bbNews & 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
- Every 16 year old in Sweden to recieve copy of We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. (The Guardian) Yes!
- The Goodreads Choice Award winners were announced on Dec. 1. Go Set a Watchman (fiction), The Girl on the Train (mystery/thriller), The Nightingale (historical fiction), Queen of Shadows (YA) and The Sword of Summer (children’s) are among the winners.
- J. K. Rowling inspires surge to crowdfund book on race and immigration (in the UK). (The Guardian)
- Wisconsin school cancels reading of book about transgender girl after parents threaten to sue (GalleyCat)
- Google honored L. M. Montgomery with not one but three Google Doodles on her 141st birthday on Monday.
Worth Reading
- Where Do Book Titles Come From?: On the Origins and Import of Some Iconic Titles (Dustin Illingworth, for LitHub)
- Posthumous books could come with a lot of dollar signs (Boston Globe) examines the growing trend for publishing books by dead authors, or continuations of their series by other writers. Somehow, it manages to ignore Go Set a Watchman.
- I’m Leaning Into My Reading Slump (A.J. O’Connell, for BookRiot)
Awesome Lists
- Literary Holiday Card Round-Up – bookish holiday cards to buy, download, or just admire (BookRiot)
- 7 YA Must-Reads That Started As NaNoWriMo Projects (Riffle)
- 6 Books to Reach Your Reading Goal (BookRiot)
Bookish Gifts
NovelTea: tins of tea with a novel look
NovelTea offers novel tins of tea — or if you prefer to use your own tea, you can order just the empty tin. Three tins currently available, with more designs in the works.
Bookish Quote
That’s it for this week!
Katherine @ I Wish I Lived in a Library
I’m adding NovelTea to my wishlist and I know a few people who would love to get one as well. I’m surprised that Go Set A Watchmen won the Goodreads award. I listened to it and really enjoyed parts of it as well as finding it interesting from a literary perspective but I wouldn’t say it was the best book of the year.
Katherine @ I Wish I Lived in a Library recently posted…Gooey Honey Blondies and Holiday Baking
Lark_Bookwyrm
Don’t those tins look fabulous? I supported the Kickstarter, so I should be getting The Picture of Earl Grey sometime this month. (Just the tin; I avoid caffeine so I’ll put my own decaf Earl Grey in it!)
It’s always interesting to see what wins the Goodreads awards. They’re among the few that are voted on by anyone who is interested (and has a Goodreads account), and I know some authors lobby their fans to vote for them. So it’s more about popularity than some of the other literary awards. That’s not a bad thing, but it does mean that the awards don’t always go to the best book from a literary standpoint.
Charlie @ Girl of 1000 Wonders
The Book News this week is SO interesting! Let me just say for the record, Sweden knows where it’s at. Their education system and so many other things are significantly impacting their society and culture for the better. Makes me want to sign up for my dual citizenship…
Lark_Bookwyrm
Several of the northern European countries seem to have their act together in important ways. The Finnish education system is much better than ours, and Iceland is pretty amazing in a lot of ways. Too bad it’s so cold and dark in the winter in a lot of those countries! I like snow, but not the dark. 🙂