Octopus Bookshop officially opened on June 9 at 41 Main St. in Kennebunk, Maine, when co-owners Michele Dubois and Renee Seinfeld "swung open a front door adorned with a tentacle-shaped handle--suckers and all--and welcomed visitors into a literary world filled with fiction, memoirs, biographies, history, mystery, horror, children's tales and more," the Portsmouth Herald reported. 

"Even though we've not read all these books, we've chosen them specifically," Dubois said. "We want the bookstore to feel like you've walked into another world so that you can experience more diversity."

The inspiration for the bookshop's name came from the notion that "an octopus is intelligent, a quality often associated with reading and learning. Secondly, an octopus is coastal. Like Kennebunk," the Herald wrote. "And, if you're like Dubois and Seinfeld and enjoy reading multiple books at a time, then, well, wouldn't you like to have as many arms as an octopus with which to hold them all?"

The main room of the shop is dedicated to adults, while a small area in the back, featuring cuddly stuffed animals and comfortable seats, is the children's books section. Another room has shelves filled with history books, which are proving to be a popular draw, according to the owners.

Before becoming bookstore owners, Dubois and Seinfeld owned and operated Ronel J. Dubois Insurance Agency in Sanford, which they sold last year, allowing them to invest in "a shared dream come true--a dream that each of them had early on in their childhood before they even met in Boston in 2001," the Herald noted.

"When I was a kid, I would take my books off my bookshelves and would lay them all out on my bed and put little price tags on them," Seinfeld said. Dubois recalled that she and family friends had the dream as early as when they were in junior high school: "We would talk about how it would be cool to have a bookstore." 

Haunted Burrow Books, a bookstore with a focus on horror, fantasy, science fiction, and occult titles, opens today in Seattle, Wash.

Located at 430 15th Ave. E in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, Haunted Burrow Books spans approximately 1,600 sq. ft. and sells predominantly new titles with about 20% of the inventory consisting of used books. About 5% of the inventory is packaged as blind dates, and there are tarot cards featured in the occult section.

Owner Roxanne Guiney, an editor by trade, has a small opening party planned for this evening that will include a raffle and golden ticket hunt. In July she has two book clubs scheduled as well as a silent writing group planned through the North Seattle Sci-Fi and Fantasy Writers group. In general she hopes to host at least two book clubs, one writing group, and one occult-themed group each month.

Asked about the bookstore's focus, Guiney said she chose to concentrate "on the genres I'm knowledgeable about and can discuss, particularly horror and dark fantasy." She added: "Of course, people get more excited to read a book when the person offering it to them tells them what's exciting about it, and I want to be able to give customers that experience. To some readers, myself included, the connection to another reader is part of the experience."

In addition to being an editor, Guiney has been involved with the writing community in Seattle for several years, and has worked for a literary magazine and a small press. Before deciding to open a bookstore, she sold used books and books packaged as blind dates at various swap meets and vendor fairs around Seattle. She's "always wanted to work in a bookstore," she said, and started to consider opening one of her own late last year.

Blind Book Dates

She began learning all she could about the bookselling business, and though she expected the process to take a couple of years, "the opportunity for a temporary space in a great area presented itself, and I took it." The space, she explained, is in a building that could be demolished as early as next year, and though "there's a possibility of me staying longer," her lease is guaranteed for only six months. 

So far, Guiney said, "everyone has been so supportive." She's heard wonderful feedback from customers at vendor fairs as well as members of her writing community, and she greatly looks forward to stocking and selling books from local writers. "I'm overwhelmed by everyone's kindness, and I hope that translates to the store's survival through the short term lease and on to the next location." --Alex Mutter

On Friday at Children's Institute, booksellers discussed "Activating Literacy with the Entire Family," with panelists Zsamé Morgan from Babycake's Book Stack in Saint Paul, Minn., Audrey Barbakoff of The Collective Book Studio in Oakland, Calif., Federico Figueroa from Secret Garden Books in Seattle, Wash., and John Hutton of Blue Manatee Press in Highland Village, Tex. Panelists agreed that parents should begin reading to their children as soon as possible--perhaps "not in the birthing room, but soon thereafter," joked Morgan.

