Shannon Ramsey and Nat Herold, longtime co-owners of Amherst Books at 8 Main St. in Amherst, Mass., have put their store up for sale. The Daily Hampshire Gazette reported that the owners "are seeking to sell the inventory and the Amherst Books name, bringing the latest era in bookselling to a close."

"We're hoping to sell to someone who envisions being able to continue the foundation that has been laid," Ramsey said. "We feel pretty passionately that there should be a bookstore in business in Amherst."

A post on the shop's Instagram page noted: "Hi friends! You may have heard that the store is for sale. We want you to know we're still here and have no plans on closing! As Nat & Shannon move onto retirement and a new career path, respectively, the best case scenario is that we find a great buyer who will keep our store running as is. We'll keep you updated, but we're not going anywhere at the moment."

While there has been a major shift in the commercial district, the increase in apartments in Amherst center and more people living downtown has benefited the business, Ramsey said. "We're seeing an increase in customers, folks who are excited to see we still exist. To be a retail shop in downtown Amherst now is a rare thing."

Herold has sold books in town since 1981, running Goliard Books on North Pleasant Street from 1983 to 1990. He has been at the 8 Main St. location since 1998, first managing the Atticus Bookshop and then, in 2003, along with about a dozen investors, taking over the store with co-founder Mark Wootten and renaming it Amherst Books.

Ramsey was hired to work in Amherst Books' textbook section in 2008 and was a part-time bookseller, leaving for a few years and then returning to work and apprenticing with Wootten until he retired to Maine in 2017. "I've enjoyed it so much and there are always new challenges to rise to," she said.

Business Improvement District executive director John Page noted that Amherst Books holds a special place downtown: "We are deeply grateful to Nat and Mark, and later Shannon, for more than two decades of devoted stewardship at Amherst Books. Operating an independent bookstore is both joyful and demanding work, and they have carried that responsibility with passion.... We are confident that new ownership will find both a loyal customer base and a community that understands how essential a local bookstore is to the vitality of our economic ecosystem."

In a notice on the New England Independent Booksellers Association's website, the owners called Amherst Books "a profitable business with significant areas for growth, including introducing online sales, building a more robust internet presence, and continuing to build up the non-book inventory. Our small but mighty team of four is a key asset and we would strongly suggest you retain them. Nat is also willing to stay on during an ownership transition. We rent our location.

"We are hoping to sell in 2026--serious inquiries only, please! Starting price is $400,000 for inventory and business; we're ready to negotiate. Reach out by email to shannon@amherstbooks.com."

Danielle and Ruth Myers-Porter

Get Lit Books & Things has relocated to a new space in Moreno Valley, Calif., the Pasadena Star-News reported. The new and used bookstore, which focuses on women, people of color, and LGBTQ authors, now resides at 12124 Day St. #E303, in the Canyon Springs Plaza shopping center. 

Co-owners and married couple Danielle and Ruth Myers-Porter held a grand reopening celebration in the new space on Saturday, March 14, that included raffles, prizes, and discounts. The shop's original location was in the Moreno Valley Mall, where it remained for about a year.

They told the Star-News they were excited about the store's new home, and Danielle Myers-Porter noted that the shopping center has ample parking and customers can "drive right up to the door." The new location is larger, allowing them to host events, workshops, and classes while keeping the store open for browsing. "Now we're able to do both comfortably," Ruth Myers-Porter said.

The couple married in July 2021, and only seven months later Danielle Myers-Porter was diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer. Following a year of treatment, she was cancer-free and rethinking her career priorities. Owning an independent bookstore had always been a dream.

Ruth Myers-Porter recalled: "Danielle was like, 'I did not survive cancer to work someone else's dream.' And that was it for us."

After nearly 28 years, Susie Fruncillo, co-owner of Lake Country Booksellers, White Bear Lake, Minn., is retiring and stepping down from her role at the 45-year-old bookstore. White Bear Press reported that the shop, which "was founded by a group of women known as the 'founding mothers,' will remain in the family; Kia (Johnson) White, granddaughter of one of the original founders, Alta Johnson, is now a co-owner."

Fruncillo, who bought into the ownership partnership in 1998, recalled that she would often walk her dog along the bike path and downtown and ran into one of the owners of the bookstore, Susie Hudson. "We used to chat once in a while, and she said, 'Well, did you know that I'm selling my part of the bookstore?' I didn't hear another thing she said. I thought, this is what I want to do." 

