Greetings book lovers! I hope you all are staying cool and reading during this hotter-than-hades summer.
The last time I visited my home state of Iowa, I had my dad take me to Beaverdale to a bookstore, so I could look around at how much things had changed in Des Moines since I left home in 1979 to go to college. Even though this was years ago, I was astonished at how much Ankeny and Des Moines had grown and changed...sometimes for the better, sometimes for worse. At any rate, thank heaven for indie bookstores!
Happy 15th Birthday, Beaverdale Books!
Congratulations to Beaverdale Books, Des Moines, Iowa, which celebrated its 15th anniversary https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz49148220 July 10 "as staff welcomed customers new and old and children flipped through pages of colorful cartoons. The store offered daylong perks of free beverages and cookies; exclusive offers like free advance reader copies and discounted books; and opportunities to interact with local authors," the Register reported.
Founder and owner Alice Meyer opened the store in 2006 at 2629 Beaver Ave. This past year "was unique in its history, however, as the store had to close its doors to in-store business for 13 months," the Register noted.
"But, people were still buying books. I think I expected it to be a lot worse than it was. It was kind of surprising," said Meyer. "It was pretty crazy, especially during the holidays, but people were very supportive. I think at the time, big, online folks did not make books a priority. They were busy selling other stuff like hand sanitizers. And I think people realized that they needed to support their local businesses."
I love this idea of a collective online bookstore that represents independent bookstores and helps them fight against the raging river of Amazon.com.
Bookshop.org Hits $15 Million Mark
Sometime overnight, Bookshop.org https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz49181040 hit the $15 million mark in money earned for independent bookstores in the U.S. The money consists in part of a pool of a 10% cut on Bookshop sales that are made directly or through an affiliate, with the pool distributed to indie bookstores around the country, even stores that don't use Bookshop. In addition, bookstores that do use Bookshop as their e-commerce site receive a 30% commission on the cover price of their book sales, which don't count toward the general pool.
Bookshop financially helps more than 1,200 indie bookstores in the U.S., with an additional 26,000 non-store affiliates contributing to the results by linking to Bookshop. Its year-on-year growth is 17%, and, of course, since its fortuitously timed launch in January 2020, it has been a lifeline for many indies during the pandemic, particularly new stores and established stores without strong e-commerce operations. Bookshop hit the $10 million milestone this past December. Since its launch in the U.K. in November 2020, Bookshop has 470 bookshops on board there and has earned some 1.48 million(about $2.03 million) for indies.
From the beginning, Bookshop.org has said that besides supporting indies, one of its main goals is giving online shoppers an ethical alternative to Amazon that supports local businesses. The company noted that Amazon's market share of U.S. book sales has grown at an average of 8% per year since 2015. If it continues at that rate, it will account for 80% of books sold directly to consumers by the end of 2025. Bookshop estimates that in the past 16 months it's captured about 1% of Amazon's book sales.
In an essay on Medium https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz49181041, Bookshop.org CEO Andy Hunter said in part: "The future is not something that happens to us. It is something we create. People all over the world are waking up to the fact that our small choices--from buying local, to recycling, to choosing clean energy, and shopping from ethical companies--are shaping the world that we live in. I want my children to grow up in a world that includes thousands of bookstores; if you do too, we need to change our habits."
This sounds fascinating, and I can't wait to see it.
TV: The Sympathizer
Robert Downey Jr. will co-star in as well as produce an adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen's novel The Sympathizer https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz49181069 for A24 and HBO. Variety reported that Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Handmaiden) will serve as co-showrunner with Don McKellar (Exotica, Last Night). Filming is set to take place in Los Angeles and in Vietnam.
"Adapting Mr. Nguyen's important and masterful work requires a visionary team. With director Park at the helm, I expect this to be a creative producing adventure for Susan, me and Team Downey, and a stimulating process for myself in playing these complex supporting roles," Downey said. "A24 and HBO are the perfect combination of partners and co-parents.... It's exactly the type of challenge I've been craving, and I believe we will deliver an exceptional viewing experience to our audience."
Chan-wook will direct and executive produce the project alongside Downey, McKellar, Kim Ly, Rhombus Media's Niv Fichman and Team Downey's Amanda Burrell and Susan Downey.
I always stop at a bookstore, no matter where I travel, or have traveled in the past. Whether it's a cozy little bookshop in Ireland or a fancy modern bookstore in Vancouver BC (Canada), there are always great booksellers and wonderful fellow bibliophiles to make a connection with, thereby getting a feel for the local gestalt. I always learn something and I try to restrain my book purchases due to limited space in my luggage. But adventures in the world would not be the same without book stores, for sure!
'Planning a Vacation? Add Indie Bookstores to Your Travel Itinerary'
"Whenever I travel, there's one must-see on my itinerary: a local independent bookstore https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz49182402," Suzanne Perez noted in a piece for NPR station KMUW in Wichita, Kan., sharing some of her favorite destinations. "I'm a reader, and readers love bookstores. An hour or two of peace and quiet, browsing the shelves, is heaven on a normal day. It's even better on vacation.
