Serendipity Bookshop, located at 1 Main St. in Taunton, Mass., hosted its grand opening last week and will have an official ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 25 with the Taunton Chamber of Commerce.

Owner Donna Melchionno told the Taunton Daily Gazette that her goal is to create a community space where people can relax and enjoy books: "A bookstore is more than just books. For me, it's a place for community, and I wanted that space."

Noting that since opening, she has been "busy all day," Melchionno added that the cozy atmosphere of the store is meant to be welcoming, a place where you can "walk in, sit down, take a breath.... Having a place where you can come in, look at the books, instead of ordering online, that makes it an experience. I think people were missing that. There's a new generation coming up of people saying, 'Let's come back to this.' " 

Melchionno started looking for a space to open a bookshop last summer, and eventually Taunton's Office of Economic and Community Development introduced her to the Main St. location. "It was banged up inside, but I immediately saw its potential," she said.

After signing the lease in January, she spent the last three months building out and renovating the space. Previously, she had set up a vendor space in the Trescott Street Gallery. In Serendipity Bookshop's new location, she has initially focused on the most popular genres and bestsellers, as well as book titles recommended by friends and family

Now that the store is open, "people are letting me know what they want to read," she said, and she has been putting in large orders to expand inventory and genres. Serendipity also sells crystals, pens, mugs, reusable cloth bags, and store-branded shirts and sweatshirts. Melchionno ultimately wants the bookshop also to be a place to hold a variety of events, and already has several book signings scheduled with local authors.

Friendly Alien Books will open this spring at 111 Wyoming Avenue in downtown Scranton, Pa. The Times-Tribune reported that while growing up in Lackawanna County, owner Brigid Lawrence often went to the local bookstore, and when it eventually closed, she "found a spark and wanted to bring a bookstore back into her community."

Brigid Lawrence at a pre-opening open house at Friendly Alien Books.

Although the dream remained in the background as she built a career in print and television media, it held on. "Before bringing this dream to life, Lawrence started asking around for some advice as she also journaled through the whole process," the Times-Tribune wrote. Last summer, she decided to take the next step: "She reached out to the [University of Scranton Small Business Development Center] and began working with business consultant Zakiyyah Smith, who introduced her to the StartUP program--a resource designed to help aspiring entrepreneurs. That fall, she joined the program, finding it to be an invaluable experience."

"It's a perfect toolkit," Lawrence said. "It had everything I didn't even realize I needed until I saw it.... Starting a business can feel lonely, but hearing about all the other women who went through the process was also a huge help, seeing someone who was sitting there having the same thoughts 'am I on the right path,' and 'is this what I should be doing?' "

Regarding the bookshop's name, Lawrence wanted something that reflected her "extraterrestrial" personality, the Times-Tribune noted. "Messing around with some words, she came across the words 'friendly' and 'alien.' When she presented the name to some family and friends, they loved it and thought it was fitting for her as she even has a little alien tattoo."

She told WVIA that while the storefront isn't ready yet, she held an open house during First Friday this month and a "steady stream" of people came by to see what she has been working on. "It's been beyond magical to see how many people want to support this, want to help support me and just kind of want to celebrate this new business coming to downtown," she said.

"I feel so incredibly lucky in that regard, that so many people have just been like 'I love the idea, I want to help,' " she noted, adding that she is excited to join a "long line of small businesses in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The community is also so supportive. They all want to support local too. I just feel so lucky to be a part of that now from a different angle... to be on the other side of it, it's just like 'oh my God, this is so fun.' "

Second Shapes Bookstore, which sells used and new books, zines, and art by local creators, hosted its grand opening celebration last weekend at 8124 N. Denver Ave. in Portland, Ore., with a full day of festivities including snacks, story time, a photo booth and a live DJ set.

Before moving to Portland eight years ago, owner Danielle Alexander ran Bombadil Books in Grand Rapids, Mich., a store that doubled as a community organizing space in the wake of the 2016 election. The Oregonian reported that opening a bookstore in her new neighborhood "wasn't part of the plan for Alexander, who now works in federal politics and has advocated for national causes including universal child care. But when President Donald Trump was reelected last year, she began craving ways to contribute that were more deeply rooted in the community."

