Paper & Vine Book Bar has opened in Midland, Tex., in Ally Village Square at 200 Spring Park Drive. The Reporter-Telegram reported that the business, formerly known as Main Squeeze Midland romance bookstore, relocated from the Micro Market downtown and is relaunching "with a new twist, offering wine, beer and dirty sodas for its customers to enjoy."

Co-owners Amanda Wilson, her sister, Megan Dixon, and their mother, Terri Matthews, hosted a grand opening celebration on August 9. "It's a real family affair," Wilson said. "We created the space because we love reading and we love the community. We wanted a place where everyone could come and kind of feel that community and bond over something we all enjoy."

Paper & Vine Book Bar was renamed "to reflect both the wider reading selection and the wine aspect of the store," the Reporter-Telegram noted. The bookstore, which previously focused on the contemporary romance genre, is expanding its book selections to include a larger mystery and thriller section, as well as memoirs, children's books, cookbooks, self-development, and more.
 
"We wanted to expand our titles a little bit as well as expand our services," Wilson said. "We were in such a small space that was amazing for starting out, and we're extremely grateful for the opportunity we had at the Micro Market. It truly showed us that we wanted to continue to do it."

The book bar will continue to host a Book of the Month club, featuring contemporary romance reads, while adding new book clubs for other genres like thrillers and fantasy. Also new is the Bottle & Book subscription service, through which subscribers receive a wine bottle paired with a book. The store also sells stationery and other book-related merchandise.

Wilson said they are open to customer feedback and ideas: "We want to welcome everyone in. We don't want it to be a place that's exclusive; we want people of all different backgrounds and communities to feel welcomed here. We are all readers, and we just want to create a welcoming community."

Dragonfly Bookshop will open in Hilliard, Ohio, this fall, WCMH reported.

The bookstore will reside at 4055 Main St., Suite 300, within the Shoppes by Westwood retail development, and will sell new books for all ages with an emphasis on fiction.

"The support from the community before even opening has been a bit mind-blowing," said co-owner Christina Johnson, who is opening the bookstore with her mother, Kim Johnson. "We're both bookworms, and we hope to find our kind of people during this new chapter."

Prior to launching Dragonfly, Christina Johnson worked for a local business while also selling handmade jewelry online and at events. Kim Johnson was a middle school French teacher for 28 years.

The Johnsons are aiming for an October opening.

Barnes & Noble will open a new store in Napa, Calif., this fall, the Napa Valley Register reported. The new location, at 3900 Bel Aire Plaza, Suite A, has a planned opening date of November 5. 

Napa is home to a number of bookstores already, and Naomi Chamblin, owner of Napa Bookmine, told the Register she believes locals will continue to support small businesses and that she plans to throw a customer appreciation party on November 5. 

Paul Jaffe, co-owner of Copperfield's Books, which has a Napa store, wondered of B&N: "Are they even looking at the fact that there's three other bookstores in Napa?"

Sallie Bingham, the author, playwright, philanthropist, feminist, and political activist "whose feud with her brother helped topple the Kentucky publishing and media dynasty into which she was born," died August 6, the New York Times reported. She was 88. 

In 1918, her paternal grandfather, Robert Worth Bingham, bought the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times. The newspapers, run next by her father, Barry Bingham Sr., "flourished in the decades that followed. They won Pulitzer Prizes and became known for their liberal political positions. But by the 1980s, the newspaper industry was in financial trouble," the Times wrote.

Sallie Bingham had been living in New York City since graduating from Radcliffe College in 1958. She published a novel, After Such Knowledge (1960), and many short stories, but in 1977 she returned to Louisville, hoping to advance her career as a playwright and improve family relations. Her brother, Barry Bingham Jr., was by then running the newspapers, and she attended board meetings for a few years before joining the Courier-Journal's staff as book page editor in 1981. 

"She soon began questioning the paper's treatment of its employees, particularly women and members of minority groups, and publicly joined a political committee, violating the company's ethics rules," the Times wrote. Forced off the companies' boards in 1983 by her brother, she eventually put her shares up for sale to the general public, a move that ultimately led to the sale of the entire family business. 

Her book Passion and Prejudice: A Family Memoir (1989) condemned the Bingham family, and the system in which it operated, as immoral, misogynist, and racist. Afterwards, Bingham returned to writing novels, including Small Victories (1992), Matron of Honor (1996), and Taken by the Shawnee (2024).

