HarperCollins has made organizational changes that will expand its U.S. trade division into seven distinct publishing groups: Avon, Dey Street, Harper, HarperCollins Children's Books, HarperOne, Mariner Books, and Morrow.

Liate Stehlik, who was named CEO and president, U.S. trade, in February, said, "This new alignment will allow each group to operate with greater autonomy, deeper category expertise, and a strategic focus on author development, positioning the imprints for continued growth. HarperCollins has been a leader in publishing for more than 200 years, and this change ensures the award-winning excellence our authors and our readers have come to expect will only grow stronger."

Diana Baroni, senior v-p/publisher, will oversee the Harvest, Harper Wave, and HarperOne imprints, which together form the new HarperOne Group. Laina Adler and Nina Shield will remain in their positions as v-p/deputy publisher and v-p/editorial director, respectively, for the HarperOne imprint, both reporting to Baroni. 

Peter Hubbard, senior v-p/publisher, leads the Mariner Books Group, which will include the Amistad, HarperCollins Español, HarperVia, Martin Luther King Jr. Library, and Mariner Books imprints. Tara Parsons will serve as v-p/deputy publisher of Amistad, HarperCollins Español, and HarperVia, reporting to Hubbard. Abby West, v-p/editorial director, Amistad; Edward Benitez, executive editor, HarperCollins Español; and Juan Mila, editorial director, HarperVia, will now also report to Hubbard.

Jonathan Burnham will continue to lead the Harper Group, and Carrie Thornton will lead the Dey Street Group. As previously announced, May Chen and Tessa Woodward will lead the new Avon Group, and Rich Thomas will lead the HarperCollins Children's Group. Editorial leadership for the Morrow Group will continue to report to Stehlik.

HarperCollins also announced the following leadership updates:

Kelly Rudolph was promoted to senior v-p/marketing, publicity, and strategic initiatives U.S. Trade. Benjamin Steinberg was promoted to senior v-p/publishing operations, U.S. trade, and will continue in the role of deputy publisher for Dey Street, Harvest, Harper Wave, and nonfiction for Mariner Books and Morrow. 

Jennifer Hart has been promoted to senior v-p/director, fiction brands & estates, U.S. trade, and will continue as deputy publisher for the Morrow fiction, Avon, and Voyager lists, as well as HarperAlley manga and adult graphic novels. Amy Ryan was promoted to the newly created role of senior v-p/creative director, U.S. trade, and will report to Hart.

Brenna Connor

Brenna Connor is joining Macmillan as senior director, consumer insights, a new role within the Consumer Insights, Marketing & Analytics (CIMA) team, effective this Monday, June 8. Connor has worked for more than 10 years at Circana, which includes BookScan, in market research and book industry analysis. In recent years, she has spoken at Winter Institute and Children's Institute about market trends, retail insights, and growth strategies.

At Macmillan, Connor will lead Macmillan's Consumer Insights team, helping the company leverage research, data, and market intelligence to inform strategy, identify growth opportunities, and better understand reader behavior. She will report to Kim Lauber, senior v-p, consumer insights, marketing & analytics.

The Bookshop's future home.

The Bookshop in East Nashville, Tenn., will be moving later this year from its current location on West Eastland Ave. to 824 Meridian St. in the city's McFerrin Park neighborhood. Owner Joelle Herr shared the news on the store's social media, noting that the "new location is a mere mile away from where we are now.... We're simply bursting at the seams of our 550 square feet. Our new location will be more than THREE times the size, which will allow us to carry so much more. Our thoughtful curation will remain the same--we'll just have more of it. Plus, there will be room for larger events and... drum roll, please... we'll have a coffee nook AND a nearly 600-square foot front porch for fair-weather lingering."

Herr added that since opening The Bookshop in 2016, "I have saved and planned and saved some more, with hopes that one day I might have the opportunity to purchase a building for the shop." The new space will need a full buildout inside, including walls, plumbing, electricity, and more. She is hoping to open before the end of the year.

