News & Notes – December 5, 2020

December 5, 2020 News & Notes 2

News & Notes: Coronavirus Edition


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

Worth Reading

‘Tis the Season

Lists

  • NPR’s Book Concierge now has books from 2013-2020.
  • The Guardian‘s Best Books of 2020, broken down by category.
  • 24 Best Historical Romances to Read (of all time) (O, The Oprah Magazine). The list offers more diversity than you would expect from historical romance: several LGBTQ+ novels, and several titles featuring Black, Latinx, and Chinese main characters. (I added a slew of titles to my to-read list!) And while I applaud that diversity, I will own my disagree with several of the editor’s choices here — not the authors represented, but which book is chosen for each. For instance, I would have picked Forbidden as my favorite Beverly Jenkins novel (and one of her best), The Devil in Winter or Mine Till Midnight over Devil’s Daughter for Lisa Kleypas, and for Julia Quinn, The Viscount Who Loved Me over The Duke and I (especially given the problematic issues surrounding consent in TD&I.) Don’t get me wrong: the listed books are good too; I just think my alternate picks are better. I am also dismayed that some authors were left off the list, Mary Balogh and Mary Jo Putney in particular.
  • Romances by Indigenous Authors (Rebekah Weatherspoon, Twitter)

2 Responses to “News & Notes – December 5, 2020”

  1. Berls

    I read Nancy Drew, but none of the others. I’m kinda curious about Judy Bolton now!

    Woo-hoo romance readers! Hoping to see Georgia turn the senate blue, but not too optimistic about it. *fingers crossed*

  2. Nicole @ BookWyrm Knits

    I don’t think I read any of the other girl sleuth books when I was a kid. None of them look familiar now, at any rate. (Though I did read a LOT of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys.)

    I put in a couple of bids for the Romancing the Runoff auction, but it quickly got too rich for my blood. I think it’s amazing what dedicated people can do for the right cause.
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