Gnoll's Loot Table, which offers new and used sci-fi and fantasy titles, has opened at 51 E. First St. in Riverside, Iowa, "known as the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek," Corridor Business Journal reported. 

"We built Gnoll's Loot Table to be a cozy landing pad for readers," said owner Noel Burns. "From space opera and epic fantasy to under-the-radar indie and self-published gems you won't see in big-box stores, we want fans to discover great stories and feel right at home in our 'comfort-geek' community."

Burns plans to host reading groups, author events and, a monthly podcast called "theGnollcast," featuring book reviews and creator interviews.

"Riverside is already a pilgrimage for Star Trek fans," she added. "It felt wrong that there wasn't a bookstore here tailored to sci-fi and fantasy. We're excited to help visitors and locals alike find their next adventure, right where the Trek begins."

On the bookstore's opening day, August 30, Burns posted: "Gnoll's Loot Tables opening day of our opening weekend was a success and we are very happy we were able to share today with some new faces and old friends. We were thrilled to find so many people excited about a new bookstore in the community and fans of the sci-fi and fantasy genres. We sold many new and used books and sold completely out of the first book of the Dungeon Crawler Carl Series by Matt Dinniman. (Don't worry we have PLENTY more coming.) We look forward to seeing some more new and excited faces coming through the door tomorrow and Labor Day Monday. Thank you for your guys' support."

Charmed & Bound Books, a romance-focused bookstore, will open in Flemington, N.J., this fall, MyCentralJersey reported. The bookstore, at 44 Main St., will carry a wide array of romance titles, including rom-coms, dark romance, and everything in between. There will be a small children's section as well as nonbook items like candles, bookmarks, stickers, and book-related apparel. 

Charmed & Bound owners Stefanie Mandelberg and Kelsey DiMeglio

Owners Stefanie Mandelberg and Kelsey DiMeglio plan to host author talks, book clubs, and crafting nights, and they will turn the shop's back room into an incubator for local women-owned businesses. The first shop in the incubator space will be a children's clothing and gift store called Little Honey's Boutique.

DiMeglio told MyCentralJersey that she and Mandelberg want to carry not only traditional romance "but also to showcase queer love stories and cultural, multicultural love stories. We want everybody to be able to walk into this store and feel like they have a place, they have a voice, and they can find something that they can relate to."

Mandelberg and DiMeglio met at a back-to-school night at their children's elementary school. They bonded over their love of romance books, and though the idea initially started as a joke, they soon decided to open a romance bookstore. After their initial space fell through, they launched Charmed & Bound as an online and pop-up store while continuing to look for a suitable space. 

"Everyone deserves a space where they feel seen, celebrated, and truly welcome," Mandelberg said. "We want to create a place where readers could come together to connect, unwind, and fall in love with stories again and again."

Monarch Books & Gifts is moving to a new location in Overland Park, Kan., and will host a grand reopening celebration the weekend of October 3.

Monarch's new home, at 7733 W. 151st St., is about 1,000 square feet larger than its previous store. The additional space will allow owner Christin Young and her team to expand the coffee bar, add more seating, and host larger events. Young also noted that the romance and romantasy genres will now have an entire room "all to themselves."

Young explained that she had "always loved" the space at 7733 W. 151st St., but thought of it as more of a "wouldn't it be nice" hypothetical. However, a big box store opened less than a mile from Monarch a few weeks ago, and Young and her team had to "seriously consider what that means for our future--was this going to be it, or do we pivot and adapt?" At the same time, Young learned that the space she had long admired would be available.

"After much reflecting on how much this store means to us and our community, we contacted the landlord and the rest is history," Young said. "We're excited for this next chapter!"

Arthur Sze has been named the 25th U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2025-2026. The winner of the Library of Congress's 2024 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, Sze will begin his laureateship with a public reading at the library on October 9. He succeeds Ada Limón, who served two terms in the position. During his term as poet laureate, Sze, who lives in Santa Fe, N.Mex., plans to have a special focus on translating poetry originally written in other languages. 

Arthur Sze (photo: Mariana Cook)

"Last fall the Library of Congress honored Arthur Sze with our Bobbitt Prize, for lifetime achievement in poetry; this fall we are thrilled to bring him back to the Library as the nation's poet laureate," said Acting Librarian of Congress Robert Randolph Newlen. "His poetry is distinctly American in its focus on the landscapes of the Southwest, where he has lived for many years, as well as in its great formal innovation. Like Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, Sze forges something new from a range of traditions and influences--and the result is a poetry that moves freely throughout time and space."