(l.-r.) John Hutton, Audrey Barbakoff, Federico Figueroa, Zsamé Morgan

A large obstacle in children's education is the increase in online learning caused by the Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdown. As an entire generation struggles to engage with reading, parents, in turn, may place the blame upon themselves. Hutton encouraged a more positive outlook: "The plastic age is 0-5, but it's never too late to implement healthier habits and catch up."

It's also important to remind parents that reading is a diverse practice. Graphic novels, audio books, comics, and fanfictions are all valid methods of reading. "Learning lyrics to songs or reading recipes together" can also build positive relationships with words, said Martinez.

Barbakoff recommended booksellers direct parents toward "books that essentially have instructions in them." For example, interactive books such as Press Here by Herve Tullet (Chronicle Books) or Don't Push the Button by Bill Cotter (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky) provide parents with scaffolding for text interaction. If interactive titles aren't enough, parents should "get a stuffed bear and bounce the bear in [their] lap" or ask children to predict what will happen next.

"Effective read-aloud times includes putting in the time," said Martinez. Families can read chapter books together before bed, or pair a young reader's edition with the original adult edition for a cross-age book club.

When waiting for the next book in a series to be published, Figueroa suggested parents "create fanfiction of the stories or create their own comics" to encourage wondering.

Games like Boggle and Scrabble can also build a positive relationship with words. Older kids and teens may build stronger connections with zines, book bingos, or captioned foreign films.

It's also important to remind multilingual families that "there's no requirement to read a book in English just because you're in America," said Hutton. The brain doesn't care what language the book is in, only that there is engagement. Booksellers can support multilingual families by holding culturally specific story times and promoting books by multilingual authors. --Madison Gaines, publishing assistant, Shelf Awareness

Japan's government has outlined a plan to revitalize bookstores in an effort to counter their decline. The Japan News reported that the government "will promote bookstores making widespread use of IC [aka RFID] tags and bringing in related digital equipment to allow for more efficient inventory management and overall improved business operations and distribution, which they hope will position neighborhood bookstores as cultural hubs for their communities."

The number of bookstores in Japan has fallen to about 10,400 in a little more than 20 years, half of what it had been, according to the Japan Publishing Organization for Information Infrastructure Development.

In March 2024, the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry formed a team to promote bookstores, and last February the Yomiuri Shimbun and Kodansha announced their own joint proposal for revitalizing bookstores, the Japan News noted, adding that the "latest government plan incorporates elements from that proposal, including measures to reduce the burden of cashless payments for bookstores and collaboration between bookstores and libraries, as well as the use of picture book specialists."

Regarding returns, the ministry will serve as an office for a study group involving publishers, distributors and bookstores to explore measures to discuss ways to reduce the rate of returns and increase profits for bookstores by using IC tag data and other strategies to determine appropriate shipment volumes.

--- 

Spain's Ministry of Culture and the state-owned postal service Correos recently announced a new agreement to support local bookshops affiliated with the Spanish Booksellers Association (CEGAL) through improved shipping logistics. The European & International Booksellers Federation's Newsflash reported that, "among other advantages, bookshops will benefit from discounted rates, varied packaging options, and enhanced tracking."

CEGAL director Sara Sánchez said, "This agreement will allow local bookshops to be visible in the domain of online commerce." Culture minister Ernest Urtasun added: "This is not only a logistical agreement but also a defense of the book and culture."  

--- 

More bad news has been released regarding kids' reading habits in the U.K. The Guardian reported that reading enjoyment among children and young people has fallen to its lowest level in two decades, with the decline particularly pronounced in teenage boys, according to the National Literacy Trust's numbers culled from its Annual Literacy Survey. For the past year, boys' reading enjoyment fell across most age groups--particularly among those 11 to 16 years old--while girls' enjoyment remained relatively stable or slightly improved. Among girls eight to 18, 39.1% said they enjoyed reading in their free time, compared to 25.7% of boys. Just 32.7% of eight- to 18-year-olds said they enjoyed reading "very much" or "quite a lot" this year. 

