Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Ga., will expand into an adjacent space and add a coffee shop, Decaturish reported.

The bookstore, which sells predominantly children's books with a curated selection of adult titles, will take over a space that previously housed a Starbucks and has been empty for five years. About half of the new space will contain books, while a coffee bar operated by Bellwood Coffee will fill the other half. 

The wall between the current and new space will be taken down, and there will be seating for the coffee shop both indoors and outside. Since 2014, Little Shop of stories has been using donated pennies to create flooring for the bookstore, with the pennies affixed to the concrete with a product called Liquid Nails, and that will continue in the new space.

Co-owner Diana Capriola told Decaturish that she and fellow co-owner Sunny Bowles hope the cafe helps draw in local teenagers. "That's our biggest hope I think. We also want it to be a place that parents can come during the day."

"Also outside of being a bookstore, I think we really see ourselves as a community gathering space," Bowles noted. "We very much rely on our community, and love being a part of the community as a place and a resource and a safe place."

They expect the coffee shop to be open for business in the fall.

The bookstore underwent a similar expansion about nine years ago, when it took over an adjacent space that had previously housed a gift store. "When they moved, we took down the wall, and we expanded into that space, so now, in 2025, we're expanding further into the Starbucks space," Capriola said.

Remarked Bowles: "And that's the whole building, so we can't go any further."

Mockingbird Books will host its grand opening celebration this Saturday, August 2, at 24210 Westheimer Parkway in Katy, Tex. KPRC reported that the bookshop, owned by Stephanie Pitcock and Julie Foster, is "already stealing hearts one page at a time. With its warm atmosphere, thoughtfully curated shelves, and love for all things literary, this cozy shop is more than just a bookstore--it's a little haven for readers, dreamers, and bookworms of all ages."

With a goal of providing a space for community to bond over books in an inviting atmosphere, Pitcock and Foster offer new books and a small selection of used titles. Mockingbird Books serves coffee, wine, and snacks and a variety of gift items.

"Our vision was to make it all about community, and to have them come, talk about books, meet new friends," Pitcock told KPRC.

When the new bookstore held its soft opening on July 17, the owners posted: "This started as a dream scribbled in notebooks and talked about late at night... and now, it’s real!! Mockingbird Books is finally here, and we can’t wait to welcome you into something we’ve poured our hearts into! Come see us. WE ARE OPEN! This could not have been accomplished without all the support behind the scenes: our designer who nailed it, friends & family helping with kids, friends volunteering hours at the store, friends helping with social media. You all helped this dream become a reality! The support we have received has been amazing and we want to shout from the rooftop: THANK YOU."

The virtual events for Bookstore Romance Day 2025 have been announced.

The annual celebration of the romance genre, its readers, and independent bookstores is scheduled for Saturday, August 9. The virtual events will begin on Saturday morning and continue through Sunday afternoon. 

The events are free and will be held over Zoom. The schedule includes sessions on action in romance novels; contemporary romance; humor in fantasy and paranormal romance; and queer romance, among others.

Bookstore Romance Day was founded in 2019 by bookseller Billie Bloebaum to help bring the romance community and indie bookstores together.

Virginia Brooks Manbeck, an "eclectic world traveler and librarian extraordinaire," died July 19 "while reading a book by Amor Towles," according to her obituary in the Brooklyn Eagle, which noted that she "dedicated much of her life's energy to the promotion of reading, in between traveling, travel planning and a relentless pursuit of knowledge and new experiences." She was 84. 

After graduating from Penn State in 1962, Manbeck moved to New York City, where she worked as an editorial assistant at Houghton Mifflin. She married John B. Manbeck in 1964, and for their honeymoon "they flew to Europe, bought a Peugeot in Paris and drove through nine countries in nine weeks, thus beginning a lifelong wanderlust for travel with John," the obituary noted.

Their first child, Jessica, was born in Finland while her husband was fulfilling the obligations of a Fulbright teaching grant at Helsinki University and she worked as a book editor for the Finnish publisher Tammi. After returning to Brooklyn, she gave birth to their second child, Brooks, and earned a Master's in Library Science from Pratt Institute less than a month later. She later earned an MBA from Pace University, along with multiple educational certificates from Columbia University and the University of New Mexico.