"Friends, YOU are also a big factor in how we were able to take this leap, through your thoughtful, intentional choice to shop with us," Herr added. "And your continued support is absolutely essential to our future success. This purchase is a huge, gulp-inducing investment (and risk!) for this small-business owner--I admit I've had some tosses and turns over the scariness of it. But I have such a clear vision of what we're going to create. It's going to be amazing, and I cannot wait to welcome you into it."

Herr also gave a shoutout to "our amazing booksellers, who've kept mum on this news for weeks, and whose enthusiasm has been so fun to witness. Bronte, Ashley, Corrie, and Mat--I'm so thankful for you!"

As news of the move spread, Herr told Nashville Scene that "the response to our announcement this morning has been overwhelming in the very best of ways, and the move feels somehow even more real now that others know about it.... I'm looking forward to sharing updates and sneak peeks over the coming months of the buildout--and can't wait for the day we can welcome everyone into our expanded book lovers' haven on Meridian Street."

Following its debut earlier this week, the Book Nook in Warren, Ohio, will host a grand opening this Saturday, WKBN27 reported.

Located at 222 East Market St., the Book Nook specializes in books by independent authors, and currently stocks around 200 titles. Nearly every book is signed, and many were written by local authors. Owner Katelyn Matusky noted that the inventory is "growing daily," with 10 more local authors set to deliver their books this week. In addition to books, Matusky carries a variety of bookish gifts and sidelines, and there is also a coffee bar.

Roughly a year ago, Matusky began sharing and reviewing books by independent authors on BookTok. The popularity of that page led her to starting an online store earlier this year, and that received so much demand she decided to open a bricks-and-mortar store.

Later in the summer Matusky will host an Author Market in Warren's downtown square.

Mobile bookstore Sunburns and Slow Burns debuted Memorial Day Weekend in Hendersonville, Tenn., the Hendersonville Standard reported.

Owner Chelsi Vazquez carries mostly romance titles and set up shop at the Hendersonville Farmers & Artisans Market for the bookstore's first appearance. She will continue to appear at that market throughout the season, and Vazquez hopes to create partnerships with local coffee shops and breweries as well.

Sunburns and Slow Burns is built out of a trailer that previously belonged to another independent bookstore: Lazy Daisy in Jacksonville, N.C. It too debuted as a mobile store, and after Lazy Daisy opened a bricks-and-mortar location, the owner decided to sell the trailer as she no longer needed it.

Before moving to Hendersonville, Vazquez and her family lived in Jacksonville, where Vazquez was close friends with Lazy Daisy's owner. Though she did not work at the bookstore, she spent a lot of time there and often helped out. 

"I really enjoyed being in the space and talking with customers and stuff," Vazquez told the Standard. "I didn't work there, but I was there all the time so it felt a little bit more personal. I thought if I'm ever gonna do it, this is going to be the time that I'll be able to do it."

After buying the trailer and driving it back to Hendersonville, it took Vazquez about two months to fix it up. She noted that she came up with the store's name with a friend.

"I had the idea that I wanted it to be summery and bright and colorful," Vazquez explained. "I wanted it to be primarily romance. When we narrowed down the genre and vibe I was going for, she helped me come up with the name Sunburns and Slow Burns. It kind of snowballed from there."

Next Friday, June 12, from 1 to 1:45 p.m., Eastern ReadingGroupGuides.com will host its 15th annual Book Group Speed Dating Event virtually. Representatives from five publishers will share selections from their publishing houses to give booksellers, librarians and book group leaders an inside look at new and upcoming titles that book groups will want to know about and discuss. E-galleys will be available to be requested for selected titles from Edelweiss and/or NetGalley, as well as print galleys from some of the publishers. Leave-behinds will be available in PowerPoint and Excel formats. Participating publishers are Grand Central Publishing, Harlequin Trade Publishing, Random House Publishing Group, Sourcebooks, and W.W. Norton.

Advance signup is required. The presentation will be available for later viewing for all who sign up. Sign up here.

Edgar Morin, a French sociologist, anthropologist, ecologist, philosopher and filmmaker "whose work spanned epochs and disciplines, dazzling his countrymen with his erudition and life lessons learned in the Resistance," died May 29, the New York Times reported. He was 104. On X, French President Emmanuel Macron praised him as a "soldier of the Resistance, fighter and free spirit, a defender of nature and humanity," and called him "humanism personified."

