The Northshire Bookstore, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., has been closed temporarily since July 4 due to sustained, significant water damage from a leak originating in one of the apartments above the store.  

"We are working expeditiously to reopen as soon as possible and thank our incredible customers for their patience and support," COO Scott Austin told the Albany Times Union at the time. 

In a recent e-mail newsletter update, the Northshire wrote: "The store remains closed as we undertake remediation and repairs. Unfortunately, we do not yet have any additional info on the timeline for reopening, but we are hard at work and will continue to keep you updated." 

Scheduled author events will take place outside of the Saratoga Springs store throughout July. The Northshire's Manchester Center, Vt., location and the company's website remain open.

"Almost immediately after we announced the closure, there was a wildly generous community response, with many customers, other businesses, and organizations reaching out to with offers of help," the Northshire noted in its e-mail. "We are overwhelmed with gratitude for the kindness and support of our community.... We cannot wait to welcome you back to our Saratoga store. We appreciate your kind words and your continued support."

After more than a decade as a pop-up and online store, the Scribbled Hollow has opened a bricks-and-mortar store in Glendale, Ariz., 12News reported. 

Scribbled Hollow sells books for all ages, with an emphasis on science fiction, fantasy, and fandom. Alongside books, customers can find T-shirts, mugs, and other merchandise, and the store will host author signings, poetry slams, and more. 

Owner Amber Murray held grand opening festivities for the store throughout the weekend, with a ribbon cutting Friday afternoon followed by author visits and an open mic night. Saturday saw more author visits and a cosplay night, and Sunday included more author appearances and a gaming session.

Murray launched the Scribbled Hollow in 2012 and initially sold only children's titles. As the Scribbled Hollow built an audience and expanded its offerings throughout the years, Murray always dreamed of opening a bricks-and-mortar space. She was able to finally do so with the help of the community.

"Our sponsors actually paid our first and last months' rent," Murray told 12News. "They made it happen. We didn't even find that money, they came through for us." 

Prior to the grand opening on Friday, the Scribbled Hollow was open for a few days on a limited basis; there were already a few repeat customers. "Everybody is super excited about there being a West Valley bookstore," said Murray.

The Barnes & Noble University District Bookstore--the partnership between B&N and University Book Store through which B&N will operate the store's general books department--will officially open in Seattle, Wash., this week. Author Matt Dinniman (Dungeon Crawler Carl) will be on hand for a ribbon cutting and book signing. 

Under B&N's management, the trade book department will span 17,000 square feet, about double the size of the previous trade book department. UBS, meanwhile, will remain independent and focus on providing textbooks, student supplies, and apparel to the University of Washington community.

Earlier this spring, UW student newspaper the Daily reported that the agreement is set to run for 10 years, with the possibility of a reevaluation after four years. B&N will pay rent and a percentage of sales, and per the agreement, all UBS staff who worked in the trade book department have been retained

University Book Store was founded in 1900 by UW students. It is independent from the university and operates as a corporate trust for the benefit of UW students, faculty, and staff. At one time it had nine locations in the greater Seattle area.

An integral part of New York University's Summer Publishing Institute is visiting independent bookstores in New York City. This year, four students wrote about their impressions of bookstores they visited, which they kindly have shared with Shelf Awareness. On Wednesday, we published Mallory Stock's report on The Ripped Bodice. on Thursday we ran Alison Keiser's report on Greenlight Bookstore. And Friday featured Brianna Angeliz's report on The Strand. Today Suzanne Hutt reports on Book Culture.

Book Culture's Cody Madsen (back row, left) with NYU Summer Publishing Institute students. photos: Suzanne Hutt

Cody Madsen, v-p of operations at Book Culture, outlined the history and day-to-day experience of running an indie bookstore recently to NYU Summer Publishing Institute students.

Book Culture was founded in 1997, originally as Labyrinth Books, and houses both new and used books of all genres. The West 112th St. flagship store has a close relationship with Columbia University and the surrounding neighborhood; in fact, the first week of September is just as busy as the December holiday rush due to coursebook sales. The bookstore company is led by owner & president Chris Doeblin, v-p & head buyer Devon Dunn, and head sideline & gift buyer Susan Doeblin, who help provide a carefully curated selection of books and gifts that contains something for nearly everyone.

The story of Book Culture is a master class in taking risks. For instance, when beloved Morningside Bookstore, on the corner of West 114th St. and Broadway, was closing its doors in 2009, Chris recognized an opportunity to expand. Even though the two locations would be extremely close by, he saw it as a chance to create a different model for Book Culture, where the new space could focus on specific categories (like bestsellers, new releases, and a robust children's section at the Broadway location). That shift led to more locations, in Long Island City and Pittsford, N.Y. Each Book Culture store has a distinct identity while maintaining the same characteristic warmth.