As a staff member at the Brooklyn Public Library, Manbeck headed the Bookmobile service and became branch manager at several locations. After she retired, she was offered a position at the New York Public Library's Midtown Branch. The Manbecks split their time between an apartment in Brooklyn and a house in Pennsylvania, where she became a reference librarian at Eastern Monroe Public Library in Stroudsburg.

Manbeck also co-authored the book Consumer Health Information for Public Librarians, and "especially enjoyed trips inspired by books she read," her obituary noted. On one of those excursions, she, her husband, and their dog embarked on a 47-state tour of America, where she visited libraries and addressed librarians. 

Michael Wang shared his debut picture book, Leif's Gift (Norton Young Readers), at Tula House, a plant shop in Brooklyn, N.Y. The event included a storytime reading and plant potting demonstration. Every child went home with their own plant and a copy of Wang's book about a boy's runaway green thumb.

"Apple is getting to know her new home!" Rhythm and Co. Books, Glen Rose, Tex., posted on Instagram yesterday. In the days before arrival, the bookstore chronicled Apple's journey to her new bookshop:

• "Janet is currently at the airport waiting on a delayed flight to Florida--to pick up a new pup from Dogs, Inc.! Stay tuned!!"
• "Meet Apple! She has had quite a weekend trying to adjust to the world of Humans. Right now we are at the Sarasota airport waiting on a plane that is 2 1/2 hrs behind schedule. She has been a real trooper!"
• "It was quite an adventurous day at the Sarasota airport for our little Apple! She went on quite a few walks around the airport terminal and delivered lots of JOY to lots of frustrated travelers. And even to the ticket agents who gave us so much trouble over paperwork!! She is now safely home in Texas and looking forward to becoming a bookstore"

Cinthia Andrade recently joined Macmillan as manager, social media content, central marketing.

The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping by Joseph Torigian (Stanford University Press).

Today:
Fresh Air: Peter Guralnick, author of The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership That Rocked the World (Little, Brown, $38, 9780316399449).

Tomorrow:
CBS Mornings: Neha Ruch, author of The Power Pause: How to Plan a Career Break After Kids--and Come Back Stronger Than Ever (Putnam, $30, 9780593716182).

Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this weekend from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.

Saturday, August 2
2 p.m. Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh, co-author of A Savage War: A Military History of the Civil War (Princeton University Press, $19.95, 9780691181097).

Sunday, August 3
8 a.m. Phil Gramm and Donald J. Boudreaux, authors of The Triumph of Economic Freedom: Debunking the Seven Great Myths of American Capitalism (Rowman & Littlefield, $29.95, 9798881808365). (Re-airs Sunday at 8 p.m.)

9 a.m. Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf, authors of 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America (Penguin Press, $32, 9780593832530). (Re-airs Sunday at 9 p.m.)

1:40 p.m. Carl Zimmer, author of Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe (Dutton, $32, 9780593473597).

4:35 p.m. Karida L. Brown, author of The Battle for the Black Mind (Legacy Lit, $30, 9781538768433), at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass.

6:40 p.m. Christopher Scalia, author of 13 Novels Conservatives Will Love (but Probably Haven't Read) (Regnery, $32.99, 9781510782396).

Karl Schlögel, a German historian and essayist who has specialized in Eastern Europe, has won the 2025 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. He will speak and be presented with the €25,000 (about $28,800) prize on October 19 in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt during the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Karin Schmidt-Friderichs, president of the Börsenverein and chairwoman of the board of trustees of the Peace Prize, said, "In his distinguished body of work, German historian and essayist Karl Schlögel combines empirical historiography with personal experience. As a scholar and flâneur, an archaeologist of modernity and a seismograph of social change, he explored the cities and landscapes of Central and Eastern Europe long before the fall of the Iron Curtain. Through his writing, Schlögel placed the cities of Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv and Kharkiv on the mental map of his readers. He also repeatedly characterised Saint Petersburg and Moscow as European cities. His unique narrative style combines observation, insight and feeling, a blend that allows him to effectively challenge existing prejudices while also awakening our curiosity. After Russia's annexation of Crimea, Schlögel sharpened his focus on Ukraine, inviting us to join him in reflecting on Germany's own blind spots regarding the region. His was one of the first voices to warn of Vladimir Putin's aggressive expansionist policies and authoritarian-nationalist claims to power. Today, Schlögel continues to affirm Ukraine's place in Europe, calling for its defence as essential to our shared future. His enduring message is both clear and urgent: Without a free Ukraine, there can be no peace in Europe."