In 2024, she told the Santa Fe., N.M., arts magazine Pasatiempo she would concentrate on historical fiction, noting: "After 30 years as a writer, I've done all I can do in fiction. I'm kind of tired of my own point of view." Two of her last books were nonfiction: The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke (2020) and the memoir Little Brother (2022), about her brother Jonathan, who died in 1964 at the age of 21 after being accidentally electrocuted.

In addition to several plays, her other books include the memoir The Blue Box: Three Lives in Letters (2014); the story collections Transgressions (2002), Red Car (2008), Mending: New and Selected Stories (2011), and How Daddy Lost His Ear: And Other Stories (2025); as well as poetry collections The Hub of the Miracle (2006) and If in Darkness (2010).

Keith L. Runyon, a former editorial page editor and book editor at the Courier Journal from 1969 to 2012, told the Kentucky Lantern: "Sallie was one of the most gifted writers, discerning critics and disarming colleagues I've known in almost 60 years in journalism. I didn't always agree with her judgments, but they always were provocative. Under her direction, the book page was truly one of the best regional ones in the country."

After the 1986 sale of the Louisville newspapers to Gannett, Bingham used some of her proceeds to establish the Kentucky Foundation for Women, a nonprofit to support women artists and writers. She served as the foundation's first director from 1985 until 1991, when she moved to New Mexico.

On her blog, Bingham cited her time at the newspaper as inspiration to create the foundation: "I was aware from my years as book editor at the Courier-Journal of the amount of work that women did at the Bingham companies; almost entirely in lower-paid jobs such as distributing mail, cooking and serving in the company cafeteria, working as secretaries or cleaning. These women were about to lose their jobs with the sale of the company."

The foundation released a statement last week praising Bingham's efforts to support women artists and effect social change: "Our sincere condolences go to Sallie's many friends and family.... As we celebrate KFW's 40th anniversary, we will honor the life and work of our founder at our annual event in September 2025. Sallie's impact on Kentucky and the arts will be felt for many generations to come."

For a special issue later this month about Halloween books and retailing, Shelf Awareness is seeking information from booksellers about Halloween trends, how you merchandise for and promote Halloween, big Halloween titles, and more. Please send information to news@shelf-awareness.com. Thank you!

Today co-host Jenna Bush Hager has chosen My Other Heart by Emma Nanami Strenner (Pamela Dorman Books) as her August Read with Jenna book club pick. My Other Heart "starts in the Philadelphia airport, where Mimi, a young mother, is waiting to return home to Vietnam with her 1-year-old daughter.

"After looking away for a few moments, Mimi looks back to see her daughter has vanished, and starts to panic. Unable to come up with the words to explain what happened in English, she winds up back in Vietnam, where she spends her life searching for her long lost daughter.

"Seventeen years later, two best friends Kit and Sabrina are spending their last summer before college together searching for who they are and their family histories--all while Mimi gets a lead in her search that brings her back to Philadelphia."

"I love this book so much. It's the story of mothers, daughters, friendship. It's full of heart and full of twists. I could not put it down," Jenna said. "It's a deeply moving book about motherhood, identity and the invisible threads that connect us."

---

Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson (‎‎‎Bantam) is the GMA Book Club pick for August. Good Morning America described the book as: "At 27, Jet has never been able to finish anything. She's dropped out of school, abandoned a promising career and ended countless relationships. But she's about to leave it all behind for a fresh start until, just as she walks in her front door, someone attacks her from behind, fracturing her skull and leaving her for dead.

"Thirty-six hours later, Jet wakes up in the hospital to devastating news. The attack has caused a bone fragment to press against her brain, and an aneurysm is forming that will soon rupture, leading to certain death. With her last remaining week, she's going to find out who murdered her."

At Sourcebooks:

Stephanie Pando has joined the company as publicist.

Jaelyn Sutton has joined the company as publicity assistant for Sourcebooks Casablanca & Bloom Books.

Ra! Ta! Ma! Cue! by Howie Shia (Annick Press).

Tomorrow:
Morning Joe: Randall Balmer, author of America's Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State (Steerforth Press, $13.95, 9781586424145).

CBS Mornings: Scott "Kid Cudi" Mescudi, author of Cudi: The Memoir (Simon & Schuster, $30, 9781668201336).

Today: Emma Nanami Strenner, author of My Other Heart: A Novel (Pamela Dorman Books, $30, 9780593831014).

Bedlam will present an off-Broadway production of Emily Breeze's Are the Bennet Girls OK?, adapted from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Playbill reported that previews begin September 14 at the West End Theatre, with opening night set for October 5. Casting and additional creative team members will be revealed at a later date. The production is staged by Bedlam artistic director Eric Tucker.