A risk-taking approach also applies to Book Culture's events programming. Book Culture has a full calendar of 50 or more events each year, but they are also very intentional about the events they host. They want to ensure that programming serves the neighborhood and champions authors they love. Sometimes, this means going out on a limb to ask local celebrity authors to see if they'd be interested in doing an event, like R.L. Stine and Bill Nye (who said yes!).

Is working at a bookstore as dreamy as we like to think? Cody explained that it's not like Audrey Hepburn at the start of Funny Face, where she's staring wistfully out the window most of the day. It's a dynamic environment with a constant flurry of activity. Still, there's no lack of movie magic at Book Culture, for example, when a Hollywood star turns up in the second row at a community poetry reading. And the true magic, of course, is in the everyday interactions with fellow readers, helping them find the perfect next read. Current sought-after titles include The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong, Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood, Spent by Alison Bechdel, and I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman.

Staff recommendations also make a huge impact. Cody compared working in the store with tending a garden. "If we have someone on staff who really loves poetry, poetry sales will go up," he said. "If you pick up something and touch it and move it, the psychic energy of that will also encourage the customers to interact with it. So the space is very much a reflection of the booksellers that work here."

Cody's message for new indie booksellers is to cultivate your network, including people near you and around the country, and to get creative about growing your community. And if we may take a page from the Book Culture playbook, taking risks can make all the difference.

Suzanne Hutt (Northwestern '13) is a recent graduate of NYU's Summer Publishing Institute. She loves writing fiction, recording music, and working at her sister's bookstore, Bookish Notions in Media, Pa. Suzanne has lived in Washington Heights in upper Manhattan for 10 years and can often be found in Fort Tryon Park with her favorite combo: chai and a good book.

Martin Cruz Smith, best known for the Arkady Renko series that started with Gorky Park, died on Saturday at age 82. As noted by his publisher Simon & Schuster, the New York Times called Smith "the master of the international thriller," the New Yorker wrote that he was "brilliant," and the Washington Post called the series "a work of art."

Martin Cruz Smith with his daughter Luisa Smith at NCIBA in 2016.

Smith's children--including Luisa Smith, editor-in-chief of Mysterious Press and Scarlet and former head buyer at Book Passage in Corte Madera and San Francisco, Calif.--made an announcement about their father's death, writing in part, "Our dad died peacefully late Friday night. We sat next to him, telling him how much we loved him, and in the last moments he let us know he heard us and loved us too. We already knew, in everything he had done in life he had let us know, but after Parkinson's had taken his voice, it felt like both a small miracle and a typical show of his ability to defy the odds that he could find a way to once again show his love.

"The world knew him best through Arkady Renko, the disillusioned Soviet investigator with a moral compass stubborn enough to function even in a blizzard of lies. First introduced in Gorky Park, Renko was not so much a hero as a survivor. Like dad, he mistrusted institutions, prized observation, used humor to expose hypocrisy, and believed that truth, though often buried, still mattered."

Early in his writing career, Smith wrote two westerns under the name Jake Logan; three Nick Carter spy novels; six Inquisitor series novels using the name Simon Quinn, about a spy agent employed by the Vatican; and a science fiction novel, The Indians Won, a Native American speculative novel. Several of his novels featured Roman Grey, a gypsy art dealer in New York City, and one, Canto for a Gypsy, was nominated for an Edgar. Nightwing, a 1977 thriller with a Native American setting, was adapted into a movie directed by Arthur Hiller.

As his children wrote, "Before Gorky Park, there were westerns and pulp thrillers, written under various pseudonyms, a cloak of anonymity that let him hone his craft without the burden of expectation. But once Renko entered the scene, everything changed. Gorky Park was both a commercial and critical success: a crime novel that slipped through the Iron Curtain and returned with secrets. A single book that changed our lives, moving us from New York to California, and allowing him to take greater chances with his writing."

Gorky Park was published in 1981 and was an immediate bestseller, staying on the lists for many months. It won a Gold Dagger from the Crime Writers' Association and was made into a 1983 movie directed by Michael Apted and starring William Hurt and Lee Marvin.

The first three Renko books were set during the Soviet period, and lauded for their portrayal of life in that era from the viewpoint of a police investigator who understands the limitations of his position but nonetheless investigates and follows all leads, regardless of vast political sensitivities. The eight following books loosely followed events in Russia, including the rise of Vladimir Putin and the invasion of Ukraine.

"What followed were a dozen more novels that never bowed to convention," his children added. "His sentences were sparse but musical. He distrusted glamour, preferred questions over answers, and could describe a man's character through a single gesture, the way a cigarette burned, the way a lie paused."