Morin "was the last survivor of a generation of intellectuals shaped by their experiences during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, giving his books and pronouncements a distinct moral authority in his country," the Times noted, adding that his "passage through, and engagement in, the previous century's most turbulent moments gave him a credibility matched by few." 

In a profile celebrating Morin's 100th birthday in 2021, the newspaper Libération called him "the grandfather of all the French" and "the memory of the preceding century."

Morin's final book, one of nearly 120 he wrote or co-wrote, has just been released; his first was published nearly 80 years ago. In between, he wrote dozens of works, including autobiography as well as books on anthropology, sociology, philosophy, epistemology, cinema studies, biology, ecology, history, and political science. 

Few of his books were translated into English, but "he was widely followed in the Mediterranean world and in Latin America, where university research centers have been named for him," the Times wrote, noting that Morin "traversed much of the 20th century and a quarter of the 21st as both participant and critical observer. First, he was a teenage antifascist in 1938, helping put together packages of food and clothing for Spanish Republicans. Then, hunted by the Nazis during the war, he was in overlapping Resistance networks with the writer Marguerite Duras and the future French president François Mitterrand. After the war, he was a publicly repentant ex-Communist and anti-Stalinist... and, for many of his subsequent years, an autodidact sharpshooter at the edges of academia in France."

Morin sometimes complained that few people had read what he considered his major work, La Méthode, now being translated into English for the first time as Method 1977-2004, a six-volume philosophical treatise on knowledge, the nature and meaning of thinking, and a "meditation" on "what it means to be human," as philosopher Roger-Pol Droit wrote in Le Monde in 2001. 

Instead, he seems most likely to be remembered for an autobiography "detailing his split with the French Communist Party, along with two works of sociology dissecting France's fractures during its years of postwar prosperity, and his breakthrough documentary film probing that theme," the 2020 French TV film Edgar Morin, Journal d'une Vie, the Times wrote.

Morin observed in the TV film that there were some aspects of knowledge he couldn't reach: "As far as God is concerned, what I want to say is, I don't have any relations with this chap.... I don't deny there is a mystery in things. We can't shut up in our minds and reduce to ideas the infinite complexity and the infinite mystery of the world."

Phoenix Books in Burlington, Vt., hosted a pre-release event for Katherine Arden's novel The Unicorn Hunters (Del Rey). Arden was in conversation with fellow Vermont writer and historian Andrew Liptak. The event sold out, resulting in a full house at Phoenix Books Burlington. 

"We know each of you love a good story. Today we'll tell you one," Scout & Morgan Books in Cambridge, Minn., noted in a Facebook post detailing the bookshop's recent foray into minor auto repair.  

"Let us lead off by saying, this is not a boast or a tooting of our own horn. We're sharing because the message will be one of encouragement," Scout & Morgan wrote. "Earlier in the week, the store had been busy all morning. In a lull, a very longtime supporter arrived. She shuffled back to the mystery section. An avid reader, she sometimes needs help determining which books she's read in certain series. Our bookseller helped her select several books. 

"As they headed to the register, she told Bookseller all about her upcoming vacation with her family. She hoped to catch some fish and catch up on reading her new titles. She paid and said goodbye. She was heading to the co-op for lunch. More customers came in and out. About 15 minutes later, Bookseller looked up to the door bells jingling. Ms. Mystery had returned. She approached the counter and dropped her car keys on it. In desperation, she exclaimed that she couldn't get her car door remote to unlock the doors. Her extra set of keys was locked in the car. 

"Bookseller quickly opened the key fob and started dialing the phone. Her sister answered, 'Sister! I need you to please bring me a CR 2032 button battery to Scout & Morgan. Can you help? I've got a stranded customer.' (Her sister works at a local auto dealership just 5 blocks away.) During this conversation, Ms. Mystery is telling the bookseller 'you don't need to do that.'

