Since its debut on March 8, Book Love Bar has been building community and finding its footing in Ypsilanti, Mich. 

"It's been something I've wanted to do for years," said co-owner Jessica Tharp, who has a background in food service and the veterinary field. "I was not afforded the opportunity to do it until recently." 

Located at 110 W. Michigan Ave., Book Love Bar spans roughly 2,200 square feet across two floors and a basement. As the March opening came about rather quickly, the bar is not yet open; for now Tharp is focusing on selling general-interest books for all ages. The inventory, she noted, is all-new and emphasizes adult titles. 

With the opening inventory, Tharp sought to bring in a "nice, small collection" of titles and slowly build the inventory from there based on community feedback. Community members have suggested all sorts of books, ranging from current events to genre fiction to poetry, and so far Tharp has found that "Ypsi seems to really love horror, fantasy, and sci-fi."

The store's book inventory is on the main floor, in the space that eventually will include the bar. The upper floor has more seating and can be used for events. She's held several birthday parties already and, based on community interest, "could do book clubs four days a week."

Owner Jessica Tharp with her husband, Stephen.

More and more community members are starting to reach out about hosting events at Book Love Bar. Tharp is open to ideas, but as the only person currently working at the bookstore, is limited in what she can do. Once she has the capability, Tharp hopes for the bookstore to become "any kind of safe space that people may need" as well as a "social hub where people come and gather and talk."

Book Love Bar's nonbook selection includes candles from a local candlemaker, games, locally roasted coffee beans, stickers, journals, puzzles, and work by local artists. When the bar side of the business is up and running, Tharp will serve beer, wine, and a variety of cocktails. 

She plans to offer seasonal craft cocktails based on authors and new books coming out, and, much like the book inventory, she'll build the beer and wine selection based on community interest. Generally she intends to keep the selection small and curated and avoid having a "giant menu" of options. 

With Book Love Bar, Tharp is combining two of her favorite types of community spaces: independent bookstores and dive bars. In addition to being an avid reader, she loves "just being in bookstores," and they're some of her favorite places to go "when I need some space." And dive bars are her "favorite kind of bars" because of the community found there.

Tharp has wanted to open a bookstore and bar for at least 10 years and began actively pursuing the idea about two years ago. Before finding the space in Ypsilanti, she actually had found another space in a nearby community and came very close to moving in. That ended up falling through at the last minute, however, and Tharp thought she might have to start the whole process over again. 

But only a few months after "the bottom fell out" of that deal, the owner of a kitchen and home goods store in Ypsilanti, whom Tharp had met through a realtor friend, called Tharp to tell her that she would be closing her store. She suggested Tharp come and look at the space "with fresh eyes," and when Tharp and her husband did, they found "it was a perfect fit."

So far, Tharp reported, the response to Book Love Bar has been "overwhelmingly positive." People have "on the daily" told her they're "so happy you're here," and others have said they "love the curation" and think the space is "warm and inviting." She feels especially gratified when people tell her the space "washes away" their anxiety.

"That's what we wanted, for it to feel like a warm hug," said Tharp. "It's cheesy but it's true." --Alex Mutter

Golden Hour Books has relocated to the Wireworks building at 109 S. William St. in Newburgh, N.Y. The bookstore, which opened on Broadway in 2023, now occupies a larger storefront just off a courtyard, which will allow owner Angie Loar to expand both inventory and programming, Chronogram reported. 

Noting that a grand re-opening celebration is slated for June 27, Loar shared photos of the new space recently in an Instagram post: "In case you missed it, we soft-opened at our new location.... I couldn’t be more thrilled with our new home and am feeling all the love. Thank you for being in a part of our community. If you haven’t yet, I can’t wait for you to see the new space, stunningly designed by GH’s other half, @workingplandesign. He built out the space and designed and fabricated and installed every piece of furniture you see."

Designed and custom-built by Loar's partner Reed Loar, the new space "incorporates expanded seating and a dedicated children's area, reinforcing the bookstore's role as a neighborhood hub. A new stockroom and display space will also make room for curated non-book offerings, from stationery and notebooks to locally made goods by Bloom and Little Batch Candle Co.," Chronogram wrote.

Angie Loar plans to expand key book sections and host more events. Golden Hour's move was made possible through a collaboration with Wireworks' Sisha Ortuzar, and Loar said the transition represents an opportunity to deepen its roots in the creative business corridor around Liberty and South William Streets.