After the publication of Gorky Park, Smith also wrote several novels distinct from the Renko books, including Stallion Gate, Rose, December 6, and The Girl from Venice.

Cruz received the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award, as well as two Hammett Prizes, for Rose and Havana Bay, from the International Association of Crime Writers, North American Branch.

Hotel Ukraine, the 11th and "final Arkady Renko novel," was published last Tuesday by Simon & Schuster, which noted: "For the last three decades, Smith lived with Parkinson's, and he innovatively incorporated the condition into the more recent Renko novels, with his protagonist facing it as courageously as the author himself. As Smith writes of Renko in Hotel Ukraine: 'He could stay at home, do nothing, and surrender as his symptoms got worse... He was defined by who he was and what he could still do. Put that way, it wasn't even a choice.' "

"The same was true of Martin Cruz Smith," Sean Manning, v-p and publisher of S&S and Smith's editor, observed. "He was a writer, and he did it beautifully and valiantly until the very end."

Smith's wife, Emily Smith, called him "a beloved husband, father and grandfather; an adventurer, traveler and researcher; and a man of deep humanity, humor and insight. He felt that he was the luckiest man alive."

His children wrote, "His death leaves a silence, but not a void... [He] will live in our hearts forever."

"Welcome to Copperfish Books. We'll be your entertainment today," Copperfish Books, Punta Gorda, Fla., posted on Instagram along with a video: "POV: When a customer walks in while we're filming bookish content."

"Cool off with iced coffee and a book," the Book & Cover bookstore, Chattanooga, Tenn., recommended on the shop's sidewalk chalkboard, adding in an Instagram post: "We’ve heard that reading a book set in a cold climate brings your body temperature down! We’ve also heard submerging your entire body in ice works. Stop in and see if an iced coffee helps!"

CeeCee: Underground Railroad Cinderella by Shana Keller, illustrated by Laura Freeman (Charlesbridge).

Today:
Good Morning America: James Patterson and Vicky Ward, authors of The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy (Little, Brown, $32.50, 9780316572859).

CBS Mornings: Daniel Silva, author of An Inside Job: A Novel (Harper, $32, 9780063384217).

Fresh Air: Calvin Duncan, co-author of The Jailhouse Lawyer (Penguin Press, $32, 9780593834305).

Sherri Shepherd Show repeat: Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings, author of You Deserve to Be Rich: Master the Inner Game of Wealth and Claim Your Future (Crown Currency, $30, 9780593728192).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: J. Randy Taraborrelli, author of JFK: Public, Private, Secret (St. Martin's Press, $35, 9781250346384).

Drew Barrymore Show repeat: Kate McKinnon, author of The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, $17.99, 9780316554732).

Starz has released a trailer for Outlander: Blood of My Blood, a historical romance TV series that serves as a prequel to Outlander (2014–present), the television series based on Diana Gabaldon's novels. The new project premieres August 8 and will air weekly on Fridays.

Outlander: Blood of My Blood's logline: "After 11 years of epic romance on the groundbreaking series Outlander, the timeless tale continues--or rather begins--on the eve of an earlier Jacobite rebellion... [T]he series explores the lives and relationships of two couples as they fight against all odds to be together."

The cast includes Julia Moriston (Hermione Corfield) and Henry Beauchamp (Jeremy Irvine), the parents of Outlander's Claire Randall; Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) and Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy), parents of Jamie Fraser. Also starring are Tony Curran as Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat; Séamus McLean Ross as Colum MacKenzie; Sam Retford as Dougal MacKenzie; Rory Alexander as Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser; and Conor MacNeill as Ned Gowan.  

Matthew B. Roberts is the showrunner and executive producer, with Ronald D. Moore, Maril Davis and Jim Kohlberg also serving as exec producers. Outlander: Blood of My Blood is produced by Sony Pictures Television.

Leila Aboulela won the 2025 PEN Pinter Prize, which is awarded annually to a writer residing in the U.K., the Republic of Ireland, the Commonwealth, or the former Commonwealth who, in the words of Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize in Literature speech, casts an "unflinching, unswerving" gaze upon the world and shows a "fierce intellectual determination... to define the real truth of our lives and our societies."

Aboulela will be honored October 10 during a ceremony at the British Library, where she will deliver an address. The prize is shared with a Writer of Courage, "who is active in defense of freedom of expression, often at great risk to their own safety and liberty." The co-winner, selected by Aboulela from a shortlist of international cases supported by English PEN, will be announced at the ceremony.