As a co-owner, Fruncillo spent three days a week working at HealthPartners, three days at the bookstore, and one day caring for her grandchildren, White Bear Press wrote. Her sister, Roberta "Bert" Kiemiele, was also a co-owner of the store for 25 years.

Noting that at 80 years old, she is ready to turn the next page, Fruncillo said her best memories involve the interactions with customers: "They were so supportive.... We have wonderful customers and great support in the community. That's what I loved the most, and that's what I will miss." 

Selling the store was a hard decision to make, she continued. "We were thinking about just selling the business and everybody was sad. And then, all of a sudden this idea came up... well, maybe Kia could run it. I felt just perfectly wonderful leaving it in Kia's hands."

White has childhood memories of the store and worked there when she was in high school. Her mother, Nancy Thysell, and her aunt, Faith Basten, remain co-owners. White worked at the store on and off until her family relocated for a career with the National Park Service. A couple of years ago, she decided to move back to Minnesota. 

"It was a very cool career, but when we moved back, I was thinking 'What's next?' and it all magically lined up. I just felt like something was telling me to do this," she said. "I feel very lucky to have had that career where I got to do something I was very passionate about. And then the same with this... I'm just really grateful to get to do something that I love so much." 

She has some ideas and hopes to add more events, but does not plan major changes: "I have like a lot of emotional nostalgia about this place, so we are not changing everything all at once. I think that's why people love coming here too, is because it's a very cozy place." 

Paul R. Ehrlich, "an eminent ecologist and population scientist whose bestselling book, The Population Bomb, was celebrated as a prescient warning of a coming age of food shortages and famine but later criticized by conservatives and academic rivals for what they called its sky-is-falling rhetoric," died March 13, the New York Times reported. He was 93. The book, published in 1968, "turned Ehrlich into one of the global environmental movement's most recognized leaders."

Paul R. Ehrlich

As a young professor of biology at Stanford University, he gave lectures on evolution, focusing on stresses placed on plants and animals by industrial pollution and rapid population growth. A distillation of those lectures appeared in the December 1967 issue of New Scientist magazine.

Six months later, having been encouraged by Sierra Club executive director David Brower to write a book on the subject, Ehrlich published The Population Bomb. "In 233 pages, he asserted that the planet's condition began to deteriorate rapidly in the 1950s, when the rate of population growth exceeded the increase in food production--or, as he put it, when 'the stork passed the plow.' He called on couples to limit their families to one or two children," the Times wrote.

His book sold three million copies and Ehrlich became one of the environmental movement's most recognized leaders. His popularity increased with appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, where he was a guest about 20 times.

Ehrlich's The End of Affluence (1974) forecast a "nutritional disaster" in the 1970s, predicting that "before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity." He co-authored the book with his wife, Anne H. Ehrlich, who wrote or edited 15 books with him. 

His rivals questioned the validity of his claims. In 1980, Julian Simon, an economist at the University of Maryland, challenged Ehrlich and two of his colleagues with what Stewart Brand, a founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, called "one of the great revelatory bets." Ehrlich accepted Simon's challenge, betting that the prices of five key metals would rise in the 1980s. Simon believed that innovation would drive prices down. The Times noted that Ehrlich ultimately conceded defeat, and the "disclosure of the bet came amid a national backlash to American environmentalism in the early 1990s, led by free-market conservatives and industrial executives who questioned the movement's scientific data." The Ehrlichs responded in 1996 with their book Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Ehrlich was a founder of Zero Population Growth (now known as Population Connection) in 1968, and Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology in 1984. He was the author, co-author or editor of 50 books and hundreds of scientific articles. His honors include a MacArthur prize in 1990.

Responding to critics who later pointed out that some of his predictions hadn't come to pass, Ehrlich repeated his fundamental convictions, telling the Guardian in 2018 that an unsustainable focus on "perpetual growth"--leading to climate change and loss of biodiversity--meant that the collapse of civilization was "a near certainty in the next few decades." And in 2015, he told the Times his analysis in the 1960s had actually been somewhat conservative, adding: "My language would be even more apocalyptic today."

Nick Petrie (front row, third from right) celebrated the release of his new thriller, The Dark Time (Putnam), at Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee, Wis., last week.

"Something VERY special happened at the shop today: a wedding!!!" Alibi Bookshop in Vallejo, Calif., posted on Instagram. "Longtime customers/friends Richard and Wayne celebrated their vows this afternoon--the first nuptials we've had here! And since they're also local authors and Richard leads our LGBTQ Book Club, it was the perfect setting, surrounded by books and friends and family who love them. Mazel tov and cheers to many happy years!"