Dennis Lloyd

Dennis Lloyd, director of the University of Wisconsin Press, has become president of the Association of University Presses, succeeding Anthony Cond, director of the Liverpool University Press. Lloyd joined the University of Wisconsin Press in 2015 after working mostly in marketing at five university presses. He served on the AUP board of directors 2017-20 and on the association's admissions and standards, investment, intellectual property and copyright, library relations, marketing, nominating, and program committees.

Other new AUP board leaders include:

Stephanie Williams, director at Wayne State University Press, who is president-elect;
Hilary Claggett, senior acquisitions editor at Georgetown University Press, treasurer;
Brent Oberlin, CFO at MIT Press, treasurer-elect;
Angelica Lopez-Torres, international rights manager at the University of Texas Press, and Catherine Cocks, director at Syracuse University Press, who are starting three-year terms as directors at large;
Alisa Plant, director at LSU Press, who stepped into a mid-term vacancy in July 2024, was elected to complete the remaining two years of a three-year term as director at-large.

Last Thursday, four booksellers led one of Children's Institute's most informative sessions, "Children's Bookselling 101: A Foundational Seminar for New Children's Booksellers." Lorie Barber (The Silver Unicorn Bookstore, Acton, Mass.) moderated a panel that included Lily Clay (Eagle Harbor Book Co., Bainbridge Island, Wash.), Kristina Rivero (Books Are Magic, Brooklyn, N.Y.), and Paul Thomason-Fyke (Square Books Jr., Oxford, Miss.) and covered "so many resources that it may be a little bit overwhelming."

Attendees were long-time children's booksellers, new bookstore owners, individuals new to bookselling, and publishing professionals; topics included building community, bookselling resources, publisher relationships, and handselling. The panel made certain that the booksellers in the room were aware of virtual resources (such as Indies Introduce, the Children's Group Discord Server, Bookweb.org, and The Independent Bookseller) while also making sure the language of children's bookselling--Lexile levels, Edelweiss, Bookselling this Week--was clear to all.

The panelists expressed a "call to action" around reviewing books. Writing reviews "informs publishers of indie booksellers' tastes" and, most importantly, introduces the bookseller to the marketing team. Submit reviews, they urged, to Indie Next List, Edelweiss, and NetGalley and, "on Edelweiss," Clay said, "write a blurb and check off Indie Next List, ABC catalog, and the publisher to get credit for your review."

From left: Paul Thomason-Fyke (Square Books Jr., Oxford, Miss.), Kristina Rivero (Books Are Magic, Brooklyn, NY), Lily Clay (Eagle Harbor Book Co, Bainbridge Island, Wash.), and Lorie Barber (The Silver Unicorn Bookstore, Acton, Mass.).

With the basics covered, Barber asked the panelists what each wished they had known before becoming a children's bookseller. "It's different from general bookselling," Clay said. "You're selling to multiple age groups all at the same time--you're selling to the kid, to the parent, and to the grandparent." Rivero noted that, coming from librarianship, she has found it difficult to "find the line of profitability while also having a community resource where you can share books with kids." Thomason-Fyke said a thing he struggled with was "learning to sell the right book to the kid, not just your favorite book to the kid." So, Barber asked, what is your best piece of information? Clay's response? "Eavesdrop." The best way to know what your customers want is to "listen to what your customers are talking about." Rivero told attendees to "meet people where they're at." Whether that's the child or the parent, "be where that person needs you on that day." Barber added that children's booksellers should "utilize the teachers that come into the store" with Clay pointing out that "educator nights" are "a great way to get rid of all the things you don't want and to get teachers to come into the store."

Barber said that understanding the children's market and paying attention to performance drivers are imperative parts of selling books for children and teens. "Observe the culture at your store and communicate about what you see with your managers and buyers," Thomason-Fyke advised. "The children's bookseller is the reason the bookstore exists," Rivero said. "I need my booksellers to be my eyes and ears--tell me what people want, what is going on in our community, develop relationships." Barber noted that "the children's book market ebbs and flows just like everything else. Each store will have its own bestselling sections and titles. Watch the Circana U.S. Children's Book Market Insights and Look Ahead for national data." Key factors impacting kids' book sales in 2025? Educational materials and activity books are up; licensed books are up; Bible study and Christian life is up; while middle-grade is posting the steepest declines. Barber pointed out that "homeschooling is a bit of an untapped market in a lot of locations." Panelists suggested offering the educational discounts the store may have available for teachers to homeschoolers, setting up book fairs for homeschoolers, or doing mobile pop-ups in homeschool homes.