"But beyond that, local bookstores provide a window into the real flavor, culture and history of a place.... I make a point of buying a book wherever I travel--usually something related to the destination. Booksellers are the friendliest people on the planet, and I love when they press a book into my hands. Even better is coming home with a beloved title that I wouldn't have known about otherwise. Books are the best souvenirs."
The Lady Brewer of London by Karen Brooks was a mighty tome, though I read it in ebook format, it still took me days to read it, when normally it only takes me hours to read an ebook, because the font sizes are easier to see and there's a timer on my Kindle Paperwhite that only allows me so much time to finish each chapter. Still, this historical novel, which takes place in the 15th century, is loaded with information on the misogyny and horrific treatment of women and children at the time. It's also full of recipes for beer and ale, which are two different things, surprisingly. Here's the blurb:
An unforgettable historical tale set in fifteenth-century England of a brilliant woman’s defiance, courage, and ingenuity—from the author of The Locksmith’s Daughter and The Chocolate Maker’s Wife.
1405: The daughter of a wealthy merchant, Anneke Sheldrake suddenly finds her family bankrupted when her father’s ship is swept away at sea. Forced to find a way to provide for herself and her siblings, Anneke rejects an offer of marriage from a despised cousin and instead turns to her late mother’s family business: brewing ale.
Armed with her mother’s recipes, she then makes a bold deal with her father’s aristocratic employer, putting her home and family at risk. Thanks to her fierce determination, Anneke’s brew wins a following and begins to turn a profit. But her rise threatens some in her community and those closest to her are left to pay the price.
As Anneke slowly pieces her
life together again, she finds an unlikely ally in a London brothel
owner. Determined not only to reclaim her livelihood and her family,
Anneke vows not to let anyone stand in the way of her forging her own
destiny.
Anna/Anneke is raped and then nearly murdered three times by the same character who is a member of the clergy, and eventually it gets ridiculous how many times this particular boogeyman pops up just when Anneke is recovering and making a living as a brewer. The plot redundancies are numerous, and by my reckoning, at least 200-300 pages could have been removed from the novel by an experienced editor and the book would have been the better for it. I was also annoyed by the use of rape as a way for the strong female protagonist's life to change, because it's ubiquitous in historical novels, so much so that I can't think of any that don't include the supposedly strong woman lead being beated, raped and/or nearly killed. This is taking rape from being the heinous act that it is and turning it into a sort of thrill-seeking, voyeuristic plot device, which normalizes it, and is disgusting and so very wrong on many levels. Other than that, though, I liked Anneke's story, and I loved the fact that she was a redhead, too. I'd give this book a B, and recommend it to fans of the Outlander series, which also has too much gratuitous rape within it's pages.
A Cup of Silver Linings by Karen Hawkins is the sequel to the Book Charmer, which I read twice, once for myself and again for my library book group. I loved both novels, which are cozy books that have strong romantic subplots, and are full of magic realism, like Sarah Addison Allen's works. Here's the blurb: New York Times bestselling author Karen Hawkins returns to her
beloved Dove Pond series with another “mesmerizing fusion of the
mystical and the everyday” (Susan Andersen, New York Times bestselling author)—but this time, the magic is in the tea leaves.
Ava Dove—the sixth of the seven famed Dove sisters and owner of Ava Dove’s Landscaping and Specialty Teas—is frantic.
Just
as her fabulous new tearoom is about to open, her herbal teas have gone
wonky. Suddenly, her sleep-inducing tea is startling her clients awake
with vivid dreams, her romance-kindling tea is causing people to blurt
out their darkest secrets, and her anti-anxiety tea is making them spend
hours staring into mirrors. Ava is desperate for a remedy, but her
search leads her into dangerous territory, as she is forced to face a
dark secret she’s been hiding for over a decade.
Meanwhile,
successful architect Ellen Foster has arrived in Dove Pond to attend the
funeral of her estranged daughter, Julie. Grieving deeply, Ellen is
determined to fix up her daughter’s ramshackle house, sell it, and then
sweep her sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Kristen, off to a saner,
calmer life in Raleigh. But Kristen has other plans. Desperate to stay
with her friends in Dove Pond, Kristen sets off on a quest she’s avoided
her whole life—to find her never-been-there father in the hopes of
winning her freedom from the grandmother she barely knows.
Together,
Ava, Kristen, and Ellen embark on a reluctant but magical journey of
healing, friendship, and family that will delight fans of Alice Hoffman,
Kate Morton, and Sarah Addison Allen.
The rigid grandmother trope was well done here, though it took a couple of vivid dream conversations with her dead daughter to get Ellen to loosen up and agree to help her granddaughter stay in Dove Pond with her father (who really isn't her father so much as a sperm donor). I did feel bad for Ava, yet I felt her secret, once revealed, had much higher consequences than necessary. Still, I would give this page-turner an A, and recommend it to anyone looking for an engrossing read with just the right amount of magic.
Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado is a delicious YA novel about a larger teenager coming to terms with her body and her destiny. I find books about larger women/girls who don't end up having to lose weight to be happy to be exceedingly rare, so when I happened upon this novel, I pounced on it with all due fervor. Thankfully, the prose was juicy and the plot glides along, so I found myself reading into the wee hours. Here's the blurb: Coming of age as a Fat brown girl in a white Connecticut suburb is hard.
Harder when your whole life is on fire, though.
Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat.
People
sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom.
Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it's hard, and her
mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn't help.
The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like:
thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter.
But
there's one person who's always in Charlie's corner: her best friend
Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a
tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile
guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing--he
asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he
even really see her?
Because it's time people did.
A sensitive, funny, and painfully honest coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.
I truly loathed Charlie's mother, who was a complete idiot and diet fanatic with supposedly good intentions, set to destroy her relationship with her daughter due to her own ignorance and prejudice. But Charlie manages to rise above it all and makes a real success out of her life without changing her body or who she is. I would have every young women in high school read this book, if I could. It's brilliant, and gets a well deserved A from me, with a recommendation that EVERY women/girl on the planet pick up a copy and read/learn from it.
Ink and Shadows by Ellery Adams was an ebook that I got for cheap, so I wasn't expecting a lot. I was surprised, therefore, at the quality of the prose, which was sterling, and the way that the plot managed to move along effortlessly to make this another page-turner of a cozy mystery. Being a bibliophile, I tend to be attracted to books about bookstores and their owners (or librarians) and this particular mystery was deeply entrenched in a small town bookstore with an owner who is a minor sleuth in her spare time. Here's the blurb: New York Times bestselling author Ellery Adams is back with
the latest in her acclaimed Secret, Book, and Scone Society series.
Local bookstore owner Nora Pennington is back on the case in Miracle
Springs, North Carolina when an accidental death turns out to be
something much more sinister.
Nora Pennington is
known for her window displays, and as Halloween approaches, she decides
to showcase fictional heroines like Roald Dahl’s Matilda and Madeline
Miller’s Circe. A family-values group disapproves of the magical themes,
though, and wastes no time launching a modern-day witch hunt. Suddenly,
former friends and customers are targeting not only Nora and Miracle
Books, but a new shopkeeper, Celeste, who’s been selling CBD oil
products.
Nora and her friends in the Secret, Book, and Scone
Society are doing their best to put an end to the strife—but then
someone puts an end to a life. Though the death is declared an accident,
the ruling can’t explain the old book page covered with strange symbols
and disturbing drawings left under Nora’s doormat, a postcard from an
anonymous stalker, or multiple cases of vandalism.
The only
hope is that Nora can be a heroine herself and lead the Secret, Book,
and Scone Society in a successful investigation—before more bodies turn
up and the secrets from Celeste’s past come back to haunt them all.
SPOILER: I was greatly saddened that the owner of the herbal shop and her daughter end up dead, and though the person who killed them is caught and will end up in prison for life, the fact that women are the targets of evil men who seek to destroy them by gaining power over them both physically and mentally isn't really discussed or shown for the societal scourge that it has been for centuries. Why authors are afraid to discuss misogyny, even in a book with romantic subplots (they're almost always heterosexual romances, too...there's rarely anyone from the LGBTQ+ community represented, unfortunately) boggles my mind. It's 2021, people, lets get some diversity going here! Main characters of color and characters with other sexualities would be more normal that representing towns full of all white heterosexuals. Still, this book deserves at least a B-, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in small town bookstores.
Enola Holmes and the Boy in Buttons by Nancy Springer is a short story that I was able to get for free for my Kindle Paperwhite. It was beautifully written and way too short a story for my tastes, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. Here's the blurb: Nancy Springer's nationally bestselling series and breakout Netflix
sensation is back! In this short story, Enola Holmes is on the case when
a young porter - the boy in buttons - disappears without a trace.
Enola
Holmes, the much younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft, owns a
building in the heart of 19th century London, a place she uses under
pseudonyms to front for her investigative work. Employed there is a
porter - Joddy, a young boy in a uniform festooned with buttons - whose
even younger brother substitutes for him when he's sick. But Paddy
disappears after one day at the job and Enola Holmes is alerted to this
by the still ill Joddy.
Determined to find the missing porter,
Enola travels to the rough part of London where the boys live and starts
searching Aldgate Pump area for the missing boy. When she finds the
missing buttons - but not the boy - she decides that drastic action is
essential if she's to save the missing boy.
This is the kind of story that will keep you occupied in a doctors waiting room, or while you wait in line or ride on the bus/subway/train to get to your job. Enola is brilliant and smart, and her compassion, though late to the game, is welcome in helping the starving street urchins, much as her brother Sherlock does with the Baker Street Irregulars in A Conan Doyles original tales. I'd give this story an A and recommend it to anyone who liked the Netflix series about the marvelous Enola Holmes.
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