"Bookseller hangs up the phone. 'I know I don't need to do that. I want to do it. I can do it. Also, Scout & Morgan has been trying to get into minor automotive repairs for some time. I think this is our opportunity. Plus, my sister is at work alone this week and looking for ANY reason to leave.'

"Ms. Mystery chuckles in relief. 5 minutes later, Sister pulls up with the fresh battery. They install it. Customers come in. Sister and Ms. Mystery go to the vehicle and voilà! The door opens! Ms. Mystery offers to pay. Sister declines. Payment not needed. It feels really good to do something nice for someone. Be encouraged. Be a helper. Slow down for someone who needs you. (Also, we claim no actual expertise in automotive anything, however, we're pretty good at the book business.)"

"At the Painted Porch, we love our customers! So when they ignore us we get sad. It's fine if you don't want to talk to us. We'll be sad, but we get it. Just don't let your only words to us be: 'Is Ryan Holiday here?' " Floor staff at the Painted Porch Bookshop in Bastrop, Tex., posted a poignant Instagram reel about working in a bookshop owned by the well-known author, adding:

"Yeah, yeah we know he's written a few books and is really popular or whatever but WE want to talk to you too!!! Not sure what to say? Easy topics to engage with us are: books, cats, books about cats, hot dogs, cool rocks, shiny things.... Basically we are raccoons. Raccoons who work in a bookstore. Be kind. Say hi to the bookstore raccoons."

"I treat bookstores the way some people treat casinos. I walk in confidently, leave having made poor financial decisions, and pledge to return as soon as I can." That was the message on the sidewalk chalkboard sign in front of Highland Books in Brevard, N.C.

There's Only One Sin in Hollywood: A Novel by Rasheed Newson (Flatiron Books).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Annabel Monaghan, author of Dolly All the Time (Putnam, $29, 9798217185054).

Apple TV has released the full trailer and photos for the third season of Silo, created by Graham Yost and based on Hugh Howey's bestselling sci-fi novel trilogy. The clip reveals Rebecca Ferguson's Juliette has survived the fire at the end of season 2 but lost her memory, and it now appears "that she is being told a new dangerous, false narrative by Camille (Alexandria Riley)," Deadline reported. The new season also continues the split timeline introduced previously, exploring pre-apocalyptic life before the silos.

The 10-episode third season will premiere with the first episode on July 3, followed by a new one every Friday through September 4. The cast also includes Common, Harriet Walter, Chinaza Uche, Avi Nash, Alexandria Riley, Shane McRae, Remmie Milner, Rick Gomez, Billy Postlethwaite, and Clare Perkins. Joining them are Jessica Henwick, Ashley Zukerman, Laura Innes, Jessica Brown Findlay, Morven Christie, Reed Birney, and Matt Craven, with Colin Hanks set to recur. Steve Zahn will also return.

The Writers' Trust of Canada announced that Renato Gandia (poetry), Graham Slaughter (creative nonfiction), and Julia Cottrelle (short fiction) are the winners of this year's RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, which was established in memory of poet and short story writer Bronwen Wallace and "has a proven track record of helping talented developing authors secure their first book deal." Each winning author receives C$10,000 (about US$7,230).

Gandia won for his poetry collection Psalmody for the Estranged, which the jury noted "reminds us of the affinity between prayer and poetry. These poems appeal to our basic needs to belong, to experience awe, to be seen, and to be accepted. They are alchemical and spellbinding in the way they transform small, quiet moments--a turn of phrase, a partner's touch, familiar objects, a domestic routine--into moments of sacred encounter."

Slaughter won for his book The Perfect Home For Your Child, which the jurors said "brings equal measures of acuity and empathy to its story of a would-be adoptive couple as they wait for a prospective birth mother to decide if she will keep her child.... Slaughter offers an intimate perspective on byzantine regulations, daunting financial barriers, and the complicated bonds between strangers amid emotional tumult."

