility." He has owned Darick Books, located at 2877 N. 76th St., for five years.

Spears recently appeared before Milwaukee's Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee, whose members would consider a resolution to approve a land disposition report and authorize the sale of the property at 3953 N. 76th St. Constructed in 1970, the building Spears wants to develop in the Nash Park neighborhood is a multi-story brick building of 21,000 square feet that previously was occupied by offices, the Business Journal noted.

In a statement released after the meeting, Alderman Lamont Westmoreland said the Common Council had adopted a file that authorizes the sale of the property, adding: "With today's vote, we are one step closer to welcoming Darick Spears and his business, Darick Books Café Complex, to the 5th District.... I couldn't be more thrilled about this new amenity coming to the 5th District. For more than a decade this site has been a general eyesore in the district, and often an illegal dumping target. Since I've been elected, there have been nearly 50 proposals for this space, but none have met my vision for the area or brought the value that Darick Books Café Complex will. It's hard to think of a better fit for this space and the district."

It is anticipated that the new space would be open within the next 18 months.

The Barnes & Noble store in the City Center mall in White Plains, N.Y., is closing this spring, Lohud reported.

The shop's last day in business will be April 20; the closest remaining B&N stores will be in Scarsdale, Eastchester, Yonkers, and Hartsdale. The closure comes during a period of rapid expansion for B&N, with the company expecting to open more than 60 new locations this year alone. Last year, it opened more than 50.

Oprah Winfrey has chosen Dream State by Eric Puchner (Doubleday) as the latest Oprah's Book Club Pick. Oprah said Dream State is "an exquisite examination of life's most important relationships" and called Puchner a "master storyteller." He was a 2010 Pen/Faulkner Award finalist for his novel Model Home.

According to Oprah's Book Club, "the novel follows a bride-to-be, her fiancé and his best friend through a summer whose events have lasting repercussions for them and their families. With themes of fate, friendship, love, addiction and climate change, Dream State explores living with the mistakes of the past--both our own and those we've inherited."

Oprah interviewed Puchner in the third Oprah's Book Club: Presented by Starbucks video, available here.

Port Book and News, Port Angeles, Wash., is celebrating the return to service of the ferry linking Port Angeles and Victoria, British Columbia:

"Welcome Back 🇨🇦
Did you know that more than 26 million people have journeyed between Victoria and Port Angeles on the Coho ferry since 1959? It brings millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs. More than that, the ferry and our Canadian neighbors help make us a better, stronger, and unique community.
We missed you very much ❤️
P.S. Did you remember the Nanaimo bars?"

Bookseller Steven Pate added, "It's a big day for us, as the Coho ferry to and from Victoria started again, and there was much celebration and outreach to our Canadian visitors, hoping the Presidential hostility to our northern neighbors won't affect our closeness here."

The 38-year-old Port Book and News is under new ownership; Crystal Council recently acquired the business from longtime owners Cindy and Alan Turner.

At Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, Alissa (Nigro) Rashid has been promoted to associate marketing director for Aladdin, Little Simon, Simon Spotlight, and Margaret K. McElderry Books. She was most recently a senior marketing manager.

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Natalie Yera-Campbell has been promoted to publicist for Ten Speed Press and Clarkson Potter at Crown.

Trouble Dog: From Shelter Dog to Conservation Hero by Carol A. Foote, illustrated by Larry Day (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Ethan Kross, author of Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You (Crown, $29, 9780593444412).

AMC and AMC+ have released a sneak peek clip from the third season premiere of Dark Winds, based on the Leaphorn & Chee book series by Tony Hillerman. The TV series returns March 9, on AMC and AMC+, with additional availability on AMC Networks' BBC America and Sundance TV. Subsequent episodes will continue to debut weekly on Sundays at 9 p.m. Eastern on AMC/AMC+.

Directed by Chris Eyre and written by John Wirth and Steven Paul Judd, the series stars Zahn McClarnon, Kiowa Gordon, Jessica Matten, and Deanna Allison, along with a new guest star roster that includes Jenna Elfman and Bruce Greenwood. 

Dark Winds is created by Graham Roland, with John Wirth serving as showrunner. The series is executive produced by Roland, Wirth, McClarnon, Robert Redford, George R.R. Martin, Chris Eyre, Tina Elmo, Jim Chory, Vince Gerardis, and Anne Hillerman.