Judge and chair of English PEN Ruth Borthwick said: "Leila Aboulela's writing is extraordinary in its range and sensibility. From jewel-like short stories to tender novels, she tells us rarely heard stories that make us think anew about who lives in our neighborhoods and communities, and how they navigate their lives. She is not the first to write about the experience of migration, but Leila is a writer for this moment, and my hope is that with this prize her gorgeous books find new readers, and open our minds to other possibilities."

Prize judge Mona Arshi commented: "I am so delighted that Leila Aboulela is the recipient of the PEN Pinter Prize 2025. Over the past few decades, she has made a significant contribution to literature and writes with subtlety and courage in the way she storifies the interior lives of women who are often ignored or silenced in our culture. She offers us nuanced and rich perspectives on themes that are vital in our contemporary world: faith, migration, and displacement."

Judge Nadifa Mohamed added: "Leila Aboulela is an important voice in literature, and in a career spanning more than three decades her work has had a unique place in examining the interior lives of migrants who chose to settle in Britain. In novels, short stories and radio plays she has navigated the global and local, the political with the spiritual, and the nostalgia for a past home with the concurrent curiosity and desire for survival in a new one. Aboulela's work is marked by a commitment to make the lives and decisions of Muslim women central to her fiction, and to examine their struggles and pleasures with dignity. In a world seemingly on fire, and with immense suffering unmarked and little mourned in Sudan, Gaza, and beyond, her writing is a balm, a shelter, and an inspiration."

"This comes as a complete and utter surprise," Aboulela said. "Thank you English PEN and the judges for considering my work worthy of this award. I am honoured to win a prize established in memory of Harold Pinter, a great writer who continues to inspire so much loyalty and consistent high regard. For someone like me, a Muslim Sudanese immigrant who writes from a religious perspective probing the limits of secular tolerance, this recognition feels truly significant. It brings expansion and depth to the meaning of freedom of expression and whose stories get heard."

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is a novel as expansive, funny, and poignant as its title promises. With his signature wit and irreverence, Rabih Alameddine (The Angel of History; The Wrong End of the Telescope; An Unnecessary Woman) charts decades of Beiruti history and trauma through the life of his narrator, Raja, a reclusive, aging teacher of French philosophy.

The novel opens and closes in 2023, when Raja shares his apartment with his overbearing but deeply endearing mother, Zalfa. The bulk of its sections jump back in time: to the pre-civil-war 1960s, Lebanon's civil war in 1975, the banking collapse and Covid-19 epidemic, and Raja's ill-fated trip to the United States for an artists' residency in Virginia. (He should have more fully recognized how suspicious the invitation was: he had written a book 25 years earlier, but "I'm not a writer, not really. I wrote a book, that was it. It was an accident.") Writer or no, Raja is a knowing, purposeful narrator, teasing his reader with what is to come, defending his story's chronological shifts: "A tale has many tails, and many heads, particularly if it's true. Like life, it is a river with many branches, rivulets, creeks...." Self-aware and self-deprecating, Raja names himself the Gullible, the Imbecile, the Neurotic Clown, the Dimwit. His mother is "Raja the Gullible's Tormentor." "Deciphering [her] was a feat that would have surely flummoxed Hercules--my mother as the unthinkably impossible thirteenth task." They bicker constantly, foul-mouthed but fiercely loving.

In past timelines, the reader learns of Raja's troubled childhood as a gay younger son, bullied by much of his family, especially Aunt Yasmine, "the wickedest witch of the Middle East." During the civil war, in his teens, he is held captive for weeks by a schoolmate and soldier with whom he begins a sexual relationship that is part experimentation, part Stockholm syndrome. He describes his accidental path to teaching, 36 years of it; he refers to his students as his "brats," but his care for them and, even more, theirs for him will become gradually apparent. Amid terrible events, like the port explosion of 2020, Raja's mother befriends a neighborhood crime boss named Madame Taweel: "Only my mother would find a mentor at eighty-two, let alone the most inappropriate one." Bawdy, rude, and impossibly sweet, with "a laugh so delightful, so impetuous, so luminous," Raja's mother is the indomitable star of this loving, heartwrenching novel. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: An especially wry, wise, comic style distinguishes this unforgettable tale of national trauma, community, familial love, and forgiveness.

The following were the most popular book club books during June based on votes from book club readers in more than 92,000 book clubs registered at Bookmovement.com:

1. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (Doubleday)
2. James: A Novel by Percival Everett (Doubleday)
3. The Wedding People: A Novel by Alison Espach (Holt)
4. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (Riverhead)
5. All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker (Crown)
6. The Women: A Novel by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin's Press)
7. The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali (Gallery Books)
8. Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall (Simon & Schuster)
9. My Friends by Fredrik Bachman (Atria)
10. The Briar Club: A Novel by Kate Quinn (Morrow)

Rising Stars:
Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger (The Dial Press)
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi (Allen Levi)