According to press notes, Breeze "frees Pride and Prejudice from bodiced language and mannerisms. She focuses the narrative on the depth, closeness, silliness, dissonance, pettiness--and fierce protectiveness--of the relationships between the Bennet women."

Breeze said, "I love writing adaptations--the idea excites and animates me--but I have been told nobody would know a play of mine was an adaptation unless I revealed what the source text was. To me, the reason to adapt is to solve a question about something that's been troubling me, especially when its characters feel very real and recognizable and true. For Pride and Prejudice, that question was always: why do we, in repeating this story, feel so comfortable consigning this woman we love and relate to, to someone who's been mean to her for a majority of the story? Why would she say yes to this fate? The only answer I could think of for myself was I would only do that for the sake of my sisters--who are the most important people in my life. Reexamining the narrative with that in mind became the motivation behind this adaptation."

Barnes & Noble revealed the winners of its Children's and YA Book Awards last week, with The Bakery Dragon, written and illustrated by Devin Elle Kurtz, crowned both overall winner and best in the picture book category. Vanya and the Wild Hunt by Sangu Mandanna won the young reader category and Don't Let the Forest In by CG Drews was named best young adult title.

"With so many excellent new children’s books published each year, narrowing down this list always ignites passionate debate among our booksellers," said James Daunt, CEO of Barnes & Noble. "This year, Barnes & Noble booksellers across the country have cast their votes and these three exceptional works came out as the clear winners. We look forward to elevating these terrific authors and expanding nationwide the young audiences entertained and inspired by their books. The Bakery Dragon, a delightful story brought to life by the author's luminous illustrations, belongs on every young child's bookshelf."

The winners in each category were selected from a shortlist of 18 new titles proposed by Barnes & Noble booksellers who specialize in children's literature. Titles are eligible if they are one of the author's early works.

With Sister Creatures, Laura Venita Green invites her reader to navigate a shape-shifting world, beginning in rural Louisiana and ranging overseas and into starscapes and imagination. Rotating among a small group of girls and women, this imaginative narrative muddies the line between the novel's real world and a fictional one within it. The result is dreamy, often disturbing, and hauntingly unforgettable.

In the opening scene, Tess uses her isolated job as a live-in nanny to hide away from the life she feels has already cratered, at age 20, with her heavy drinking. A neighboring teenager, Gail, makes a disquieting appearance: she is clearly not well, perhaps in danger, but rejects Tess's half-hearted offer to help. The older girl "hat[es] how relieved she felt not to have to deal with anything." Gail's plight becomes a legend to the other characters until she makes a reappearance as an adult at the novel's end. Meanwhile, Tess grows up and has a daughter of her own, lives around the world as part of a military family, but struggles to escape the problems she hid from in Pinecreek, La. Her former best friend, Lainey, leaves Louisiana as well, resulting in permanent banishment at the hands of a troubled younger sister. Another young woman, Olivia, wrestles with the local options, characterized as "Jesus and booze," and with a sexuality not likely to be tolerated there. And then there is a recurring character whose entire reality seems in question. While they all choose to leave Pinecreek, the struggles that originate in their shared hometown follow these characters to Munich, Baltimore, New York City, and beyond.

In their parallel comings-of-age, and across generations, Green's characters thread their paths between love and spite, affection and abuse. Their loose connections and jumps in chronology reward close attention, contributing to a slightly off-balance reader experience that is very much a part of the novel's atmosphere. Sister Creatures blurs the concepts of reality and of right and wrong. Are the woods--of Louisiana, Maryland, or Bavaria--sanctuary or threat? Who is real and who is made up? Green's narrative offers a strong literary bent, as characters interact with "The Yellow Wallpaper," old fairy tales, misogyny, motherhood, and their own creative pursuits. They hurt each other, but they help each other, too; this is a novel ruled by nuance and surreality as well as the all-too-real.

Sister Creatures is often unsettling, but pairs moments of great sweetness alongside discomfiting ones. This novel remains thought-provoking long after its final pages. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: From rural Louisiana to locations around the globe, the same problems and secrets follow a quartet of girls-become-women in this arresting, unnerving, and wise debut novel.

The bestselling self-published books last week as compiled by IndieReader.com:

1. The Deal by Elle Kennedy
2. Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
3. Insatiable by Leigh Rivers
4. Watch Your Back by Tate James
5. Binding 13 by Chloe Walsh
6. Don't Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen
7. Little Liar by Leigh Rivers
8. Hunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
9. Little Stranger by Leigh Rivers
10. The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk by Carissa Broadbent

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]