Directly following the importance of knowing the market and paying attention to performance drivers is knowing how to curate inventory. "Know your backlist," Barber said. Know which books are okay for recommendation, which books "people are gravitating toward," and which series have new titles coming out that may cause a backlist resurgence. "The backlist informs both your store's values and helps instill value in your community," Thomason-Fyke said. "Your backlist fills gaps." "You're going to get a lot of pressure to carry what's new," Rivero said, "but what's new isn't always best. There are decades worth of excellent books. I think about curating the store in the way that a public library would: There should be a book for every need."

As the session wrapped up, audience questions turned to concerns about chains and Amazon: "Target and Barnes & Noble have both expanded their offerings--to what extent do you try to chase the trends when filling your indie?" What, Barber responded, "do Target and Barnes & Noble not have?" Focus on that, she said. "They've cut down the children's books they're carrying, they don't have backlist, they're not focusing on BIPOC or LGBTQ+ books." A local indie bookstore should always make sure to carry the titles the big-box stores simply don't have. "The most important thing," Rivero said, "is that your bookstore has you. You are the most important resource that your community has when it comes to books. It is easy to pick up a book at a Target, but there's no one there when you pick it up."

Another attendee asked, "How do you cope with people taking pictures to buy from Amazon?" A member of the audience said they are direct with customers when they see them taking pictures of books: "You would help me so much if you made that purchase from me--you could buy it from Amazon but you're just going to be funding Jeff Bezos's next trip to space." Books Are Magic stocks copies of How to Resist Amazon and Why by Danny Caine at its front cash wrap. And Barber reminded the audience that the ABA offers great resources to share on indie bookstores versus Amazon. "For example, the tax you pay at your indie is going back into your community. We're fighting this--it's okay to be up front and in your face about it." --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness

Norma Swenson, an author of the 1970s global bestseller Our Bodies, Ourselves, died May 11. She was 93.

Norma Swenson

The New York Times reported that Swenson "was working to educate women about childbirth, championing their right to have a say about how they delivered their babies, when she met the members of the collective that had put out the first rough version of what would become the feminist health classic Our Bodies, Ourselves. It was around 1970, and she recalled a few of the women attending a meeting she was holding in Newton, Mass., where she lived. It did not go well. One of them shouted at her, 'You are not a feminist, you'll never be a feminist and you need to go to school!' "

"I was stricken," Swenson recalled in a StoryCorps interview in 2018. "But also feeling that maybe she was right. I needed to know more things."

Despite the initial tension, the members of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective invited Swenson to join their group, and she went on to help create Our Bodies, Ourselves. The New England Free Press published an initial rough version in 1970 and it became an immediate underground success, selling 225,000 copies. After Simon & Schuster published the book in 1973, "much gussied up and expanded, it became a juggernaut," the Times noted.

In 1977, Swenson and Judy Norsigian, another core member of the collective, toured 10 European countries to meet with women's groups who were putting together their own versions of Our Bodies, Ourselves. Swenson would later help oversee the international editions and adaptations, as well as lecture around the world.

"Norma was always committed to an intersectional approach," Norsigian said. "She made sure the activism could fit people's lifestyles. How they could do things with limited resources. How to tailor the work to specific communities in less industrialized countries. She helped breastfeeding support groups in the Philippines, for example, and met with a doctor in Bangladesh who was advocating for indigenous production of essential drugs."

Last updated in 2011, Our Bodies, Ourselves has sold more than four million copies and been translated into 34 languages. The nonprofit behind the book, which provides health resources to women, is now based at Suffolk University in Boston.

Print: A Bookstore, Portland, Maine, shared a video on Instagram about a creative update to the shop's sales floor signage: "By popular demand, our new sections!"

"Sometimes just looking up is all we need to do to see something we have never seen before. And, by the way, shop local!" Rakestraw Books, Danville, Calif., posted on Facebook. 

Qreative Evolution: How to Question Everything to Find Your Creative Fulfillment by Louis Henry Mitchell (Blackstone Publishing).

Today:
Fresh Air: Larry Charles, author of Comedy Samurai: Forty Years of Bloods, Guts, and Laughter (Grand Central, $32.50, 9781538771549).

Tomorrow:
Today: Claire Lynch, author of A Family Matter: A Novel (Scribner, $25.99, 9781668078891), which is a Read with Jenna Pick.

