Following U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff announcements last week, the situation will apparently not change for the time being for Canadian publishers, printers, and booksellers, Quill & Quire reported. Neither Canada nor Mexico were included in the many tariffs announced last Wednesday, April 2.

The Canadian government had enacted counter-tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods crossing into Canada from the U.S. on March 4. A second round of 25% counter-tariffs, which would have included adult and children's books as well as paper, was expected to take effect on April 2, but on April 3, the Canadian government said its new tariffs would target only the auto industry (in reaction to earlier Trump tariffs on Canadian autos).

Laura Carter, executive director of the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association, which had partnered with Indigo last month to write a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney asking him to exclude books from the upcoming counter-tariff measures, "was cautiously interpreting the focus on the auto sector as an indication that books may continue to be excluded from tariffs, but is hopeful there will soon be official word from the Canadian government about how books will or won't be affected," Q&Q noted.

--- 

In the U.K., the Bookseller reported that documents published by the White House after Trump's announcement "suggest that printed books may be exempt from the U.S. tariffs under the First Amendment. The tariff documents include an annex of exemptions (in full here) that includes 'Printed books, brochures, leaflets and similar printed matter in single sheets, whether or not folded,' as well as 'printed dictionaries and encyclopedias and serial installments thereof' and 'printed books, brochures, leaflets and similar printed matter, other than in single sheets.' "

Meryl Halls, managing director of the Booksellers Association, said: "While books thankfully appear exempt from the recent U.S. trade tariffs, the disruptive economic ripple effect caused by them will still be of real concern for most bookshops--if it exacerbates the cost-of-living crisis and further erodes consumer confidence."

Some major publishers contacted by the Bookseller had declined at this early stage to comment on the implications of the tariffs, but "distribution services and booksellers are warning that the uncertainty caused by tariffs will make it harder for books to reach U.S. shores, even if the exemption is proven."

"The biggest practical issue right now is information. Nobody knows what's happening," said Davinder Bedi, managing director of BookSource. "No one's got the finer detail. Or the finer detail is quite hard to find, if it's out there at all. I have been speaking to a number of our key clients who ship large amounts over to the U.S. regularly, and they're still trying to scramble for information."

Friends to Lovers in Alexandria, Va., has officially reopened in its new home, FOX 5, Washington, D.C., reported.

The romance bookstore, which suffered a devastating fire just days after opening in its original location back in November, now resides at 301 Cameron St. The new space is larger than the original, and owner Jamie Fortin and her team held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday morning. A book launch followed on Wednesday night, and the store held the first part of a grand opening party Thursday evening. The second part of that celebration was held Friday.

"It was really hard but you know, the community really rallied around us and I'm so excited we're able to open less than six months later," Fortin told FOX.

Following the fire, Fortin launched a GoFundMe campaign to support the bookstore that has raised more than $46,000. Over the winter, the bookstore operated out of a temporary space at 108 N. St. Asaph St., above Wine Gallery 108.

"I am so honored that I had the trust of the community and that people really wanted this space as much as I knew that we needed it," Fortin said. "And so I'm excited to bring it to everybody."

Following a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $30,000, Semicolon Books in Chicago, Ill., will close temporarily to add a cafe, Block Club Chicago reported.

Owner Danielle Moore, who founded Semicolon in 2019, plans to close the nonprofit bookstore after hosting a block party on April 26, Independent Bookstore Day. She expects the store at 1355 W. Chicago Ave. to remain closed for a little under two months while the cafe, called Junction Cafe, is built, and she is eyeing Juneteenth as a reopening date.

In January, Moore announced that she would be closing both Semicolon locations permanently (at the time, she also had a location in downtown Chicago), but after an outpouring of support from community members and other independent booksellers in Chicago, Moore decided to keep the West Town location open, provided the store could raise enough money to add a cafe.

Moore launched the Kickstarter campaign in February with an initial goal of $25,000. By the time the campaign finished on March 16, it had brought in $32,346.

"We were able to raise the funds necessary to add a cafe to the space, which is very cool," Moore told Block Club. "And so we raised those funds, and we are now going to be able to stay open as a bookstore cafe. The community that we have built is irreplaceable, and we would not exist without them."

3 Balloons, a children's bookstore selling new and used titles, will open in Roanoke, Va., in November, the Roanoker reported.

Owner Steve Stinson, who's also a children's book writer and artist, plans to host storytime sessions on Saturday mornings. He will also use 3 Balloons to provide employment opportunities for adults with disabilities; in addition to books, the store will sell gift items and other products made in-house by those employees, who will learn stenciling, painting, and more.

