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
- New Marvel comic reveals Captain America has been a secret Hydra agent all along (TIME magazine)—and the Internet erupts in vociferous (and often humorous) protest. (Hypable) If this is for real (or as real as it ever gets in the Marvel Universe), I’m firmly in agreement with the #SayNoToHYDRACap crowd; my Steve Rogers is not and could never be a Hydra agent. But as some fans have pointed out, this is the first book in a 4-book (I think) series, and the reveal came on the last page. Which means that there are three more books in which to explain or (hopefully) reveal that he’s not really Hydra, but pretending to be for reasons as yet unknown.
- Library of Congress has new online archive of poets reading their own work, going back to 1943. (GalleyCat, with link to LoC archive) I plan to introduce Robin to it, since she love poetry.
- Twitter “to stop counting photos and links in character limit”, letting your tweets be a little longer. (BBC News)
- Seattle tops Amazon’s list of most well-read cities for the second year in a row. The rankings are based on per-capita sales. You can see the entire list of cities at the link. (Business Week)
- An Iranian judge is sentencing criminals to buy and read books. (BBC)
- Comixology Launches Subscription Access to Digital Comics. The comics are primarily independent, not from the major comic book publishers. (GalleyCat)
Literary Losses
Best-selling historical romance author Jo Beverley passed away May 23, 2016, of cancer. Beverley was best known for her Company of Rogues novels, set in the Regency era, and for the Georgian-era Mallorens series. (See all Jo’s titles here.)
Mary Jo Putney and Jo Beverley’s other sisters at the Word Wenches blog have posted a moving tribute. (Image source: Word Wenches blog)
Worth Reading/Watching
- Is Patreon the Way Forward for Publishing? (BookRiot) Patreon is a crowdfunding model that helps artists secure monthly funding—essentially a modern form of patronage—to enable them to focus more time on their art rather than on maintaining a full-time day job.
- Middle Grade Books Take On Mature Topics (Sue Corbett, Publishers Weekly)
Book & Movie Announcements
- Doesn’t this picture book look interesting? The trailer for A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers & Sam Winston, via YouTube.
- Cassandra Clare signs 3-book deal for adult fiction series featuring Magnus Bane. The series will be written with SF author Wesley Chu. (GalleyCat)
Awesome Lists
- A Muggle’s Guide to Harry Potter Locations offers (via infographic) a list of some of the film locations that you can actually visit. (Darwin Escapes)
- 41+ Of Your Favorite Time Travel Books (BookRiot) There are some good ones on this list, including Bee Ridgway’s The River of No Return… which reminds me that I’m due for a re-read.
- 100 Must-Read Books About Mental Illness (BookRiot) May is (or was) Mental Health Awareness Month, so here are a plethora of fiction and nonfiction books about mental illness of various types.
- 12 Things Every Book-Lover Has Said To Their Friends (Bustle) Yup, pretty much all of them.
Really Cool / Just for Fun
Bookish Quote
That’s all for this week!
