News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, and other cool stuff
Bookish News
- ChatGPT Owner Admits to Needing Copyrighted Material to Train Its AI Tools in a statement to UK lawmakers. (Book Riot)
- Print Book Sales Fell 2.6% in 2023 (Publishers Weekly)
- Judge Blocks Key Provisions of Iowa Book Banning Law. In another win for freedom-to-read activists, Judge Says Escambia County Book Banning Lawsuit Can Proceed (both articles from Publishers Weekly) (The combined articles are too long for me to summarize, but definitely worth reading.)
- North Carolina’s Firestorm Books Offers Free Books Banned in Florida (Publishers Weekly)
- Public libraries in Minnesota hit with a wave of bomb threats. (Book Riot) This comes after a similar wave in the Chicago area last summer.
- The Texas Library Association invited author Chuck Tingle to talk at their conference in April, then disinvited him when he refused to appear without his customary pink fabric mask. (Laredo Morning Times) The mask is essentially a bag which covers his entire head; it not only preserves the queer, autistic author’s anonymity but allows him to make public appearances without having to “mask” in the behavioral sense. (Psychologists use the term “masking” to mean suppressing neurodivergent behaviors like fidgeting or stimming.) In other words, for him, it’s a disability aid. The TLA has re-invited Tingle, but he says he will not accept. (See also Chuck Tingle’s statement on Patreon (very long), The Mary Sue’s opinion piece. and the TLA’s press statement.)
- Tor.com To Become Reactor, Debut New Site, On January 23rd. The online magazine’s new URL will be www.reactormag.com. According to the site’s announcement, “The site has been publisher agnostic since its founding, and the new name will reflect its independence from Tor Publishing Group. The short fiction program will continue under the Reactor name, and in addition to the daily commentary on science fiction, fantasy, and related subjects that readers have come to expect, the site will also now cover all aspects of genre, including horror, romance and and more, from a wide range of writers from all corners of the genre world, creating a true pop culture destination.” They have answered some FAQ here. Personally, I understand their desire to operate (and be seen to operate) separately from Tor Publishing Group, but I wish they whould maintain their focus on SF and fantasy. There are other sites that focus more broadly on pop culture, or on other genres. I worry that “Reactor” will end up diluting their focus and coverage of SFF, which up until now has been excellent.
- OverDrive: Record Number of Libraries Hit One Million Digital Lends in 2023 (Publishers Weekly) “The 152 public libraries hitting the milestone are based in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.”
- Santa Fe, N.Mex. Bookstore ‘for Sale’ (for Free) Finds ‘Buyer’ (Shelf Awareness) The bookstore is Book Mountain, and I’ve shopped there on a number of occasions, so I’m delighted to hear that it will continue. Also, how awesome is it that the owner (elderly and in failing health) chose to give the bookstore away to the best candidate, instead of selling to the highest bidder?
Worth Reading/Viewing
- Librarian faced spate of insults. Thousands of people came to his defense. (Washington Post; paywall possible) Let me just start by saying that Mychal Threets is an absolute ray of sunshine in an often dark world. The supervising librarian at a library in California, Mychal shares stories on Instagram of his encounters with children and adults in the library—encounters in which he expresses his delight that people have come to the library, that people are always welcome there, that the library is a safe and welcoming place. Mychal beams with enthusiasm; his words tumble out quickly; his whole countenance shines with love for the library, the books, the patrons. I can never watch or read one of his posts without smiling (though once in a while, I tear up, too.) Well, recently someone decided that Mychal was too “weird,” and said so on X-formerly-Twitter. The post went viral and a bunch of people jumped on to say nasty things about Mychael’s “appearance, voice and mannerisms”…. whereupon far more people responded with support for Mychal and rebukes for his critics, and basically shut them down. (Full disclosure: I’m mostly avoiding X these days, but I did thank Mychal for his enthusiasm and compassion by commenting on one of his Instagram posts.) Anyway, do yourself a favor and check out Mychal’s Instagram. He is also on TikTock, and you can find some of his videos on YouTube.
- Book Banning Will Not Stop at Schools: Book Censorship News, January 12, 2024 (Kelly Jensen, Book Riot) I put this here rather than under “Book News,” because it’s a sobering opinion piece backed up by data. There’s also an extensive list of links to recent book-banning news at the bottom of the article. (“Book Censorship News” is a regular Book Riot column.)
- Public libraries reveal their most borrowed books of 2023 (with lots of links to various libraries’ lists)
- Is Reimagining History Through Biofiction Ethical? (Jeffrey Davies, Book Riot) TL;DR: It’s complicated.
Reading Challenges to Check Out
- 2024 Audiobook Challenge: Listen to audiobooks; choose a goal level
- Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge 2024: 24 prompts across a variety of genres and themes
- COYER Unwind 2024: COYER started as a challenge to read your ebooks, but has grown into a set of reading challenges across the year, and a community of readers.
- Diversity Reading Challenge 2024: Read books by diverse authors and/or with diverse characters
- Goodreads Reading Challenge: set your own numeric goal; no prompts
- Library Love Challenge 2024: Read or listen to library books; choose a goal level
- Netgalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2024: read your ARCs (new ones as well as older ones you never got around to)
- Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2024: 52 prompts across a variety of genres and themes
- The Backlist Reader Challenge 2024: read books that have been on your TBR list for a long time (full disclosure: I host this one)
And if those aren’t enough challenges for you, check out these master lists:
- The Biggest Round Up of 2024 Reading Challenges (Chapter Adventure – a new blog by the former GirlXOXOXO)
- 2024 Reading Challenges: The Ultimate List (The Candid Cover)
Books, Movies, and TV
- The Ranger’s Apprentice Series is Getting a Film Adaptation (Book Riot) The popular MG/YA series by John Flanagan comprises 19 books. Film rights have been picked up by Skydance. This will be the third attempt to adapt the series; Warner Bros. bought the rights in 2008 but never made a movie, and a series adaptation announced in 2019 was derailed by COVID-19.
Book Lists
- 20 of the Best Fantasy Books of 2023 (Book Riot) It’s a good roundup! I loved the first Emily Wilde book. I got two of the remaining titles for Christmas, and at least 6 are already on my TBR list.
- 8 of the Best Historical Fiction of 2023 (Book Riot)
- The 12 Most Popular Romantasy Books on TikTok (Book Riot)
Bookish Quote
Nicole @ BookWyrm Knits
That’s a great book quote to end with!
I’ve been a little concerned about the Tor.com > Reactor news as well, mostly because Tor.com has such a BIG NAME that I wonder how well I (and others) will remember about the switch? I hadn’t read their full announcement of the change, but it does make me wonder how/if they’re planning to change their content with the new name. Do they consider their existing articles “pop culture” for example? I’ve enjoyed several of the essay columns they have featured for a while now. Are those the “pop culture” part or are they planning on going even further in that direction?
Nicole @ BookWyrm Knits recently posted…2023 Reading Wrap-Up
Lark_Bookwyrm
I gather they plan to go further in that direction, and further in covering other genres, but they intend to maintain the high standards for SF & fantasy coverage (including essays and fiction) that they have now. It remains to see whether they can do it. TBH, the site probably should have differentiated itself from Tor Publishing a long time ago, because it is confusing. But like you, I’m not sure how well the rebranding will go at this point, with their readers so trained to think of them as Tor.com.