Stinson told the Roanoker he was inspired to open 3 Balloons after visiting a store in Missouri that employed adults with disabilities and sold similar items. He called that the store's "primary purpose," while also noting that it will be the only bookstore in the Roanoke area to be focused solely on children's books.

The store will reside at 535 McClanahan St., with Stinson aiming for a November 1 opening.

Barnes & Noble will be opening a new bookstore this week at Shadow Lake Towne Center, 7949 Towne Center Parkway in Papillion, Neb., in the space formerly occupied by Best Buy. The store officially opens on Wednesday, April 9, with author Lynn Painter cutting the ribbon and signing copies of her books. The bookstore will also house an updated B&N Café.

"When we closed our former Crossroads bookstore in 2020, we committed to finding a new location in the Omaha metro area," B&N said. "Happily, we have, and our Papillion booksellers cannot wait to welcome customers into their brand-new Barnes &Noble."

Books & Books in Coral Gables, Fla., celebrated the publication of Colum McCann's new novel, Twist (Random House). He was joined by former Senator George Mitchell (l.), who is credited with helping to bring peace in Northern Ireland.

All That Life Can Afford by Emily Everett (‎Putnam) is the April pick for Reese's Book Club, which described the book this way: "When Anna moves to London for graduate school, her reality fails to match her expectations. But everything changes when she meets the Wilders, who invite her to Saint-Tropez to tutor their teenage daughter. Soon, Anna finds herself in the glamorous world of Europe's elite and mingling with their affluent sons and daughters."

Reese wrote: "All That Life Can Afford is about love, ambition, and the cost of belonging, and I cannot stop thinking about it."

"Jasmyn's only proposal request was that it happened in a place that mattered to both her and Asher. We're over the entire moon that it was with us. Being your bookstore is very very good, y'all," Blue Cypress Books, New Orleans, La., posted on Facebook.

At Tor Publishing Group:

Stephanie Sirabian is being promoted to director of advertising and promotion.

Megan Barnard is being promoted to creative director, advertising and promotion.

Valeria Castorena is being promoted to marketing associate.

---

At Chronicle Books:

Tracy Vega has been promoted to associate director of sales, mass market.

Angela Maclean has joined the company as senior manager, distribution clients.

Eve Brodsly has been promoted to sales & marketing enablement project manager.

Jocelyn Shratter has been promoted to sales & marketing enablement coordinator.

Kathryn Libertini has been promoted to sales coordinator, key accounts.

Sophia Fox has been promoted to sales coordinator, independent specialty.

Ailyn Pambid has been promoted to marketing coordinator.

Gigi Clarke has joined the company as distribution sales and administrative assistant.

---

Eleanor (El) Johnsen has joined Simon & Schuster as academic marketing assistant. She previously interned with Macmillan's academic and library marketing team.

Dark Rising by Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson (Blackstone Publishing).

Today:
Good Morning America: Geri Halliwell-Horner, author of Rosie Frost: Ice on Fire (Philomel Books, $18.99, 9780593624005). She will also appear tomorrow on the View.

Drew Barrymore Show: Tess Sanchez, author of We've Decided to Go in a Different Direction: Essays (Gallery, $28.99, 9781668060858).

NPR's Here & Now: Jennifer Haigh, author of Rabbit Moon: A Novel (Little, Brown, $29, 9780316577137).

Tomorrow:
CBS Mornings: Maren Morris and Karina Argow, authors of Beatrix Butterfly Wings It for Once (Chronicle Chroma, $18.99, 9781797235035).

Today: Jasmine Guillory, author of Flirting Lessons (Berkley, $29, 9780593100905).

Good Morning America: Babs Costello, author of Every Day with Babs: 101 Family-Friendly Dinners for Every Day of the Week (Clarkson Potter, $35, 9780593797907).

Also on GMA: Mark Hoppus, co-author of Fahrenheit-182: A Memoir (Dey Street, $32.50, 9780063318915).

Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Michael Lewis, editor of Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service (Riverhead, $30, 9798217047802).

Jonathan Tucker (Westworld, Justified, Echoes) has joined the cast, "in a pivotal role," of Netflix's I Will Find You, based on Harlan Coben's bestselling 2023 novel, Deadline reported. Tucker portrays Police Sergeant Adam Mackenzie, "the closest friend of lead Sam Worthington's David Burroughs, an innocent man behind bars for life for the murder of his son. When David finds out his child may actually be alive, he decides to bust out of prison. Tucker's Mackenzie is right there to help his pal in any way he can, for better or worse."

The eight-episode series, created by Coben and showrunner Robert Hull, also stars Britt Lower (Severance), Milo Ventimiglia (This Is Us), Erin Richards (The Crown), and Logan Browning (Dear White People). Bryan Wynbrandt, Steven Lilien and John Weber executive produce with Coben and Hull.