"For me, books and spaces for community to gather feel really crucial to surviving and organizing and disrupting," Alexander said. "It feels like an act of resistance to the current administration."

The store is divided into two sections, with the front dedicated to the bookstore and the back housing Alexander's partner's woodworking business, Tiny Shed. There is also a back patio for pop-up markets and other events.

Alexander told the Oregonian that uplifting local voices is a priority for the bookstore, which aims to support Portland creators by selling their art and splitting the profits.

"It just felt like the most magical place to do a bookstore, and the whole neighborhood has been so overwhelmingly excited," said Alexander, adding that there is hope in the bookshop's name. Stepping inside her bookstore, she often finds herself shifting from a feeling of helplessness in the face of national events to one of agency and empowerment: "This isn't the shape we have to be in. We can pour ourselves into something new, and I think the way to do that is through community."

In a post-grand opening Facebook post, Alexander noted: "I don't think it's too soon to say this is one of the great, magical moments of my life.... Endless, boundless gratitude for everyone who came out this weekend. May Second Shapes Bookstore continue to be a place of joy and community and holding on to each other forever and ever."

Seven Stories Press has acquired independent publisher Two Dollar Radio, which was co-founded in 2005 by Eric Obenauf and Eliza Wood-Obenauf. Under the terms of the deal, Eric Obenauf will join Seven Stories as publisher of the Two Dollar Radio imprint, which will continue to publish four to six original titles per year on average, including their New Classics series.

Penguin Random House Distribution Services will handle sales and distribution in the U.S., Canada and globally, effective January 1, 2026. In the U.K., sales and distribution will be with Turnaround Distribution. Ingram Distribution Services will continue to sell and distribute the Two Dollar Radio list through 2025.

Also joining Seven Stories is Two Dollar Radio staffer Brett Gregory, who will be publicity and marketing coordinator for the Two Dollar Radio imprint and for certain Seven Stories titles. Co-founder Eliza Wood-Obenauf will continue to work on special projects. The Obenaufs and Gregory will work remotely from Ohio. Seven Stories is based in New York.

Two Dollar Radio Headquarters, a bookstore and café in Columbus, Ohio, will remain under the ownership of the Obenaufs.

"Seven Stories has been one of our literary polestars since before we launched Two Dollar Radio," Eric Obenauf said. "I'm a great admirer of their list, and I believe that ours complements theirs in very intriguing ways. I look forward to being a part of their team, and to learn from them and their expertise. It's been a sometimes exhausting and yet monstrously rewarding journey to reach this point, and Eliza and I couldn't be more thrilled to strengthen Two Dollar Radio under the Seven Stories umbrella so that it can continue to prosper for the next twenty years and beyond."

Seven Stories publisher Dan Simon commented: "Eric and I are very similar in that we personalize our work to an extreme degree. This has its advantages and its disadvantages, but on the plus side it can inspire loyalty in our authors and colleagues and strengthens our ability to be really good editors and publishers. I deeply admire the twenty-year history of Two Dollar Radio and all that Eric and Eliza Jane have done here. I'm also really interested in their aesthetic and cool sense that literature belongs in a fundamental way in contemporary life."

Richard Bernstein, an author and a former correspondent and critic for the New York Times "whose deep knowledge of Asia and Europe illuminated reporting from Tiananmen Square to the Bastille, and who wrote things as he saw them in 10 books driven by unflinching intellectual curiosity," died March 31, the Times reported. He was 80. Bernstein's journalism "had sweep, an elegiac sense of the tragic inherent in human affairs, and often a subtly crafted argumentation rooted in thorough on-the-ground reporting." 

Richard Bernstein (photo: Michael Lionstar)

"I frankly do not like books that start from the premise that matters are too complex to allow for any generalizations," he wrote in Fragile Glory, his 1990 portrait of France, a country "someplace midway between a certain persistent dream and an immovable reality." For Bernstein, it was a nation, that sought to "glow with the torch of civilization itself" even as it writhed over its "military and moral collapse in the face of the Nazis."