Glenn Close and Billy Porter have been added to the cast of Lionsgate's upcoming movie, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, based on the bestselling book by Suzanne Collins. Deadline reported that Close will play Drusilla Sickle, the cruel escort to the District 12 Tributes, while Porter is Magno Stift, her estranged husband and the Tributes' uninspired designer.

Close and Porter join Joseph Zada, Whitney Peak, Mckenna Grace, Jesse Plemons, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Maya Hawke, Lili Taylor, Ben Wang, Ralph Fiennes, Elle Fanning, and Kieran Culkin in the project, which will be directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Billy Ray. Sunrise on the Reaping will be released on November 20, 2026. 

"Glenn Close is a dream Drusilla," said producer Nina Jacobson. "She brings so much of her intellect and imagination to each role, creating characters who are unforgettable and iconic. I think Glenn and Francis will have a ball bringing Drusilla from the page to the screen."

Jacobson added that Porter is "one of those rare performers who can dazzle and devastate in equal measure on stage and screen. He made an indelible impression on me when we worked together on Pose, both as an actor and a human being."

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller won the £25,000 (about $34,000) Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. The judges said: "A true master craftsman, Andrew Miller has painted big themes on a subtle canvas of tiny detail. With rare and delicate skill, The Land in Winter opens up the lives of Bill and Rita, Eric and Irene in ways that will sing differently to each reader, and sing differently again on each re-reading. With prose as softly dazzling as the snow of the 1962/63 winter in which the novel is set, Andrew Miller takes his richly deserved place amongst the Walter Scott Prize pantheon of great contemporary writers."

Miller noted that the people in his novel "came walking slowly out of a blizzard. I leaned quite heavily into the early married lives of my parents, and some of the people they knew, all of whom are long dead now. One of the few advantages of getting older is that your own past becomes material for an historical novel."

The Grand Paloma Resort by Cleyvis Natera (Neruda on the Park) is a novel of race, class, secrets, and striving, set within a luxury resort staffed by struggling locals amid the natural beauty of the Dominican Republic.

Sisters Laura and Elena have only each other and the Grand Paloma Resort. Laura has been her sister's caretaker since they were 14 and four years old, when their mother died. The Grand Paloma has been Laura's career and lifeline. Through her work, she was able to send Elena to a global academy, meant to secure the younger woman's future. But Elena persists, in Laura's eyes, in slacking, taking Ecstasy and partying while working as a babysitter at the resort. In the novel's opening pages, a young child in Elena's care--from a family of great wealth and privilege--has been badly injured. It falls to Laura, yet again, to clean up: Elena must be protected from criminal charges, and the resort from bad press.

But this time, despite Laura's experience in saving the day, a bad situation spirals. Elena thinks she sees a way out by accepting a large sum of money from a tourist in exchange for giving him access to two young local girls. Although she initially believes the girls won't come to harm, the crisis worsens when the children go missing. All of that--with a frightened Elena and Laura at maximum stress and frustration--coincides with an approaching category-five hurricane. A larger cast of already marginalized resort employees are endangered in a ripple effect, and Laura's career is at risk. Over the course of seven days, it becomes increasingly clear that these various lives will never be the same.

Natera deftly splices into this narrative the history of the Dominican Republic and the plight of Haitian workers. The Dominican Republic is a beautiful paradise beset by poverty and racial stratification, emphasized all the more when locals intersect with the extraordinary wealth and power of the Grand Paloma's guests. One of those guests sees it as "a humanitarian crisis so large, so seemingly without end, that there was little to do but look the other way." At the heart of the novel's conflict is the question of what each character will do to survive.

With a propulsively paced plot and heart-racingly high stakes, The Grand Paloma Resort interrogates capitalism and exploitation through a community's concern for two little girls. The result is exhilarating, entertaining, and thought-provoking. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: Missing children and a category-five hurricane converge in desperate circumstances at an exclusive luxury resort in the Dominican Republic in this heart-wrenching novel.

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

1. Den of Vipers by K.A. Knight
2. Shoveling $H!t by Kass Lazerow
3. Till Summer Do Us Part by Meghan Quinn
4. Facing Hard Truths by Stephen J. Cloobeck
5. Let's Retire Retirement by Derek Coburn
6. Releasing 10 by Chloe Walsh
7. Beautiful Venom by Rina Kent
8. Dad, I Want to Hear Your Story by Jeffrey Mason
9. Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
10. Binding 13 by Chloe Walsh

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]