Sze commented: "What an amazing honor to be named the 25th Poet Laureate of the United States. As the son of Chinese immigrants, and as a sophomore who decided to leave MIT to pursue a dream of becoming a poet, I never would have guessed that so many decades later I would receive this recognition. It's a recognition that belongs to teachers, librarians, editors, poets, readers--everyone who works tirelessly on behalf of poetry. As laureate I feel a great responsibility to promote the ways poetry, especially poetry in translation, can impact our daily lives. We live in such a fast-paced world: poetry helps us slow down, deepen our attention, connect and live more fully."

Sze is the author of 12 poetry collections, most recently Into the Hush (2025), as well as the prose collection The White Orchard: Selected Interviews, Essays, and Poems (2025). His other collections include The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (2021), which won a 2024 Science and Literature Award from the National Book Foundation; Sight Lines (2019), winner of the National Book Award for Poetry; Compass Rose (2014), a Pulitzer Prize finalist; The Ginkgo Light (2009), selected for the PEN Southwest Book Award and the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Book Award; The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970–1998 (1998), winner of the Balcones Poetry Prize and the Asian American Literary Award; and Archipelago (1995), which won an American Book Award. Sze has also published an expanded collection of Chinese poetry translations, The Silk Dragon II (2024).

His many honors include the Bollingen Prize for American Poetry from Yale University, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation, a Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, a Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award. 

Marilyn Diamond, who with her then-husband Harvey Diamond wrote the bestselling diet book Fit for Life (1985), died September 7. She was 81. The New York Times reported that the co-authors "attracted millions of adherents to their fruit-and-vegetable-based regimen," but also drew sharp criticism from the medical establishment. 

Fit for Life, which spent some 35 weeks on the Times bestseller list, "promoted a diet rich in fruits and vegetables with little or no meat, a regimen that nutritionists have long embraced. The book also presented ideas that were ahead of their time, like veganism, caloric restriction and drinking oat and nut milk to replace dairy." The Diamonds emphasized the importance of diet to overall health at a time when dieting had primarily been seen as a means for weight loss.

Many health experts criticized them for not having a conventional background in nutrition, noting that their recommendations "had no scientific basis, like alternating breathing between nostrils to balance the body's energy or not drinking liquids with meals to enhance digestion," the Times noted, adding that one of their most contentious ideas was "natural hygiene," which claimed that, with a proper diet, a body afflicted by disease could heal itself without medical intervention.

Nevertheless, many of the book's ideas have become popular, as has the Diamonds' contention that their critics were "beholden to big business and intent on keeping Americans improperly nourished," the Times wrote.

The Diamonds also published the cookbook Living Health (1987) and Fit for Life II (1989). 

After her divorce in 1993, Marilyn Diamond married Donald Schnell, who had an interest in alternative medicine, in 1994. They co-wrote Fitonics for Life (1996), which emphasized what they called "high-energy eating," and Young for Life: The Easy No-Diet, No-Sweat Plan to Look and Feel 10 Years Younger (2013). They divorced in 2014.

Pat Harris, author of A Season on the Drink (Adventure Publications), posed with the diva of the diamond, Mudonna T. Pig, at a St. Paul Saints game, where Harris did a signing for Teacher Appreciation Night. It was part of the launch week events for the book, which included a stop at Next Chapter Booksellers, St. Paul, Minn.

Ink & Ivy Book Boutique, Madison, Wis., shared a pic of the shop's sidewalk chalkboard message, which offered reasonable options for any reader's shopping dilemma: "Should you buy a book today? Have you bought a book today? 'Yes' (One more won't hurt!). 'No' (Get inside already!)."

Maris Tasaka has joined Grand Central Publishing as a marketing manager. She was previously at Flatiron Books.

Radical Sisters: Shirley Temple Black, Rose Kushner, Evelyn Lauder, and the Dawn of the Breast Cancer Movement by Judith L. Pearson (Mayo Clinic Press).

Today:
All Things Considered: Angela Flournoy, author of The Wilderness: A Novel (Mariner Books, $30, 9780063318779).

Fresh Air: Mary Roach, author of Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy (W.W. Norton, $28.99, 9781324050629).

Tomorrow:
CBS Mornings: Jen Hatmaker, author of Awake: A Memoir (Avid Reader Press, $30, 9781668083680).

Ann M. Martin's bestselling book series The Baby-Sitters Club is being developed into a stage musical, with a book by Kate Wetherhead (The Devil Wears Prada), music and lyrics by Mark Sonnenblick (Kpop Demon Hunters), and direction and choreography by Annie Tippe (Octet), Deadline reported. 