"The 20 years since the survey began have seen a 36% fall in the number of children and young people who say they enjoy reading in their spare time," the Guardian noted, adding that the number of eight- to 18-year-olds who report reading something daily in their free time has dropped from 38.1% to 18.7%.

To help counter this trend, the Reading Agency has received a grant of £1.5 million (about $2.1 million) from the Julia Rausing Trust to expand the reach and impact of the Summer Reading Challenge. The funding will allow organization to "reach an additional 375,000 children and families living with disadvantage by 2027, helping to break down systemic barriers to reading and extend the proven benefits of the Challenge to those who need it most," the Reading Agency said. --Robert Gray

William Langewiesche, a magazine writer and author "who forged complex narratives with precision-tooled prose that shed fresh light on national security, the occupation of Iraq and, especially, aviation disasters," died on June 14, the New York Times reported. He was 70. Langewiesche was an international correspondent for Vanity Fair, a writer-at-large for the New York Times Magazine, and a national correspondent for the Atlantic. He also wrote several books. 

From 1999 to 2008, his pieces were finalists for the National Magazine Award, which he won twice: in 2007 for "Rules of Engagement," about the killing of 24 unarmed civilians by U.S. Marines in 2005 in Haditha, Iraq; and in 2002 for "The Crash of EgyptAir 990," about a flight that went down in the Atlantic Ocean in 1999.

"At his best there's a sort of cinematic omniscience in the way he writes," Cullen Murphy, his longtime editor at the Atlantic and Vanity Fair, said in an interview. "And so you feel almost as he feels, with your face pressed up against the window watching something unfold, often very rapidly, and often wishing that things would unfold very differently but knowing there's nothing that can be done."

Langewiesche learned to fly as a boy and worked as a commercial pilot early on to support his literary ambition, the Times noted, adding that "he drew on his aviation expertise in a number of articles and books that laid out highly technical subjects in lucid prose," including Fly By Wire: The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson, about Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III's landing of a commercial airliner in the Hudson River in 2009.

His 2002 book, American Ground: Unbuilding The World Trade Center, was based on a three-part series in the Atlantic covering the cleanup after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Langewiesche's other books include Cutting for Sign (1993), Sahara Unveiled: A Journey Across the Desert (1996), Inside the Sky: A Meditation on Flight (1998), The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime (2004), The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor (2007), Aloft: Thoughts on the Experience of Flight (2010), and Finding the Devil: Darkness, Light, and the Untold Story of the Chilean Mine Disaster (2012).

In a tribute, Cullen Murphy wrote in the Atlantic: "A certain cast of mind characterizes Langewiesche's work for the Atlantic as well as for Vanity Fair and the New York Times Magazine. He was skeptical about most political and social institutions, not because they weren't needed but because they were fragile and self-serving. But he was not skeptical about knowledge and expertise, nor about the capacity of ordinary people to transcend circumstances and institutions with humanity and ingenuity. Those people peer out from between the lines of everything he wrote."

Last week at Ci2025, the morning keynote was There Is No Such Thing as a Silent Ally. The group (l. to r.) was introduced by Brein Lopez, general manager of Children's Book World, Los Angeles, Calif., and featured authors Claribel Ortega (Scepter of Memories, Scholastic), em dickson (Beyond They/Them, illus. by Cameron Mukwa, Andrews McMeel), moderator Lee Wind (Like That Eleanor, illus. by Kelly Mangan, Cardinal Rule Press), ND Stevenson (Scarlet Morning, Quill Tree Books), and Petra Lord (Queen of Faces, Holt). The only nonfiction author on the panel, em dickson observed that "children are oppressed individuals. Much of the world is inaccessible to them--books are one of the best ways to open that world up in a way that provides access."