Here is the March edition of The Poetry Shelf, our suggested poetry assortment, compiled by Michelle Halket of Central Avenue Publishing.

Lately--I guess since the popularity of this project has grown--I have had requests from presses and authors asking me to put their books on this list. I have had to gently explain that this list is made with the bestseller list in mind and then with a very small amount of curation that is purely research driven. Many of the books end up on this list, not because I know them, but because they seem to bubble to the top in my research. Please know that I won't put books on just because they were pitched to me (as good as they might look). Also, I need you to know that I'm not an expert. I don't have an MFA or editorial background when it comes to poetry. I'm only researching as best I can via web searches, awards, and bestseller lists in hopes that it saves you having to do it.

As always, there are new titles on the bestseller list, including:

They Bloom Because of You by Jessica Urlichs
You're Going to Be OK by Darby Hudson
The Witch Doesn't Drown in This One by Amanda Lovelace 

This month, I struggled on a theme for April given it is Poetry Month. So, I landed on featuring independent presses that do poetry well--or as best I can tell, they do. The featured presses I called out for this month do not have books that appeared on the most recent bestseller list, although there are some great indie presses like Andrews McMeel, Button, Milkweed, Sundress, and Wave who do have bestsellers. This list is by no means exhaustive, and I'm sure some of you might disagree with me on who should be on here. I'm only trying to provide a jumping off point for a busy bookseller to get their shelf refreshed--because no one likes a stale shelf! The books I selected are the ones each press was featuring on their home page so I figured these were the ones to watch, but I strongly suggest reviewing their catalogs to see what gems lie within!

Like books themselves, there are presses that specialize in different parts of the poetry ecosystem, including academic/literary, reader driven, and experimental. I've tried to pull out examples of presses that fit into each segment. I also hope you'll seek out your local or university presses that have some poetry to feature as well as some of the larger, more famous ones since they all do the good work of publishing great poetry.

As always, these are all just suggestions meant to spark ideas of your own. Have fun getting ready for Poetry Month!

Posted by Print: A Bookstore, Portland, Maine: "When it's the first big rain of the season... But they finally fixed the 8+ year ceiling leak and now you can't mine it for content."

Tomorrow:
Tamron Hall: Billy Porter, author of Songbird in the Light: A Picture Book (Abrams Books for Young Readers, $19.99, 9781419745836).

Drew Barrymore Show: Melissa Auf der Maur, author of Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A '90s Rock Memoir (Da Capo, $32.50, 9780306833755).

The upcoming film adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger's bestselling novel Three Incestuous Sisters "is adding some serious star power," Deadline reported: Dakota Johnson (Materialists), Saoirse Ronan (The Outrun), Jessie Buckley (Hamnet), and Josh O'Connor (Knives Out series, Wake Up Dead Man) will star in the project. Alice Rohrwacher (La Chimera) is directing from a script she wrote with Ottessa Moshfegh that "is loosely based on the book." Niffenegger is also the author of The Time Traveler's Wife.

The film will be financed and produced by Indian Paintbrush. Johnson and Ro Donnelly will produce for TeaTime Pictures, along with Steven Rales for Indian Paintbrush. Rohrwacher will also produce. Principal photography is set to begin in April.

The shortlist has been selected for the first James Patterson and Bookshop.org Prize. Launched last November, the prize celebrates debut authors, who are nominated and chosen by independent booksellers. The grand prize winner receives $15,000, the runner-up receives $10,000. The winner will be announced April 6.

The shortlist:
The Hollow Half by Sarah Aziza
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley
It's Different This Time by Joss Richard
The Lilac People by Milo Todd

---

Finalists have been chosen for the 38th annual Publishing Triangle Awards, honoring the best LGBTQ+ books published in 2025. See the 50 finalists here. Winners in the 10 categories will be announced on Thursday, April 16, at a ceremony at the New School in New York City. This year's event, which will be livestreamed, is hosted by poet and activist Emanuel Xavier.

In addition, Chrystos will receive the $3,000 Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, which celebrates the recipient's lifetime of work and commitment to fostering LGBTQ+ culture. Chrystos is a two-spirit writer, teacher, artist, lecturer, and activist whose work explores Native American civil rights, social justice, and feminism. Her many awards include a National Endowment for the Arts grant, the Sappho Award of Distinction from the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, a Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grant, and the Audre Lorde International Poetry Competition. She has illustrated many of her book covers.