The first-generation son of Jewish immigrants from Hungary and Belarus, Bernstein grew up on a chicken farm in rural Connecticut. From that experience "he took a distaste for posturing, a suspicion of fashion, an impatience with taboos and a deep belief in American possibility," the Times wrote. 

"A Jewish intellectual from a chicken farm, he never swerved from his attachment to what America should stand for," author Kati Marton said in an interview.

In his book Dictatorship of Virtue: Multiculturalism and the Battle for America's Future (1994), Bernstein argued that attempts to promote diversity had often stifled diversity, a view that won him "more enemies than friends even as it presaged ideological fissures destined to grow," the Times noted, adding that he "never shrank from difficult subjects: In 2009, he published The East, the West, and Sex: A History, an exploration of the connection between sex and power told through the encounters of Western explorers, merchants and conquerors with Eastern cultures."

"He believed in truth, no matter where the chips fell," said David Margolick, a journalist and author. "Nobody had handed him anything. His integrity was absolute. He wrote what he thought without looking over his shoulder."

Bernstein's other books include From the Center of the Earth: The Search for the Truth About China (1982); The Coming Conflict with China (1997, with Ross. H. Munro); Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment (2001); Out of the Blue: The Story of September 11, 2001, from Jihad to Ground Zero (2002); and Only in America: Al Jolson and the Jazz Singer (2024).

Just before he died, Bernstein told his younger sister, Judy Peritz: "We all know death comes. I would have loved to have more, but now understand that I won't. I accept that and am not afraid. I have lived a really wonderful and interesting life."

Posted by the Book & Cover, Chattanooga, Tenn.: "Picture it: it's Saturday, April 26. You’ve just done yoga in the park set to relaxing music and some gentle poetry. You wander over to the bookstore to grab a coffee and check out the indie bookstore day scene. You grab a book and a spot and wait for @vinestreetmarket to open so you can picnic at the shop with a sammy. @yellowracket_cha is there spinning records and keeping the mood high. The day has only just begun. This feels like flying."

Simon & Schuster will handle sales in the U.S. and Canada for C&T Publishing, effective June 1.

Founded in 1983, C&T Publishing is a craft book publisher with a list of books and products encompassing a range of handmade art subjects, including quilting, sewing, embroidery, cosplay, and more. Imprints and divisions including Creative Spark Online Learning, Stash Books, FunStitch Studio, FanPowered Press, and more.

Bree Martinez has joined Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing as publicity manager. She was most recently a senior publicist at Crown Publishing Group.

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Giselle Gonzalez has been promoted to senior publicist at Tor Publishing Group.

Strangers in Time by David Baldacci (Grand Central Publishing).

Today:
Fresh Air: Shaun Walker, author of The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West (Knopf, $32, 9780593319680).

Tomorrow:
Today: Lake Bell, author of All About Brains (S&S Books for Young Readers, $19.99, 9781665906753).

Also on Today: Dina Deleasa-Gonsar, author of At the Kitchen Sink: Recipes to Fill Your Table, Words to Fill Your Heart (Convergent Books, $28.99, 9780593728932).

Live with Kelly and Mark: Aly Raisman, author of From My Head to My Toes (Holt, $18.99, 9781250798107).

Laura Lippman's bestselling novels featuring private investigator Tess Monaghan have been acquired by Tomorrow Studios (The Better Sister, One Piece) for development as a TV series. Deadline reported that Lippman will co-write the project with Edgar-winning author Megan Abbott. 

"Tess Monaghan is an iconic character, and we are thrilled that Laura has entrusted us to help tell her story. We couldn't imagine a better team than Laura and Megan, both masters of crime storytelling, to bring this series to life," Tomorrow Studios' CEO/partner Marty Adelstein, president/partner Becky Clements, and executive v-p Alissa Bachner said in a joint statement.

The adaption will be developed by Tomorrow Studios, which is an ITV Studios Partnership. Adelstein, Clements, and Bachner are exec producing through Tomorrow Studios, along with Lippman and Abbott.

