News & Notes – 6/27/2020

News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, and other cool stuff

Literary Losses

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, the award-winning and internationally-bestselling Spanish author whose books include The Shadow of the Wind, died on June 19, 2020. He was 55, and had been fighting colon cancer since 2018.

Obituaries and tributes: BBC; CNN; The Guardian; NPR; Shelf Awareness; Publisher’s Weekly . Bibliography and Biography: Goodreads; Wikipedia; author’s website

Bookish News

• Print Sales Enjoy an Unexpected High (Publishers Weekly) “The increase came from a combination of continued strong sales of books on racism and social justice, as well as from Father’s Day books.”
• Bolton Book Ban Blocked but Judge Says Advance Is ‘in Jeopardy’ (Shelf Awareness, based on NYT story)
• Two Carnegie Library Rare Book Thieves Get House Arrest, Probation (Shelf Awareness, based on NYT story) The sentence seems unusually lenient given the magnitude of the theft; the judge cited “concerns about incarcerating nonviolent offenders during the coronavirus pandemic.”
• British book wholesaler Bertram’s shutting down (The Bookseller) The firm is going into administration (bankruptcy), and its assets will be sold off.
• Authors quit JK Rowling agency over transgender rights (The Guardian)
• George R.R. Martin Gives Quick Update on Winds of Winter Progress (Tor.com)
• Patrick Rothfuss Partners With One Shot Podcast For New Kingkiller Chronicles Story (Tor.com)

Worth Reading/Viewing/Checking Out

(not all book-related)

• Reni Eddo-Lodge: ‘The debate on racism is a game to some and I don’t want to play’. The author of Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race talks with The Guardian‘s Nosheen Iqbal.
• Report: 2019 Diversity in Children’s and YA. Book Riot’s Jaime Herndon breaks down the recent report from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC). Tl;dr: There has been slight progress, but there’s still a long way to go.
• Parental Fear and Cultural Erasure: The Logic Behind Banning Books (Nancy Snyder, Book Riot) explores the impulses behind calls to ban books in school and public libraries, and argues against book bans.
• How to Start an Online Book Club from the Library (Jessica Pryde, Book Riot)
• Read Highlights From TorCon’s “A Whole Universe in Pages” Worldbuilding Panel
• Searching for Body Positivity in Fantasy (Rosamund Lannin, Tor.com)
• How Bookstores Are Coping: ‘More Deliberate Browsing’; A Store’s First Window Display Ever (Shelf Awareness)
• Why Does Everone Hate Comic Sans? (Yashvi Peeti, Book Riot)

Lists

• An Anti-Racist Children’s and YA Reading List (Publishers Weekly)

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