Cottrelle won for her short story collection The Old Turtle Climb, of which the jury said: "Just as a bumblebee seems to defy the laws of physics every time it takes flight, so too does Julia Cottrelle's quietly devastating story 'The Old Turtle Climb' carry such emotional and thematic weight as to risk failure, which is the mark of true artistry.... This is a haunting and authentic depiction of a wounded soul attempting to live through a deep hurt."

photo: Jack Manning

Steven Pfau is a writer and editor who lives in Los Angeles. His first book is Say Nephew: On Boyhood, Unclehood, and Queer Mentorship (Catapult, May 26, 2026), a profound and illuminating exploration of the mythology of gay uncles and the meaning of queer bonds across generations.

On your nightstand now:

I've been savoring the first four installments of Solvej Balle's seven-part novel, On the Calculation of Volume, which has reprogrammed my brain, reminding me to slow down and pay more attention to what can happen in a single day; I can't wait for the rest of the series. Also on my nightstand are some recent favorites I've loved: The Committee of Men by James Ciano, Field Guide to Falling Ill by Jonathan Gleason, Rogue Astronaut by Mitchell Jacobs, Mega Milk by Megan Milks, All the Possible Bodies by Iain Haley Pollock, Person Under by Paige Thomas, Bad Forecast by Steffan Triplett, and Woman House by Lauren W. Westerfield. And as an astrology nerd, I'm very excited to get a copy of Follow the Signs, Courtney Ann LaFaive's biography of Linda Goodman.

Your top five authors:

James Baldwin, Roland Barthes, Anne Carson, Annie Ernaux, and Thomas Renjilian.

Favorite book when you were a child:

My two favorites were Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, both by Maurice Sendak. I think I picked up on the queer-coded sensibility of Sendak's work long before either of us came out, and I've always thought of him as one of my honorary uncles.

Book you've faked reading:

Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is one of my favorite novels, but as much as I love it, I can't deny that some chapters are totally bewildering, and they make me want to toss the book across the room. I've read Moby-Dick from cover to cover a few times, so maybe this doesn't count, but sometimes I really feel like I have to fake it 'til I make it through certain passages.

Book you're an evangelist for:

I'm often singing the praises of Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal, a collection of gorgeous, instructive food writing inspired by M.F.K. Fisher. Whenever I feel like I don't have the time or space or money to make really good food, or whenever I can't figure out what to do with the limited ingredients and supplies in my kitchen, Adler encourages me to be more imaginative. Her cooking advice has also helped me become a more resourceful writer, but I admit that I'm especially grateful to Adler for teaching me how to poach an egg.

Book you've bought for the cover:

At the most recent AWP Bookfair, the cover (and title) of Jendi Reiter's collection Introvert Pervert caught my eye. I bought it right away, and I'm glad I did. It's full of kinky, transgressive, vulnerable, and often very funny poems that I'll be thinking about and rereading for a long time.

Favorite line from a book:

Amy Hempel writes some of the most startling, memorable sentences I've ever read, and it's hard to choose an all-time favorite; each one seems to contain a whole novel's worth of narrative. But today my favorite might be the opening of her story "The Harvest," from At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom: "The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me." She could've dropped the mic and ended there, but instead Hempel keeps outdoing herself and forcing you to rethink everything you thought you knew about this story.

Book that changed your life:

Ten years ago, I bought a copy of Brian Blanchfield's essay collection, Proxies, at Unnameable Books in Brooklyn. As soon as I finished reading it, I knew I wanted to meet the author and learn how to do what he does in that book. I sent him a fan e-mail and asked if he would give me some feedback on a writing project I'd been thinking about, and he generously said yes. We stayed in touch, he joined the faculty of a creative writing M.F.A. program, I applied and became his student, and he taught me how to write what would become Say Nephew. Thank you, Brian, and thank you, whoever displayed that copy of Proxies in the Unnameable storefront back in April 2016!

Five books you'll never part with:

I'll never part with my three copies of The Story of Harold, a lost classic of queer fiction by Terry Andrews (the pen name of children's author George Selden, best known for the book The Cricket in Times Square). I have the first edition in hardcover, the trade paperback that Edward Gorey illustrated, and the mass-market copy that my uncle gave me--a gesture that became a sort of "inciting incident" in the writing of Say Nephew. If I can keep only two more, the fourth would be Matthew Stadler's Allan Stein, another favorite queer novel that's now out of print (and another book I write about in Say Nephew); the fifth would be my autographed and thoroughly annotated copy of Proxies. Many books are precious to me, but these are irreplaceable.