Winners were announced for the 2025 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, sponsored by the Cleveland Foundation, honoring "literature that confronts racism and celebrates diversity," and celebrating its 90th anniversary. The winners:

Fiction: Colored Television by Danzy Senna
Nonfiction: The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots by John Swanson Jacobs, edited by Jonathan D.S. Schroeder
Memoir: Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls (the first graphic memoir to win in the award's history
Poetry: Yard Show by Janice Harrington
Lifetime Achievement Award: Yusef Komunyakaa

"For 90 years, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards have championed fearless, groundbreaking literature that challenges the status quo, ignites dialogue, and shapes a more just and inclusive world," said Lillian Kuri, president and CEO of the Cleveland Foundation. "This year's winners unearth buried histories, redefine cultural narratives, and demand our attention--at a moment when these voices are more vital than ever."

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The shortlist has been selected for the £25,000 (about $33,045) Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, which "celebrates quality, innovation and ambition of writing," and is open to books first published in the previous year in the U.K., Ireland, or the Commonwealth. The majority of the story must have taken place at least 60 years ago. The winner will be named June 12. Each shortlisted author is awarded £1,500 (about $1,980). For more about the shortlisted titles, click here. 

The shortlist:
The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry 
The Mare by Angharad Hampshire 
The Book of Days by Francesca Kay 
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon 
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller 
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden 

This year's judges, chaired by Katie Grant, said: "From the escapades of young combatants in the Peloponnesian war in Sicily in the 5th century BC to a tender story of families isolated at home in the great British winter freeze of 1962/3, the shortlisted novels for this year's Walter Scott Prize paint a wide literary canvas of richness and subtlety. They are a celebration of storytelling, encompassing a tale of revenge and reconciliation in post-occupation Netherlands, a picture of family claustrophobia in Tudor England, an exhilarating cross-country adventure through the Wild West, and a revelatory exploration of evil--under a thick social disguise--in 1950s New York. Together the books illustrate the founding principles of the prize, bringing stories set in the past into our own time, through fine writing that is infused with ambition and originality to produce novels guaranteed to live long in the memory."

photo: Alana Paterson

Leigh Joseph, a member of the Squamish Nation, is an ethnobotanist, researcher, and community activist whose aim is to contribute to cultural knowledge renewal in connection to Indigenous plant foods and medicines. As part of this mission, she founded Sḵwálwen Botanicals, an Indigenous business creating small-batch botanical skincare products. Joseph shares her Indigenous plant knowledge in The Land Knows Me (becker&mayer! kids).

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

Ava, Jake, and Alíla7 go on a journey to meet culturally important plants in Squamish traditional homelands. Learn about plants, nature, and Indigenous culture.

On your nightstand now:

I have quite the stack of books on my nightstand currently. They include Fieldwork by Iliana Regan, Dispersals by Jessica J. Lee, and The Knowing by Tanya Talaga, along with two children's books, A Day with Yayah by Nicola I. Campbell, illustrated by Julie Flett, and We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Michaela Goade. This collection of books reflects much of my current life. I am drawn to books that straddle my academic work as well as my personal journey toward cultural identity. The children's books on my bedside table are the ones that inspired me to write The Land Knows Me. Dispersals stands out as one of the books that powerfully weaves together personal narrative with ecology and botany.

Favorite book when you were a child:

One of my favorite memories from childhood was having my parents read to me at night. I remember the first time my mom read The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame to me; I loved going on the adventures in my mind's eye at night and falling asleep to my mom's voice. I fell in love with the characters and the busy and intricate lives they had going on along the riverbanks and in their underground homes.

Favorite book to read to a child:

I love to read to my kids and their favorite books have changed through their different ages. When they were little, we read board books including We Sang You Home by Richard Van Camp and My Heart Fills with Happiness by Monique Gray Smith, both illustrated by Julie Flett. Now that they are a bit older we read novels, and they love the Wild Robot series by Peter Brown.

Your top five authors:

Robin Wall Kimmerer; Leanne Betasamosake Simpson; Jessica J. Lee; Monique Gray Smith; Nancy Turner

Book you've faked reading:

I faked reading Shakespeare in high school. My mom reluctantly bought me Coles Notes (CliffsNotes in the U.S.) for Macbeth. I still hope to come back and truly read Macbeth one day!  