Posted on Instagram yesterday by Morgenstern Books, Bloomington, Ind.: "Today we honor and recognize Juneteenth. A day of reflection, liberation, and joy! We invite our community to utilize their resources (whether that be us or @mcplindiana) to learn more and continue to celebrate and uplift Black voices!"

"We added our first photo to our summer reading wall of fame!," Rooted Books & Gifts, Grand Island, Neb., posted on Instagram. "Keep reading those books, friends. Bring your list of 10 completed titles, and get a coupon AND your picture on the wall. Let's create a community of readers who celebrate other readers!"

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." That was the sidewalk chalkboard message in front of Books on Main, Murphys, Calif., which noted: "New sign--new artwork courtesy of Bookseller Brenna."

Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet by John G. Turner (Yale University Press).

Today Fresh Air remembers the late Edmund White.

The first trailer has been released for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, based on the book Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska by Warren Zanes (Crown). Directed by Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart), the film stars Jeremy Allen White (The Bear), "who transforms into music icon Bruce Springsteen in the a music biopic about the Boss," Variety reported.

The cast includes Jeremy Strong (Succession), Stephen Graham (Adolescence), Paul Walter Hauser (Richard Jewell), Odessa Young (The Order), Marc Maron (Glow), Johnny Cannizzaro (Jersey Boys), Harrison Gilbertson (Upgrade), David Krumholtz (Oppenheimer), and Chris Jaymes (Short Term 12).

Deliver Me From Nowhere comes from Disney's 20th Century Studios and is produced by Cooper with Scott Stuber, the Gotham Group's Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Eric Robinson, who helped develop the project. Springsteen and Landau are also involved with the project. The film will be released in theaters on October 24.

Margaret McDonald won the Carnegie Medal for Writing for her debut novel Glasgow Boys. Olivia Lomenech Gill took the Carnegie Medal for Illustration for Clever Crow, written by Chris Butterworth. The winners will each receive a specially commissioned golden medal and a £5,000 (about $6,720) Colin Mears Award cash prize.

Ros Harding, chair of judges for the Carnegies 2025, said: "Glasgow Boys is an immersive and visceral read that completely draws the reader into the present and past lives of Finlay and Banjo. It is a book that will stay in the minds of the reader long after finishing it. Clever Crow is full of stunning, innovative and detailed illustrations that elevate this fascinating nonfiction book into something even more special that demands reading over and over again."

The Carnegie Shadowers' Choice Medal for Writing went to King of Nothing by Nathanael Lessore, while Homebody by author-illustrator Theo Paris won the Carnegie Shadowers' Choice Medal for Illustration. The two winners receive a golden medal and £500 (about $670) worth of books to donate to a library of their choice.

photo: Mari Juliano

Harris Lahti's work has appeared in BOMB, the Baffler, Ninth Letter, Forever magazine, and elsewhere. He co-founded the press Cash 4 Gold Books, and edits fiction for Fence. His debut novel, Foreclosure Gothic (Astra House, June 10, 2025), is a multigenerational and deeply autobiographical gothic tale of Hollywood dreams and upstate New York reality.

Handsell readers your book in about 25 words:

Foreclosure Gothic is: a propulsive reimagining of the American gothic; a creepy family drama; an interrogation of good instincts gone awry, full of black comedy that verges onto horror.

On your nightstand now:

Rent Boy by Gary Indiana. Male prostitutes, drugs, and a plot to steal a kidney. A perfect mix of the profane and profound. It's sort of the perfect book; Indiana's voice could literally launch a rocket.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. I read this in third grade and remember finishing it before school one day and weeping as my legs hung off the side of my bunkbed. It gutted me. There was my reading life before, then my reading life after.

Your top five authors:

Fleur Jaeggy, Roberto Bolaño, Nathanael West, Thom Jones, Shirley Jackson.

Book you've faked reading:

Septology by Jon Fosse. I mean, I've read the first two sections and loved them. But do I have to read the next five? No, seriously, do I?

Books you're an evangelist for:

I've given out more copies of Letters to Wendy's by Joe Wenderoth and The Sarah Book by Scott McClanahan than a Jehovah's Witness handing out Bibles on the precipice of end times.