Schlögel's works include Terror und Traum: Moskau 1937 (Terror and Dream: Moscow 1937), Das Sowjetische Jahrhundert: Archäologie einer Untergegangenen Welt (The Soviet Century: Archaeology of a Vanished World), Der Duft der Imperien: Chanel No 5 und Rotes Moskau (The Scent of Empires: Chanel No. 5 and Red Moscow), and Moskau Lesen (Reading Moscow). His most recent book, American Matrix, published in 2023, is an examination of the affinities and differences between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Selected new titles appearing next Tuesday, August 5:

The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine (Sourcebooks Landmark, $27.99, 9781728276915) is a thriller about a famous chef who may have killed her husband and the author hired to write her memoir.

A Dog in Georgia: A Novel by Lauren Grodstein (Algonquin Books, $29, 9781643752358) follows a woman searching for a missing dog in the Republic of Georgia.

Sugar Shack by Lucy Knisley (Random House Graphic, $13.99 paperback, 9781984896902) is the final book in the middle-grade graphic novel series about a blended family living and working on Peapod Farm.

Haunted USA by Heather Alexander, illus. by Sam Kalda (Wide Eyed Editions, $24.99 hardcover, 9780711297364) is a middle-grade compendium of spine-tingling stories from all 50 states.

Parallel Lives: A Love Story from a Lost Continent by Iain Pears (W.W. Norton, $29.99, 9781324073772) chronicles a Cold War-era romance between a Russian art curator and British art historian.

The Man No One Believed: The Untold Story of the Georgia Church Murders by Joshua Sharpe (W.W. Norton, $29.99, 9781324020714) investigates a 1985 double murder for which an innocent man spent 20 years in prison.

We Should All Be Birds: A Memoir by Brian Buckbee and Carol Ann Fitzgerald (Tin House Books, $28.99, 9781963108293) is the memoir of a chronically ill man who rescued a baby pigeon.

Confident by Choice: The Three Small Decisions That Build Everyday Courage by Juan Bendaña (Ballantine Books, $29, 9780593725610), in which the confidence coach shares the principles of the Confidence Cycle.

Paperbacks:
Accomplice to the Villain (Assistant and the Villain Book 3) by Hannah Nicole Maehrer (Entangled: Red Tower Books, $19.99, 9781649378545).

Life Is Fighting by Kevin Robert Kesar (ECW Press, $22.95, 9781770418493).

Creating a Modern Homestead: Traditional Skills for Real, Everyday Life by Victoria Pruett (Lyons Press, $27.95, 9781493090495).

From last week's Indie bestseller lists, available at IndieBound.org, here are the recommended titles, which are also Indie Next Great Reads:

Hardcover
The Satisfaction Café: A Novel by Kathy Wang (Scribner, $28.99, 9781668068922). "For fans of Jonathan Franzen, Kathy Wang delivers a stellar debut. Her keen observations on everyday life are on full display with Joan Liang and her unexpected life journey where she must seek the satisfaction that lies within." --Susan McBeth, Adventures by the Book, San Diego, Calif.

Finding Grace: A Novel by Loretta Rothschild (St. Martin's Press, $29, 9781250381828). "I have never gasped as loudly as I have at the conclusion of Finding Grace's first chapter. At that point, I was all in. Rothschild's elegant prose and sense of place and time root the reader in this incredibly vivid story of love, loss, and the history that we are willing to rewrite." --Megan Birch-McMichael, The Silver Unicorn Bookstore, Acton, Mass.

