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New Third Place Books Location to Open Saturday

Third Place Books will hold the grand opening of its third location on Saturday, May 21, in the Seward Park neighborhood of Seattle. Third Place Books also has locations in Lake Forest Park and Ravenna, Washington.

The store will feature new and used books and has partnered with restaurant Raconteur to offer breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days a week.

To celebrate the store’s opening, customers are invited in for a weekend of informal book signings and conversations with a group of local authors, including Kelly Jones (Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer, Knopf Books for Young Readers), Maria Semple (Where’d You Go Bernadette?, Back Bay Books), and Garth Stein (A Sudden Light, Simon & Schuster), among others.

Grand Opening Set for Creative Corner Books

Creative Corner Books is the newest addition to the Book Village on Main Street in Hobart, New York. The store, which celebrated its grand opening on Saturday, May 14, features new, used, and vintage cookbooks, as well as craft, hobby, and DIY books on topics ranging from needlecrafts, quilting, and bookbinding to jewelry-making, woodworking, and gardening. Non-book offerings include local farm products such as honey and jams and handmade pottery and needlecrafts.

Creative Corner is one of six Main Street book stores in Hobart that will have a Memorial Day sale featuring 30 percent discounts, the Oneonta Daily Star reported. The Village’s other shops feature antiques, clothing, and home furnishings.

Phoenix Books Acquires Misty Valley Books


Lynne Reed, Bill Reed, Renee Reiner, and Michael DeSanto (photo courtesy of Chester Telegraph)

Michael DeSanto and Renee Reiner, owners of Vermont’s Phoenix Books, which has locations in Essex, Burlington, and Rutland, have purchased Misty Valley Books in Chester from owners Lynne and Bill Reed. The closing took place on Monday, May 16.

“We are so pleased that Michael and Renee of Phoenix Books are buying Misty Valley Books,” said Lynne Reed, who bought the store with Bill Reed in 2001. “We are happy that they will be continuing Misty Valley’s strong commitment to our community, readers, and author events, including the well-known Misty Valley New Voices annual weekend for debut authors. They will be a great addition to Chester and the surrounding towns in southern Vermont.”

“It feels fitting to keep Misty Valley going and growing as part of our goal to preserve local independent bookstores and strengthen the communities hosting the stores,” said DeSanto. “We hope to complete the transition with no interruption in the high level of service Chester and the surrounding communities have seen over the years.”

The Bookloft Welcomes New Owner

Great Barrington, Massachusetts’ The Bookloft officially changed hands on Tuesday, May 17, reported the Berkshire Eagle.

“We will continue to offer a wide range of carefully curated books and other products reflecting [a] love of reading and the arts,” said new owner Pamela Pescosolido, who previously ran an art supply store and operated a small bookselling business, and has a degree from Vermont Law School. “We hope to work as a partner to the community and provide a destination of imagination and discovery for all ages.” She will also keep on the store’s eight staffers and maintain the shop’s current operations for now.

Former owners Eric and Ev Wilska put the bookstore on the market in December and hired Paz & Associates to help with the sale. The two will stay on for about a month to ease the transition, and a May 28 open house will give the community a chance to say goodbye to the Wilskas and welcome Pescosolido.

“It was a good run,” said Eric Wilska, who founded the bookstore with Ev Wilska in 1974. “That’s long for a bookstore to remain profitable. I’m very proud of it.”

Pittsburgh’s East End Book Exchange Sold to Former Hachette Staffers

Lesley Rains, the owner of East End Book Exchange, is selling the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, indie to Jill and Adlai Yeomans, Littsburgh reported. The couple, who moved to Pittsburgh in 2012, met while they were working in editorial positions at Hachette.

Jill Yeomans previously held jobs in libraries and independent bookstores, while Adlai Yeomans had interned in book marketing, according to Littsburgh. Jill is the author of books for children and young adults, including the middle grade series Unnaturals (HarperCollins) and teen novels co-written with bestselling author James Patterson.

For the immediate future, the Yeomans don’t plan any abrupt changes at the store, which offers an inventory of mostly used, rare, and locally oriented titles. “We have especially loved attending author readings and book launches at EEBX. We’ll definitely continue that tradition, and ideally even expand our events calendar further. Then, later this year, with input from our patrons, we plan to relaunch with a focus on new titles,” the Yeomans told Littsburgh.

Milkweed Editions to Open Bookstore in Downtown Minneapolis

Milkweed Editions is planning to open a bookstore, Milkweed Books, in the Open Book building in downtown Minneapolis in late June or early July, MPR News reported. The building is already home of Milkweed Editions and two other literary nonprofits, the Loft Literary Center and Minnesota Center for Book Arts.

Milkweed Books will occupy the ground floor space that was once a satellite of The Ruminator, a now-closed St. Paul-based bookstore.

The new store will be owned and operated by Milkweed, which publishes approximately 20 books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry per year, according to MPR News. About a quarter of its stock will be Milkweed Editions and the rest will come from a variety of publishers, with a particular emphasis on independent literary presses, said Milkweed publisher and CEO Daniel Slager.

City of Asylum/Pittsburgh to Open Bookstore, Restaurant, Event Space

The Pittsburgh chapter of the literary organization City of Asylum is scheduled to open a new headquarters in September that will include a bookstore, a wine and cheese café, and an event space accommodating up to 225 people.

City of Asylum/Pittsburgh has a history of sheltering writers and hosting literary events with an international flavor, including an annual jazz poetry event. In its 12 years, the nonprofit has staged events featuring more than 300 writers and musicians from 60 countries, co-founder Henry Reese told Pittsburgh City Paper.

The new bookstore, City of Asylum Books @ Alphabet City, will specialize in books in translation; it will also carry new and used books in English and operate a free-book program. The store will be managed by Lesley Rains, who is in the midst of selling East End Book Exchange to Jill and Adlai Yeomans.

river’s end Celebrates 18 Years


Author A.S. King with a group of fans at river's end bookstore

The river’s end bookstore in Oswego, New York, marked 18 years in business on May 18 by offering customers refreshments and an 18 percent discount on in-store titles.

Author A.S. King (I Crawl Through It, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) recently stopped by the store to read from her upcoming release, Still Life With Tornado (Dutton Books for Young Readers, October 11).

Co-owners Mindy Ostrow and Bill Reilly opened the river’s end on May 18, 1998, in historic downtown Oswego.