The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation, in partnership with the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), announced the winners of the 2025 Ezra Jack Keats Awards and four honors recipients. The awards are given annually to an outstanding new writer and new illustrator. The awards ceremony will be held on Thursday, April 10, during the Fay B. Kaigler Children's Book Festival at USM in Hattiesburg, Miss. The ceremony will be livestreamed beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern.

The 2025 Ezra Jack Keats Award Winner for Writer:
Breanna J. McDaniel, Go Forth and Tell: The Life of Augusta Baker, Librarian and Master Storyteller, illustrated by April Harrison (Dial Books for Young Readers)

The 2025 Ezra Jack Keats Award Winner for Illustrator:
X. Fang, We Are Definitely Human, written by X. Fang (Tundra Books)

The 2025 Ezra Jack Keats Writer Honors:
Antwan Eady, The Last Stand, illustrated by Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey (Knopf)
Carlos Matias, Emergency Quarters, illustrated by Gracey Zhang (Katherine Tegen Books)

The 2025 Ezra Jack Keats Illustrator Honors:
Kara Kramer, Ernö Rubik and His Magic Cube, written by Kerry Aradhya (Peachtree)
Bo Lu, Bao's Doll, written by Bo Lu (Abrams Books for Young Readers)

For more information, visit the Ezra Jack Keats Award website.

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10/7: 100 Human Stories by Lee Yaron (St. Martin's Press) has been selected as the Winter 2025 Natan Notable Book, sponsored by Natan and the Jewish Book Council and highlighting nonfiction books that "promise to catalyze conversations aligned with the themes of Natan's grantmaking: reinventing Jewish life and community for the twenty-first century, shifting notions of individual and collective Jewish identity, the history and future of Israel, understanding and confronting contemporary forms of antisemitism, and the evolving relationship between Israel and world Jewry." The author receives $5,000 and promotional support.

Kay Sohini is a South Asian researcher, writer, and graphic novelist living in New York. Her work focuses on using comics in the scholarly examination of health-care justice, environmental humanities, resisting disinformation, and creating an equitable future for all. This Beautiful, Ridiculous City (Ten Speed Graphic, January 28, 2025), her first book, is a graphic memoir of a woman rebuilding her life in New York City while recovering from the trauma of an abusive relationship.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

Imagine you only ever wanted one thing, inexplicably, irrevocably. This Beautiful, Ridiculous City is the exploration of how that thing, for me, is New York City. 

On your nightstand now: 

At Wit's End (by Michael Maslin with photos by Alen MacWeeney) features many of my favorite New Yorker cartoonists and their stories. I am going to start reading Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio as soon as I have a free moment. Einstein in Kafkaland by Ken Krimstein, which I thought was wonderful, science-y, and whimsical. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang and The Coin by Yasmin Zaher, neither of which I could put down! What voices! A gigantic Fitzgerald collection, and Nella Larsen's Passing to revisit. Ravynn K. Stringfield's Love Requires Chocolate is my holiday read. And Robin Ha's Cook Korean!, which I am looking at for inspiration as I draw my own comic cookbook based on Indian food (forthcoming from Ten Speed Graphic in 2026). 

Favorite book when you were a child:

I loved the Malory Towers and the Naughtiest Girl series by Enid Blyton. Also, not unlike many kids growing up in the late '90s and early 2000s, I loved Harry Potter. My grandfather was the one who had gotten me the first four books when he came across the story of its unprecedented popularity in the U.K. As for comics, I loved Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin, and then later Asterix (René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo) and Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson). This was before I encountered graphic novels. 

Your top five authors:

So hard to choose just five, but if I absolutely have to, I suppose it would be Alison Bechdel, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cathy Park Hong, Joan Didion, and Kazuo Ishiguro.

Book you've faked reading:

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. In my defense, I did start, but I have yet to get through it. One of these days. Oh, and I read the graphic novel version of it adapted by Stéphane Heuet.

Books you're an evangelist for:

Fun Home and Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel. Two of the best graphic novels ever written. Bechdel has a way with words and pictures. The comics medium can be quite magical, especially in its treatment of time and space, and Bechdel excels at thoroughly utilizing that aspect of it. Moreover, the way she approaches complex subjects, the way she intertwines her own narrative with classic literature, and the way her authorial self-reflexivity shines through the medium, are all breathtaking.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Recently? Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed. I just finished rereading, but originally dove in without knowing anything about it. The cover was stunning, so I picked it up, and it turned out to be one of the finest new graphic novels of this century so far. I could say more, but I do not want to spoil it for you if you have not read it yet! 