Paperback
In the Veins of the Drowning (The Siren Mage #1) by Kalie Cassidy (Little, Brown, $19.99, 9780316587600). "Rich atmospheric writing and a fresh take on siren lore make this the perfect dark romantasy to pick up this summer. I loved the strength of the main character and the blooming feminine rage as the story progressed." --Brooke Williams, Beanbag Books, Delaware, Ohio

Ages 4-8
There's Something Odd About the Babysitter by Elayne Crain, illus. by John Ledda (Feiwel & Friends, $18.99, 9781250345141). "An adorable and clever book. This is sure to be a story time favorite. Kids and their grownups will both get a kick out of seeing what happens when raccoons decide to go into the childcare business." --Lea Bickerton, The Tiny Bookstore, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Ages 8-12: An Indies Introduce Title
An Encantadora's Guide to Monstros and Magic by Sarah J. Mendonca (Quill Tree Books, $19.99, 9781335012883). "A magical story about digging for the truth and rooting out corruption while learning how to be vulnerable and trust in your friends. Found family, a magical heist, and extensive worldbuilding make this one of my favorite middle grade fantasies of recent years." --Lauren Pronger, Chapterhouse Books, Amarillo, Tex.

Ages 14+: An Indies Introduce Title
Arcana: The Lost Heirs by Sam Prentice-Jones (Feiwel & Friends, $19.99, 9781250290229). "Magical, mysterious, and queer--some of my favorite words all in one place! Arcana: The Lost Heirs, with its beautiful and fluid illustrations, is full of cryptic clues, secret histories, and found family." --Heather Albinson, Wild Rumpus, Minneapolis, Minn.

[Many thanks to IndieBound and the ABA!]

Readers who have ever straddled multiple countries and/or cultures, readers who have endured and adjusted to peripatetic relocations, will find deep, aching resonance with Jinwoo Park's enthralling debut, Oxford Soju Club. Park, a Korean Canadian with a University of Oxford graduate degree who lives in Montreal, spotlights diaspora, heritage, family, self-knowledge--all commingled into a lightning-paced spy thriller with substantial body count.

Park's cast converges in Oxford, England, each sharing ethnic Korean heritage. That the main players are all initially introduced with descriptions rather than names suggests identities are mutable, especially amid political and historical (dis)loyalties. The Northerners are two: legendary North Korean spymaster Doha Kim and his protégé Yohan Kim--the former is also an Oxford professor while the latter is locally known as Junichi Nakamura, a French-born Oxford student from Nantes. The Southerner is Jihoon Lim, an immigrant from Seoul, now the proprietor of Soju Club, Oxford's only Korean restaurant with a single hard-working employee, Deoksu, who can make "perfect" kimchi almost as well as Jihoon's late mother. The American is Yunah Choi, born on Long Island, N.Y., to Korean immigrant, bagel store-owning parents; she's a CIA agent assigned to break up a North Korean cell, but in Oxford, she's South Korean med school dropout Seonhye Park, now bartending at a local pub.

Park immediately commands attention with a bloody opening: Doha's white shirt is soaked crimson with a fatal knife wound. Yohan's frantic attempts to save him are met with "Don't bother... I don't have long. So listen carefully now." Doha's cryptic final instructions are "Soju Club, Dr. Ryu"; his last entreaty is "Love. Yohan-a. Live." But Yohan can't go on without uncovering what happened, and why--his need to know provokes fatal crossed paths with shocking, wrenching consequences.

"Each character represents the different masks I have worn as a Korean immigrant--the one who tries to assimilate, the one who tries to be the model minority, and the one who rejects all of the above and tries to be Korean," Park writes in an opening note. "None of them turned out to be the path to finding my true self, so I wrote this book to seek the answer." Park moves fluidly, effortlessly between Oxford in the present and all the various pasts that had to happen to produce this intricate, lethal convergence. He expertly connects and comforts, severs and shocks, all the while navigating revelatory twists and turns. Pair with Alice Stephens's Famous Adopted People for an immersive diversion. --Terry Hong

Shelf Talker: Canadian Korean Jinwoo Park's debut novel, Oxford Soju Club, is an extraordinarily multilayered examination of identity and loyalty, deftly presented as an addicting spy thriller.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Currently on display at the Logan Gallery in San Francisco's Legion of Honor museum is "Ferlinghetti for San Francisco," exploring the artistic practice of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet, activist, publisher, and co-founder of City Lights. During a recent preview visit, Alta Journal was guided by Natalia Lauricella, curator of prints and drawings for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco's Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, and Paul Yamazaki, City Lights' longtime book buyer and Ferlinghetti's colleague for more than 50 years.