Book you've bought for the cover:

I don't think I've ever purchased a book because of the cover--though that might be a lie. The best covers work on you subconsciously; they provide a missing puzzle piece of yourself you might not even realize.

Book you hid from your parents:

I've been lucky; probably it's more likely there were books I'd read very young that my parents should've hid from me. During childhood, I remember a lot of vintage Playboy magazines and The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey floating around.

Book that changed your life:

The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones. All of Jones's collections are important to me. I found them at exactly the right time. Boxers, mystics, people struggling with bipolar disorder, amputees, middle-aged women dying from cancer--Jones's range of characters, his ability to harness their voices, showed me nothing is off limits, if done correctly. Sometimes all you need is permission.

Favorite line from a book:

"I've got eyes to shut in Michigan--maybe even Germany or China, I don't know yet. I walk, but I'm not scared. I feel my fear moving away in rings through time for a million years." --from "Trilobites" by Breece D'J Pancake.

The present tense, the cadence, the way he splits his chest open and bears his pulsing heart for all. I'd be an entirely different person/writer without having read him--this story, in particular.

Five books you'll never part with:

Firework by Eugene Marten, The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek, Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West, The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake, Last Vanities (it's better than Sweet Days of Discipline, I swear) by Fleur Jaeggy.

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

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West. It's such a dark, reckless novel. It's sinister yet somehow manages to laugh at itself. I didn't see it coming. I could barely look at it dead on while reading it. It felt illegal somehow, daemonic, the first time I read it, like I'd encountered something I shouldn't: something sacred, something cursed. Maybe I'm a sick puppy, but I still look for that feeling everywhere.

A sophisticated ivory tower drama holds a magnifying glass up to the emotional cracks in a marriage between two academics in Seduction Theory by Emily Adrian. Adrian's marvelous third novel for adults takes the intriguing form of a Masters of Fine Arts thesis crafted by a student infatuated with her adviser and considers what, in essence, constitutes infidelity in a long-established relationship.

The graduating student is Robbie and her thesis advisor is Simone, the charismatic star of the creative writing department at Edwards University in upstate New York. Simone is happily married to Ethan. They are colleagues in the same department, sexual soulmates, and each other's adoring best friend. Ethan, tall, handsome, and a bit of a loner, is comfortable with the way Simone is a "real" professor and he is not, with her PhD from Yale, her scholarly book, and the impressive number of publications she has authored. Not to mention the popular memoir she wrote about her late mother. Back in his 20s, Ethan wrote Muse, his breakout novel and his only published work thus far, and he is now in his 40s.

With Robbie as narrator, Seduction Theory follows the course of an intense summer friendship with Simone that leaves Robbie wanting much more. She enjoys being Simone's running partner and confidante, eager to absorb the details of her professor's life. Robbie doesn't know if she wants to sleep with her thesis advisor "or be her." Meanwhile, Ethan's blossoming friendship with the department secretary, Abigail, takes off when they both find themselves visiting family in Oregon that same fateful summer.

Adrian (Everything Here Is Under Control; The Second Season) has equipped Robbie with a persuasive, entertaining voice tinged with scorn and wicked humor, such as when she describes Ethan's awkward interactions with young Byron, Abigail's precocious son. Therein lies the captivating pull of the novel, with its close observation of the boundary-crossing professor-student friendship, scandalously intimate details of Ethan and Simone's marriage, and the devastating repercussions of Ethan's fall from grace. Robbie learns a good deal about Ethan from her adviser, probably more than Simone intended to reveal.

As with most relationships, Simone and Ethan have their separate inner lives--the last frontier of privacy in a marriage as blissfully entangled as theirs. It is here that Robbie unleashes her imagination, merging fact and fiction to craft a story that is, at its core, a breathtaking act of betrayal. --Shahina Piyarali

Shelf Talker: A sophisticated ivory tower drama takes the intriguing form of a Masters of Fine Arts thesis crafted by a student who is infatuated with her charismatic advisor.