Book you hid from your parents:

I grew up in a household where I was actively encouraged to read. My parents were avid readers, and they never really tried to keep me from reading anything I wanted to! My father's dusty library housed Tagore's entire body of work as well as a lot of Russian literature in translation--Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Chekhov--that I tried to get into early on. Chekhov's short stories were my favorite of the lot. My father also introduced me to Kafka, O. Henry, Nabokov, and Camus by the time I was 15 or 16! So I never had to hide any book from my parents. 

Book that changed your life:

Nick Sousanis's Unflattening. I would not have found my career path (?) as a comics maker if I had not encountered his doctoral dissertation turned graphic nonfiction book. It was published by Harvard University Press in 2015, and I encountered it around the time I was starting to consider a Ph.D. in English. I applied with a comics-focused research statement, and got through Stony Brook University with full funding in 2017. There I met Jeffrey Santa Ana and Lisa Diedrich, two of the most supportive mentors a grad student can find. Nick became an external reader, and together they let me draw my doctoral dissertation as a comic! This Beautiful, Ridiculous City is not that book, but without the dissertation I would not have learned how to make comics, or how to draw even, so this book would likely not have existed! I started working on the proposal for This Beautiful, Ridiculous City mere weeks after graduating in 2022, and had a book contract by the end of that year.

Favorite line from a book:

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past," from Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, because it is utterly exquisite and it lives in my head ever since I encountered it more than a decade back. It helps that Gatsby was my first true encounter with the concept of the American Dream--its promise, its pitfalls, and the beautiful lies that sustain it. One does not easily get over something like that.

Five books you'll never part with:

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, and Seek You by Kristen Radtke. I turn to these books over and over again to learn the craft. 

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

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli. It flipped a switch in my brain and made me wish that I had pursued Physics instead of literature. While I cannot do that, my next graphic novel is one about time and grief, and my hyper-fixation on the subject started with Rovelli's work. 

Favorite graphic novels of all time:

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Palestine by Joe Sacco 
Ducks by Kate Beaton
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris
Killing and Dying by Adrian Tomine
The Complete Eightball by Daniel Clowes
Here by Richard McGuire
Munnu: A Boy from Kashmir by Malik Sajad
Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel
The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Ram V and Filipe Andrade 
Ballad for Sophie by Filipe Melo and Juan Cavia 

Floridian author Kristen Arnett (Mostly Dead Things; With Teeth) serves up equal doses of humor and emotion in Stop Me if You've Heard This One, a perversely funny novel about family, ambition, and desire.

Cherry Hendricks isn't your average Floridian--if such a thing exists. A professional clown, Cherry travels around Orlando trying to entertain children but more often entertaining their horny mothers. To support her art, she works by day at an exotic pet store. Her hypercritical mother, and maybe even her similarly eccentric friends, think she needs more stability in her life. But Cherry is determined to live for her art, particularly since the death of her beloved, if also annoyingly adored, brother.

Cherry thinks her luck might be changing when she is pulled into the orbit of Margot the Magnificent, a much older woman whose career as a magician has all the signs of success Cherry's lacks. Margot might be acerbic, challenging, and still emotionally caught up with her ex, but she's also willing actually to engage with Cherry's dream--and have hot sex while she's at it. As Cherry gets further entangled in Margot's world, she has to sort out how she can build a serious life for herself (even as a clown).

As always, Arnett excels at striking a pitch-perfect tone of dark humor, delighting in irreverent jokes and descriptions while always probing at something deeper, something closer to the heart. For Cherry, this emotional center is as much her brother as it is her abiding love for the art of clowning, although the two aren't disconnected. She lives because he can't, and to make the most of that life is as much a burden as it is a gift.

Still, Cherry's cackling first-person narration never drags the reader too far into that potential pit, sticking instead to dry comedy that hits hardest when it is cringingly self-aware. For example, upon seeing a woman she considers picking up at work, Cherry muses, "I don't know what it is about women who could be my mother that gets me off, but I am a sucker for anyone over the age of fifty who looks like they are about to lead a very rigorous step aerobics class." At moments like this, readers will be tempted to flinch and snort at the same time, an experience that's probably similar to that of the audience watching Cherry's final, eye-popping clown performance. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor

Shelf Talker: A darkly comedic tale about ambition, unexpected forms of art, and queer desire, Stop Me If You've Heard This One is another brutally funny and surprisingly emotional novel from Kristen Arnett.

Book blurbs are in the news again, thanks to a recent decision by Sean Manning, publisher of Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint, to no longer require authors to obtain blurbs for their books.