Paul Yamazaki

When asked what Ferlinghetti was like to work with for so many years, Yamazaki replied, "I don't know if Lawrence would agree with this, but I always thought of him as being a very shy person. As somebody who worked with him, he was incredibly--the word that I used is trust. Once he knew that we were all working in the same direction, he let us do our jobs. I think you see all these things tied together in his visual work."

I love that, and I realized that lately I've been collecting some insightful quotations (a micro Bartlett's) from booksellers that might be worth sharing. For example, Books+Publishing asked Gavin Williams, co-owner of Matilda Bookshop in Stirling, Australia, what advice he would give to anyone thinking about bookselling as a profession. "The best way to become a successful bookseller is to cancel your streaming subscriptions and just read, then keep on reading some more," he said, "To own a bookshop is to do the above and add in a whole lot of heavy box lugging! Make your lovely staff excellent coffees each and every day and find them jobs that they enjoy and that will inspire them."

Karam Youssef, owner of publishing house and bookstore Al Kotob Khan in Cairo, Egypt, told OkayAfrica: "It's an insane moment and a very depressing time in the world, which of course reflects on my work. Sometimes I ask myself, 'What can a book do while there's a genocide on our borders? What book of poetry should I publish while they're attacking a Christian teacher because she was doing her job, preventing students from cheating in exams?' But I tell myself that I have to continue. One book cannot change the world; however, the accumulation of books and reading, alongside good education and quality journalism, can influence the way parents raise their children. If those books are not well-read at the moment, there will be some people who will read them in 10 years or 20 years."

Emma Whitehall, a children's bookseller at British bookshop the bound in Whitley Bay, wrote in the Bookseller: "I'm finding that intimidation is a huge factor that turns children off from reading.... Both independent readers and those still reading with an adult are looking for shorter fare that could potentially be read in a sitting or two. It would be easy to pin the blame for this on social media and those ever-waning attention span statistics, but I would argue that it's also the result of a lack of confidence. Kids get a kick out of finishing books; they lose faith in themselves if they have to slog through chapter after chapter to get to the exciting bits. Publishing needs to focus on shorter, self-contained stories that give the dopamine hit of completion sooner rather than later."

Michael Robb, author of Shelf Life: A Journey Through the Past, Present & Future of Bookselling and Publishing in Britain (the History Press, August 5), spoke with Great British Life about his experiences at Robbs Bookshop in Chelmsford, which he ran with his father during the 1980s and '90s, as well as his hope for bookselling's future: "Bookshops are unique. They provide access to adventure and ideas, transport us away from daily life and help us transform. It's no wonder booklovers value their local bookshops dearly and hold a high regard for the vital role they play. In today's increasingly online and digital world, more individuals recognize the importance of the warmth, personality and social interaction bookshops can provide."

The Canadian Independent Booksellers Association asked Anthony Randall and Robyn York, proprietors of Beach Reads Bookshop, Port Dover, Ont., what they love most about being independent booksellers. "We love connecting with people in our community and offering a local hub for readers of all ages and interests. We know so many of our customers on a first name basis and have formed some lasting friendships since opening the shop.... Port Dover is a friendly town, and it's lovely to have spontaneous conversations with people we know while bringing our A-frame sign out to Main Street and shopping in other businesses in town. To quote the author Kurt Vonnegut, 'if this isn't nice, what is?' "

Nadia Wassef

During the RISE Booksellers Conference last spring, Nadia Wassef, author of Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller (Picador), delivered a keynote that concluded with her recalling "it wasn't until last month that I gave my first talk about my book in Cairo. Standing inside the walls of Diwan in Zamalek, where it all started 23 years ago, I found it difficult to call myself a writer. I still felt, at my core, like a bookseller. But then, I thought of The Arabian Nights--and its most compelling figure, Scheherazade. Every bookseller is a Scheherazade of sorts, sustaining not only themselves but their entire community and cohort through the power of storytelling. With each recommendation, each conversation, and each reinvention, we prolong the life of bookselling--for one more day, for one more story."