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
- The 2015 Puliter Prize list is out. All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr) won the fiction prize.
- The 2015 PEN Literary Awards Shortlist is out, too.
- The CBC and unPrison team up to bring children’s books to women’s prisons so incarcerated women can read to (and bond with) their children. (Bustle)
- Judge Denies Publishers Bid for New Evidence in GSU Copyright Case (Publishers Weekly)
- Banned Books Week will focus on YA in 2015 (Banned Books Week)
- First Bookstore Dedicated to Self-Published Authors Opens in Florida (Publishers Weekly)
- Kids will now get Simon & Schuster ebooks in their Cheerios boxes (Digital Book World)
- Quebec school driver tells girl she can’t read on bus because it’s dangerous. Wottheheck?! (CBC News Montreal)
- Children’s books are doing well, but diversity still needed, and more news from the ABA’s recent Children’s Institute conference. (Publishers Weekly)
- Children’s Book Week runs May 4-10
Worth Reading
- How to Become a Better Reader in 10 Steps (Gretchen Rubin, for Publishers Weekly). Good tips, although I had to laugh when she said her to-read list is 194 books. Mine is over 1000 and climbing…
- Ann Patchett: Owning a bookstore means you always get to tell people what to read (in the nicest way) (Washington Post)
- Nabokov on what makes a good reader (hint – only #7-10) (Brain Pickings)
- Spring Cleaning (and Organizing!) Your Bookshelves (Jesse Doogan, for BookRiot)
Book & Movie Announcements
- Robert Galbraith (aka J. K. Rowling) has a third mystery coming out this fall. It’s called Career of Evil.
- Here’s the Disney movie schedule for the next two years or so (including Pixar, Marvel, and LucasFilms)
- Warner Bros. buys rights to The Selection after the CW dropped plans for a TV series. (Deadline)
- MASTERPIECE has optioned Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things (press release)
- The Little Prince movie trailer is out (in English). No word yet on a US release date.
Freebies & Bargains
Awesome Lists
- Stereotype-busting Women in Historical Fiction (Anna Freeman, for Huffington Post)
Really Cool / Just for Fun
- The Fictionary app lets you add series-specific dictionaries of fictional people, places, and terms to your Kindle, iOS Kindle app, and some Android ePub apps. (Doesn’t work on Kindle Fire, though.) And it’s spoiler-free! The selection of fictionaries is limited so far, but still includes some well-known authors’s works: G.R.R. Martin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, Stephen King, Jane Austen, Victor Hugo. . . and if your favorite series isn’t listed, you can request it and they’ll try to make one. What a great idea!
Bookish Quote
That’s it for this week!
Selah @ A Bibliophile's Style
The ebooks from Cheerios is fun! A few years back they had tiny picture books in each box. I still have all of them. 🙂 I keep them, along with small picture books from Chik-Fil-A kids’ meals, in my car so my kids always have something to read.
Selah @ A Bibliophile’s Style recently posted…Reading My Library Challenge Scavenger Hunt
Lark_Bookwyrm
I agree that it’s a fun idea. But heck, if they can do that, then why (as BookRiot pointed out on Tumblr) can’t publishers bundle an ebook code in physical books?
Lark_Bookwyrm recently posted…News & Notes – 4/25/14
Selah @ A Bibliophile's Style
They should! I always buy Blu-Rays with a digital code. I’m even willing to pay a bit more for them. It might be tricky to figure out the packaging, but I’m sure it could be done.
Selah @ A Bibliophile’s Style recently posted…Reading My Library Challenge Scavenger Hunt
Lark_Bookwyrm
Yes – shrinkwrapped with a card inside, perhaps.
Lory @ Emerald City Book Review
That is too crazy about the bus driver. Seems a case of just exerting authority for its own sake.
Lory @ Emerald City Book Review recently posted…Elizabeth Goudge Reading Week: The Scent of Water (Guest post)
Lark_Bookwyrm
It’s absolutely ridiculous. The stated reasons are 1) that other students might stand up to see what she’s reading (then make standing up against the rules, and enforce that) and 2) that she might injure her eye on a corner of the book if they hit a bump or something (as though there aren’t plenty of other things kids could be injured by if a bus bounced severely or was in an accident.)
Lark_Bookwyrm recently posted…News & Notes – 4/25/14
holdenj
Great price for some Louise Penny books!!
Lark_Bookwyrm
I know! I’m tempted to buy the whole series, but not having read any, I’m not sure if I’ll like them, so I just got the first one.
hop
They are fantastic. I wait patiently every year for the new one. Great sense of place and eclectic group of characters.
Lark_Bookwyrm
That’s good to know – thank you! Maybe I’ll pick up a few more. 🙂
kimbacaffeinate
WE will have to celebrate children’s book week. My little granddaughter loves reading time. I am determined to make her a book addict.
kimbacaffeinate recently posted…Llama Llama Time to Share by Anna Dewdney
Lark_Bookwyrm
You’re off to a great start! I started reading to Robin when she was just a few months old, and never really stopped.