Theatrical rights to the book series have been optioned by TWTheatricals, a division of TheaterWorksUSA. An exclusive industry presentation is scheduled for November 13 in New York City, with plans for a theatrical premiere in Spring 2027.

"I love musicals and am excited to see the adventures of Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, and Stacey come to life on stage," said Martin. "I'm humbled by the ongoing popularity of the series, and couldn't be more thrilled by this news."

The musical picks up 12 years after the disbanding of the Baby-Sitters Club, when the founding members return to Stoneybrook, Conn., to honor the pact their 13-year-old selves made to reunite. Now 25, they "realize over the course of the show that the reunion not only presents an opportunity to revisit defining moments of their past, but to answer critical questions that have surfaced in their present-day lives: questions of identity, career, relationships and fulfillment," Deadline wrote.

Winners have been chosen for the 2025 Wainwright Prize, celebrating nature, conservation, and environmental writing. This year, in addition to the individual category winners, two books have been chosen as the overall winners: Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton for the 2025 Wainwright Prize Book of the Year, and Flower Block by Lanisha Butterfield, illustrated by Hoang Giang, for the Wainwright Children's Prize Book of the Year. The 2025 Wainwright Prize category winners are:

Nature Writing: Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton 
Conservation Writing: The Lie of the Land by Guy Shrubsole 
Illustrative Books: Feed the Planet by George Steinmetz with Joel K. Bourne Jr. & Michael Pollan 
Children's Fiction: Wildlands by Brogen Murphy 
Children's Nonfiction: University of Cambridge: Think Big: Secrets of Bees by Ben Hoare, illustrated by Nina Chakrabarti 
Children's Picture Books: Flower Block by Lanisha Butterfield, illustrated by Hoang Giang 

The two overall winning books received a prize of £2,500 (about $3,400), with the picture book award jointly shared by its author and illustrator. Category winners were each awarded £500 (about $680) per book.

In Bryan Washington's quietly powerful novel Palaver, a queer Black man who's swapped Houston for Tokyo reconnects with his estranged mother and rebuilds his mental health, thanks to his chosen family.

The central players are only ever "the son" and "the mother." He's found a niche in Japan as a private English tutor and is sleeping with a married man; she came from Jamaica via Canada to raise a family in Texas. They have been out of touch for years when he phones her. Concerned about the son's safety, given his previous suicide attempt, she takes a break from her dental tech job and flies over unannounced. The son lets the mother stay in his apartment and takes her for meals, but they circle each other uneasily, irritable and quick to take offense. Much remains latent between them, particularly the physical abuse and homophobia that led to their estrangement.

The low-key plot builds through memories and interactions: the son's with his students or hook-ups; the mother's with restaurateurs as she gains confidence exploring Japan. Apart from a trip to the shrines of Kyoto and Nara, they stick around the son's neighborhood. But the close third-person narration expands the view by slipping from present to past and back, drifting to Jamaica and Houston. Along with the lack of speech marks, this creates fluidity and emphasizes how trauma sparks later mental health crises. Satisfying parallels emerge between the pair's nascent romances and past ties with their brothers. As in Washington's previous novel Memorial, the characters' cool affect conceals deep emotions. And as in Family Meal, the protagonist gets by with a little help from his diverse friends--here, those who orbit the gay bar Friendly: Fumi, Binh, Iseul, Santi, and Tej. Trans bartender Alan and the son's kitten, Taro, are additional highlights of the lively secondary cast.

Through words and black-and-white photographs, Washington (Lot) brings settings to life vibrantly. His fiction tends to recombine recurring elements: Texas and/or Japan, queer multicultural characters, and abundant descriptions of food. Familial and sexual relationships play out against similar backdrops. Always, blood and found family are of equal importance. Palaver's broken parent-child bond starts off as defining but melts into part of a whole network of connections. As Tej remarks, others "help us see ourselves clearer." Alan adds that simply "showing up" for oneself and others is a vital act of courage. This is Washington's best and most moving work yet. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck

Shelf Talker: Bryan Washington's emotionally complex third novel explores the strained bond between a mother and her queer son--and their support systems of friends and lovers--when she visits him in Tokyo.

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

1. Your Baby Doesn't Come with a Book by Dr. Daniel Golshevsky
2. From Drift to Drive by Chris Robinson
3. Lights Out by Navessa Allen
4. Caught Up by Navessa Allen
5. Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
6. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter
7. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros 
8. Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code by Joseph Bruchac
9. Someone's Gotta Give by Alisha Fernandez Miranda
10. Tomatoes on Trial: The Fruit V. Vegetable Showdown by Lindsay H. Metcalf

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]