I've never been much of a blurb guy. They've always seemed more decorative than useful to me. Sometimes I read them; I've even written a few. But seldom do they have a significant influence on my decision to buy a book. 

At Pages: a Bookstore, Manhattan Beach, Calif.

Indie bookseller Staff Picks? Now that's a different story. Whether they appear on shelf-talkers or sales floor displays, social media videos or Indie Next Picks, I do care what booksellers have to say.

So, after the S&S blurb news broke, I took a beat before deciding to write anything about it. The change wouldn't really affect me as a reader. And did I need to add to the flurry of media and social media reaction that followed the announcement? Was the decision going to radically change what Slate called the blurb-industrial complex? 

The news coverage has had legs, though, and the topic is being approached from many angles by journalists, including the New York Times ("The End of the Blurb. Thank God."), the Wall Street Journal ("The Best Column About Blurbs You'll Ever Read"), Vox ("A major book publisher announced a change. The industry freaked out"), and Smithsonian magazine ("Are 'Gripping,' 'Brilliant' Book Blurbs on Their Way Out?"), to name just a few.

At Elliott Bay Company, Seattle, Wash.

Eli Wizevich wrote in Smithsonian that "blurbing often falls short of these ideals. Sometimes, blurb writers don't read the entire book before heaping praise on an author's latest effort. For some readers, such accolades read as insincere or overwrought. It doesn't help that blurbs frequently repeat bromides like 'spellbinding,' riveting,' and 'a tour de force' until they've lost meaning."

In the Sydney Morning Herald, David Astle noted that he has "done a few logrolls in my time, just as I've cadged the deflected limelight of writers higher in the food chain. It's a karma model. Big fish traditionally look after little fish since the biosphere may invert come the next monsoon, seeing you scrounging any endorsement you can find."

A couple of years ago, I wrote a blurb-themed column headlined "The Captivating, Unputdownable, Highly Recommended Book Blurb," in which I noted my own suspicions about blurbs: "I don't think of myself as a conspiracy theorist, but (the inevitable 'but' of conspiracy theorists) I've been in the business long enough to recognize the six (or fewer) degrees of separation between authors and some of their blurbers."  

That column was a response to a dustup about extracting positive blurbs from negative reviews, specifically regarding the U.K. edition of a Jordan Peterson book that had spliced negative quotes from reviewers to suggest positive endorsements for the book.

At Parnassus Books, Nashville, Tenn.

For someone who doesn't care about them, I seem to have written about blurbs more than I thought I had. A year before that 2023 column, I'd opened one ("Herding a Stack of Book Blurbs") with an epigraph: "From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend to read it." That was Groucho Marx's classic blurb for Dawn Ginsbergh's Revenge by S.J. Perelman in 1929. 

So, if blurbs don't matter to me and I have suspicions about their effectiveness, then why am I slightly obsessed with them in concept? Maybe because I know that what I consider to be the purest form of the blurb--bookseller Staff Picks--really does sell books. 

At Book Love, Plymouth, Mass.

"I read a book and liked it. You might like it, too." While enthusiastic, person-to-person handselling is a fun superpower for indie booksellers to wield, it can also be a captive of its own mythology. Not every bookseller is a natural handselling conversationalist or #BookTok video star. Fortunately, any bookseller can be a Staff Picks superhero.

When I was first hired as a bookseller in ancient times, the prospect of handselling was a little scary, but the best training wheels were shelf-talkers. I quickly discovered the power of a few well-chosen words. People started buying the books I recommended. Some of them sought me out for more suggestions. Bookish conversations developed that would carry on for years. 

The Internet gradually upped the ante, with Staff Picks pages escaping the confines of the sales floor. Sometimes tourists would introduce themselves to me years after they'd begun reading my staff picks online. It was like discovering an old friend you'd never met before.

Wrestling with the eternal bookseller's dilemma of how to summarize a book in two sentences on a shelf-talker encouraged both sharp writing and, strangely enough, improved my conversational handselling technique.

Maybe I couldn't sell anything else, but I could sell books. And what was the secret? Something I'd known all along as a reader and writer, but hadn't realized was also a bookseller's superpower: trusting the quiet potency of the written word.

There are a lot of superb handsellers out here. They can turn a book that might sell three copies into a book that will sell 30, 130, or 300 for no better reason than that they love an author's work. Booksellers can create captivating, funny, intriguing, incisive, clever blurbs that make books... unputdownable. Staff picks are the best blurbs.