Mariah Rigg has won the $1,500 Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award, for an LGBTQ+ writer who has published at least one book but not more than two. She is the author of the short story collection Extinction Capital of the World, winner of the 2026 Asian Pacific American Award for Literature. Her hybrid creative nonfiction chapbook All Hat, No Cattle was published by Bull City Press in 2023.

The $1,000 Torchbearer Award will be presented to The Other Side of Silence (TOSOS). The prize is given to organizations or individuals that strive to awaken, encourage, and support a love of reading, or to stimulate an interest in and an appreciation of LGBTQ literature.

TOSOS opened in 1974 as New York City's first gay professional theater company, founded by a trio of artists: Off-Off-Broadway veteran playwright Doric Wilson, cabaret star Billy Blackwell, and writer-actor-director Peter del Valle, and today is recognized as New York City's oldest LGBTQ+ theater company. In addition to producing full-length plays, the company curates a free play-reading series, the Doric Wilson Playwrights Project.
 
The Michele Karlsberg Leadership Award will be given to Amy Scholder, a literary editor, publisher, and documentary filmmaker known for her advocacy of works by marginalized and especially LGBTQ+ writers, artists, performers, and activists. This award is funded with the support of Michele Karlsberg, head of the eponymous marketing and publicity firm with an emphasis on members of the LGBTQ+ writing community.
 
Scholder has produced three award-winning feature films highlighting trans, queer, and feminist topics. She has served as editorial director of the Feminist Press, Verso, Seven Stories, and HIGH RISK Books/Serpent's Tail. The former chair of the board of Lambda Literary, she is an editor-at-large at City Lights Books and serves on the board of directors for the One Institute, Nightboat Books, and the City Lights Foundation. 

Readers will likely fall in love with 57-year-old high school history teacher Artie Dam, the hero of The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (Tell Me Everything; Oh William!), just as readily as his students. Artie won Teacher of the Year five years ago from the state of Massachusetts and keeps his students' letters to him in his mother's jewelry box in the attic. A tragedy occurred 10 years ago: Artie's son, Rob, was in a car accident that killed his girlfriend. After the accident, Artie's wife, Evie, seemed less warm; a distance also developed between Artie and Rob, which has grown "more acute" in the past year. Artie feels lonely. He becomes preoccupied with whether human beings have free will. And he considers suicide. He believes drowning is "the most plausible," so no one will suspect it was suicide.

Sailing off the coast of Massachusetts is Artie's greatest joy. Then one day, he slips while stepping from his dinghy to his boat; Artie falls in the water and nearly dies in the strong current. A new neighbor, a stranger, saves Artie's life. Suddenly Artie has a new friend and a will to live: "Artie--having almost died--no longer wanted to." Soon after, Rob shares a secret with Artie that Rob does not tell his mother, and this brings Rob and Artie closer. But the secret also poses other complications: Artie finds himself reexamining what he thought he knew in light of what his son confided to him.

Strout skillfully fashions a web of the interlocking lives in a small Massachusetts coastal town. She explores the roles of class structure (Evie is from an "old Brahmin family"; Artie, working class), politics, and education, with subtlety and finesse as a presidential election approaches. A gifted teacher, Artie champions each of his students--bully and bullied, athlete and outcast, no matter their politics--and urges them to fulfill their potential.

While Strout anchors the proceedings in the specific, her themes cross eternity. Artie's students are learning history from him, Shakespeare from his dear colleague, and life lessons in the halls. Soccer star Danny Marino and misfit Rhonda Lazarre couldn't be more different, but Artie loves them both, and each later say he changed their lives. It's a story of quiet heroes, like Artie, like Kenneth Moynihan, who saved Artie's life. Strout's genius is that her words work on readers between the lines, implicitly asking, What if you said what you really think? And if you don't, what are you giving up? And sometimes, is the heroic act not to say it? Strout's masterful novel poses searching questions, yet ultimately gives readers hope. --Jennifer M. Brown

Shelf Talker: Elizabeth Strout's masterful novel stars a hero who grapples with what it means to say what one thinks, and what if the better course is to keep it to oneself.

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

1. The Fly Who Flew Under the Sea by Lauren Sánchez Bezos
2. Chaotic by Shantel Tessier
3. The Poison Daughter by Sheila Masterson
4. Tempting Boss by Lillian Monroe
5. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
6. If You Keep Me by Helena Hunting
7. Right Your Wrongs by Kandi Steiner
8. Daggermouth by H.M. Wolfe
9. Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman
10. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook by Matt Dinneman

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]