The Association of American Publishers has announced the Excellence winners of its annual PROSE Awards--recognizing "outstanding scholarly publications"--as well as the R.R. Hawkins Award, the overall prize.

The winner of the Hawkins Award--and winner of the Excellence in Social Sciences Award--is Exit Wounds: How America's Guns Fuel Violence across the Border by Ieva Jusionyte (University of California Press).

The other three Excellece winners are:
Biological & Life Sciences: The Mindful Health Care Professional: A Path to Provider Wellness and Patient-Centered Care by Dr. Carmelina D'Arro (Elsevier)
Humanities: Blacksound: Making Race and Popular Music in the United States by Matthew D. Morrison (University of California Press)
Physical Sciences & Mathematics: The Importance of Being Educable: A New Theory of Human Uniqueness by Leslie Valiant (Princeton University Press)

---

The Writers' Trust of Canada has named the five finalists for the C$25,000 (about US$17,585) Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, which recognizes "a book of literary nonfiction that captures a political subject of relevance to Canadian readers and has the potential to shape or influence thinking on Canadian political life." Each finalist receives C$2,500 (about US$1,758). The winner will be announced September 24 at the Politics and the Pen ceremony. This year's shortlisted titles are:

Canada's Prime Ministers and the Shaping of a National Identity by Raymond B. Blake 
The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau by Stephen Maher 
Health for All: A Doctor's Prescription for a Healthier Canada by Jane Philpott 
The Adaptable Country: How Canada Can Survive the Twenty-First Century by Alasdair Roberts 
The Knowing by Tanya Talaga 

Singaporean Jemimah Wei, who lives in the Bay Area, opens her resonant debut, The Original Daughter, at "the end," in May 2015 Singapore. Gen, short for Genevieve, is the titular daughter whose mother has received a fatal cancer diagnosis with just four to six weeks left to live. "Call your sister... I want to see you and Arin together one last time," Ma implores. Gen knows Arin, now an internationally in-demand actor, would "drop everything and reappear," but even after four years of silence, Gen is desperate to maintain separation: "My independence from her was hard won... if she came home, I wasn't certain I could leave her again." With meticulous detail, Wei unfurls the aching provenance of the family's irreparable fracture.

"Arin didn't appear the way regular sisters did. She was dropped into our lives, fully formed, at the age of seven." Eight-year-old Gen was living with her parents and grandmother, when a letter resurrected her "politically 'disappeared' " grandfather, long presumed dead. He had, in fact, been living in Malaysia for decades with a second, "secret family." A rusty nail accelerated his recent demise, leaving a "gaggle of grandchildren" without enough resources for this other son and daughter-in-law to raise them all. Perhaps because Arin was "the youngest, and a girl," the family relinquished her to her Singaporean relatives.

Arin's arrival is, predictably, disruptive. Pa is the first pushed out--literally. His place in the family bed, where Gen had always slept "cocooned between both parents," is usurped by Arin. Grandmother dies soon after. Meanwhile, a complex, albeit failed, attempt to return Arin home provides an "illicit thrill of collaboration" that ironically inspires a "Contract of Sisterhood," to be "sisters, forever and ever, till death do us part. Amen." Despite their closeness--or perhaps because of it--what Gen deems Arin's betrayals begin as teens, including an award-winning school essay publicly exposing family shame, and mining Gen's trauma for the screen as young adults. Excising Arin might be Gen's only option to survive.

Although Gen's relentless, self-admitted "hubris" occasionally threatens to weigh down the narrative, Wei's glorious phrasing and revelatory observations provide buoying antidotes: "simply ripping away the gauze of courtesy"; "our desperate arms locked around each other, both snare and salvation." Pa's simple declaration, "Now we are five," proves to be prescient warning of inevitable upset. From there, Wei reveals a tragic, haunting exercise in the limitations of not-quite unconditional love. --Terry Hong

Shelf Talker: First-time novelist Jemimah Wei poignantly, affectingly observes an extended family that sunders from dysfunction and betrayals in The Original Daughter.

The following were the most popular book club books during March based on votes from book club readers in more than 90,000 book clubs registered at Bookmovement.com:

1. The Wedding People: A Novel by Alison Espach (Holt)
2. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (Doubleday)
3. James: A Novel by Percival Everett (Doubleday)
4. The Women: A Novel by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin's Press)
5. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (Riverhead)
6. All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker (Crown)
7. The Briar Club: A Novel by Kate Quinn (Morrow)
8. The Measure by Nikki Erlick (Morrow)
9. Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty (Crown)
10. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Doubleday)

Rising Stars:
The Queens of Crime: A Novel by Marie Benedict (St. Martin's Press)
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan (Penguin Books)