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
- HarperCollins to Acquire HMH Trade. (Publishers Weekly) Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are the publishers of Tolkien’s works and many other well-known books and franchises (The Little Prince, Curious George, Lois Lowry’s Giver quartet, The Color Purple…)
- New Grant Program Will Aid Indie Bookstores hit hard by the pandemic. (Publishers Weekly)
- The International Booker Prize longlist is out.
- #BookTok Videos ‘Starting to Influence Publishers and Bestseller Lists’ (Shelf Awareness)
- Library E-Book Bill Advancing in Maryland (Publishers Weekly)
Worth Reading/Viewing
- How Ramona Quimby Taught a Generation of Girls to Embrace Brashness (LitHub)
- Personal names in historical fiction (Seven Miles of Steel Thistles) Author and scholar Katherine Langish sets the record straight on Saxon and Norman names. If you are an author or reader of historical fiction set in the medieval period (or just love history for its own sake), this is an interesting and informative read, with useful links.
Lists
- The Best Spy Novels Written By Spies, According To a Spy (CrimeReads)
- Five YA Fantasies for Lovers of Libraries (Tor.com)