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

I first read Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse when I was 18, and I wish I could go back in time and newly discover the magic tricks that Woolf pulls off with prose style and point of view and narrative structure in that novel. Somehow she also made the book so multifaceted that it seems to shape-shift whenever I revisit it with fresh eyes so, in a way, every time feels like the first time.

Ever since humans began living in groups, conspiracy theories have been a fact of social life, but since the rise of the Internet and the birth of social media, it's become nearly impossible to quiet their din. The phenomenon cries out for thoughtful study, and that's precisely what Canadian academics Lee Kuhnle and Nathan Radke deliver in Uncover Up, a comprehensive examination of conspiracy theories: what they are and are not, how they arise and spread, and the habits of mind necessary to understand and combat them.

Drawing upon a variety of disciplines and sources that include social psychology, theories of group dynamics, and biblical philosophy, Kuhnle and Radke organize each chapter around a relevant concept from the world of conspiracy theories--such as how a binary worldview of good versus evil flattens one's perception of real world events or the powerful role community plays in shaping beliefs. They proceed to illustrate each concept through in-depth explorations of the elements of one or more conspiracies. They dive into the world of QAnon to highlight the pitfalls of a Manichaean perspective and present the antivaccination movement as an example of community-driven conspiratorial thinking.

Though these two conspiracy theories are associated with the right wing in contemporary U.S. politics, Uncover Up isn't a tendentious work and its insights are applicable across historical epochs and in differing social milieus. Kuhnle and Radke explain, for instance, how the 17th-century Salem witch trials provide a helpful framework for understanding Joseph McCarthy and the Red Scare of the 1950s. The authors also reveal the philosophical and historical roots in the book of Revelation for millenarian cults like Heaven's Gate, whose 39 members died by mass suicide in 1997.

Despite their scholarly credentials, Uncover Up's authors have tailored their work for general readers and for the most part avoid the pitfalls of academic jargon in elucidating their ideas. As one would expect, the book contains copious endnotes but would have benefited from a list of materials for further reading.

If Uncover Up merely provided a taxonomy of conspiracy theories and described how they flourish, it would be a worthwhile effort, but Kuhnle and Radke are intent on showing how even highly intelligent people can tumble into the trap of conspiratorial thinking, especially under the influence of social media and other online sources. They arm their readers with an ample collection of cautionary tales and a versatile tool kit for recognizing and avoiding the psychological shortcuts and environmental factors that lure some into those traps. Anyone who reads this useful book will be operating from a base of well-grounded skepticism when the next conspiracy theory bursts into the headlines. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: Two Canadian academics take a comprehensive look into the world of conspiracy theories, offering helpful tools for identifying them and avoiding their seductive lure.

The bestselling Libro.fm audiobooks at independent bookstores during May:

Fiction
1. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (Penguin Random House Audio)
2. This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum (Macmillan Audio)
3. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi (Simon Maverick)
4. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Penguin Random House Audio)
5. Platform Decay by Martha Wells (Recorded Books)
6. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett (Spiegel & Grau by Spotify Audiobooks)
7. Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune (Penguin Random House Audio)
8. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco)
9. Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth (Macmillan Audio)
10. Into the Blue by Emma Brodie (Penguin Random House Audio)

Nonfiction
1. Famesick by Lena Dunham (Penguin Random House Audio)
2. Strangers by Belle Burden (Penguin Random House Audio)
3. London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Penguin Random House Audio)
4. The Land and Its People by David Sedaris (Hachette Audio)
5. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green (Penguin Random House Audio)
6. Birth Vibes by Jen Hamilton (Hachette Audio)
7. Dogs, Boys, and Other Things I've Cried About by Isabel Klee (Morrow)
8. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Tantor Media)
9. Enshittification by Cory Doctorow (Macmillan Audio)
10. Communion by bell hooks (Morrow Paperbacks)