Book you're an evangelist for:

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I love this book and the role it played in reconnecting me to my culture as an Indigenous botanist and woman and to the land through plants. I am inspired by the storytelling approach she takes that beautifully blends Indigenous knowledge and Western science.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. I saw this book on an Indigenous authors stand in the Chicago airport. I loved the colorful and intriguing cover design, so I picked up a copy and it ended up being one of my favorite anthologies to date.

Book you hid from your parents:

I once snuck into my parents' room and paged through their copy of The Joy of Sex and ended up leaving with more questions than answers.

Book that changed your life:

One River by Wade Davis opened the world of ethnobotany up to me. I had never read a book that explored the study of the cultural interrelationships between people and plants before Wade's. It set me on a path of exploring what this area of study means to me as a woman with Indigenous ancestry.

Favorite line from a book:

"In some Native languages the term for plants translates to 'those who take care of us.' " --Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

I love this quote because it captures the kinship at the center of Indigenous cultural relationships with plants. We have a very similar teaching in Squamish Nation culture.

Five books you'll never part with:

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, illus. by Michaela Goade
Dispersals by Jessica J. Lee
True Refuge by Tara Brach
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

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

As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. It was one of the first books I read during the early stages of my doctoral studies, and I felt myself reflected in the sections of the book where Simpson writes about her own experiences carrying out community-based research with her Indigenous community.

Why you started writing:

Years ago, during my master's degree, I noticed that most of the literature on Indigenous plant knowledge came from outdated Eurocentric sources and were often layered with racism and language that devalued Indigenous peoples. The discomfort I felt led me to want to write and share my voice in my field of ethnobotany from an Indigenous perspective. I've found writing to be a powerful and therapeutic way to address this gap in literature. It means a lot to me to contribute my voice through writing so that other Indigenous people wanting to learn about culturally important plants feel themselves reflected in what they are reading.

In the inviting Never Thought I'd End Up Here, Ann Liang (This Time It's Real) gives the classic enemies-to-lovers trope a fun, fish-out-of-water twist by forcing her Los Angeles-born heroine to take a trip to China with her (now handsome) childhood nemesis.

Seventeen-year-old Leah Zhang was convinced that being a model would turn her from the ugly duckling into the swan. It did, to some extent, but it was also "an all-consuming force" that colored in "every single aspect" of her life. Worse yet, Leah hates being stared at--a huge problem when she realizes she has to offer a toast in Mandarin at her superstitious cousin's wedding. Leah, who generally communicates with her Chinese relatives "via elaborate gestures" rather than the language she barely knows, is given tips on what to say. Stressed and nervous, she accidentally wishes the happy couple a "depressing marriage" and hopes they "fall ill quickly." Leah's horrified mother signs Leah up for a two-week trip to China to immerse her in the language and culture. Unfortunately, "evil" Cyrus Sui, the boy responsible for a deeply humiliating betrayal that "permanently stained" Leah's school records, is also attending.

The pair are repeatedly thrown together, first on the airplane, then as teammates in the group competition, and Leah realizes she can humiliate Cyrus for ruining her life by playing up her flirtation and grabbing hold of his heart. She decides she will demand a public display of "chocolates and balloons and streamers," then laugh "long and loud, right in his face." But first, Leah will need to make Cyrus want her, and she's not immune to his "solemn, dark gaze and the visible cut of his collarbone." To her dismay, Leah becomes increasingly more affected by Cyrus's unexpected tenderness--and his "enviably long" eyelashes.

Liang spins her story with plenty of verve, as Leah develops from being somewhat lost and self-absorbed to a thoughtful young adult. While Never Thought I'd End Up Here is first and foremost a romance, Liang uses humor to explore cross-cultural disconnect and investigate the development of self-worth: as Leah's China trip proves an opportunity for an awkward, "uncultured" girl to learn she is actually worthwhile and "interesting" enough to make her own life choices. --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author

Shelf Talker: Never Thought I'd End Up Here is the winning story of a Los Angeles-born ex-model who is sent to China to learn Mandarin--with her now extremely handsome childhood nemesis.