News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, and other cool stuff
Book News
- Unseen Harper Lee letters give intimate view of To Kill a Mockingbird author (The Guardian)
- Whole Foods Adds Nearly $1.3 Billion to Amazon (Publishers Weekly)
- Anne Frank’s diary [being] read at all Italian soccer matches this week, after fans of one team posted stickers of Frank in another team’s jersey, accompanied by anti-Semitic slogans. (BBC News; also L.A. Times)
- Bill O’Reilly is dropped by literary agency (L.A. Times) The agency haven’t said why, but there have been multiple allegations of sexual harassment against the author and former Fox commentator.
Worth Reading/Viewing
- A ‘decolonised’ syllabus: the BAME authors you think students should read (The Guardian) It’s a formidable and wide-ranging list. (BAME is more-or-less the British equivalent of the term POC.)
- 10 Ways To Be An Anti-Racist Reader (Book Riot)
- Tom Hanks’ writing is yet another sad story of how men write women (The Guardian)
Free Fiction Online
- “Clasp Hands” by Stephanie Burgis. Perfect for Halloween, a short story about a very young witch.
Book & Movie Announcements
- The Kingkiller Chronicle TV Adaptation Gets a Network and a Synopsis (Tor.com) I’m getting really excited for this series! To begin with, it’s set in the world of Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicle, and Rothfuss is heavily involved. Lin-Manuel Miranda and John Rogers are his co-executive producers, and Miranda will also compose the music (which plays a huge role in the books, and will probably be important in the series as well.) Finally, they just announced that the show will take place a generation before the events of the Kingkiller Chronicle, and will feature “follow a pair of wandering performers.” Given Rogers’s hint that “A generation is a very, very *specific* amount of time,” speculation is rampant that the series will be about Kvothe’s parents. Which, if true, means it may answer a number of questions that readers have been expecting to have answered in the as-yet-unfinished book 3. Does that mean Rothfuss plans to finish and release book 3 before the series spills the beans? No one is saying… but I hope so.
- Rick Riordan has a new website (“Read Riordan”), a new imprint, and several books coming out in 2018. Besides the third book in the Trials of Apollo series, there will be a fully illustrated Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (I can’t wait!), as well as a Magnus Chase coloring book and a Kane Chronicles guide to Egyptian myth and magic. In March, Rick Riordan Presents will release the first in a four-book series based in Hindu mythology, written by Roshani Chokshi (author of The Star-Touched Queen.) Riordan announced the imprint on his own website last April, and talked about his relationship to the imprint and the first three books they to bring out.
- Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man being adapted for Hulu (Variety)
Awesome Lists
- 9 Spooktacularly Good Halloween Audiobooks for Families (Brightly)
- 13 new Halloween reads to chill, amuse, inform and terrify (L.A. Times) These, on the other hand, are decidedly for adults and older teens.
- YA Takes on Snow White (Book Riot) The author left out Marissa Meyer’s Winter, because she was avoiding books that require you to have read previous books in the series, but it’s a good list anyway.
- Have a Peculiar Halloween with 8 Quirky Horror Stories (Tor.com) Ranging from Coraline to An Unfortunate Series of Events, these tales are suitable for middle-grade to YA, but many of them will appeal to adults as well. And they include both books and tv shows, so there’s something for everyone.
- Your Guide to Ghosts from A to Z (Stubby the Rocket, on Tor.com) Exactly what the title implies.
- Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2017:
- 7 Reasons Why Hufflepuffs Are The Absolute Greatest. (Book Riot) Because I’m proud to be a Hufflepuff. (With a hint of Ravenclaw.)
Bookish Quote
That’s it for this week!
Bea
So many articles to check out! The Hindu mythology series sounds promising as does The Invisible Man adaptation.
Lark_Bookwyrm
That Hindu mythology series sounds like a lot of fun. Riordan’s imprint will also be doing a “Korean foxes meet space opera” fantasy series by the author of Ninefox Gambit, which I think will be really cool.
La La in the Library
Thanks for the heads up about Clasp Hands. I love short stories about witches. My son is a Hufflepuff, so I will have to give him the link to the Book Riot post. ☺
Lark_Bookwyrm
I hope you enjoyed the story! I’m a fan of Stephanie Burgis.