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
- The 2017 Nebula Award winners were announced in May. Peter S. Beagle was honored as a Grand Master. N.K. Jemison’s The Stone Sky won Best Novel; Best Novella went to All Systems Red by Martha Wells. Best Novelette and Short Story went to works by Kelly Robson and Rebecca Roanhorse, respectively. The Ray Bradbury Award for dramatic presentation was awarded to the film Get Out by Jordan Peele, and Sam J. Miller’s The Art of Starving won the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. You can find buy links and links to excerpts or full stories (where applicable) on the SFWA’s Nebula Awards website.
- B&N CEO Len Riggio at BookExpo: Bookselling Not a ‘Zero-Sum Game’ (Shelf Awareness)
- #cockygate continues to roll on. Kevin Kneupper posted a thread of the latest legal documents. He’s a writer and retired lawyer who has been following this situation and is challenging the granting of the trademark.
Literary Losses
Philip Roth, bestselling author of Portnoy’s Complaint, Goodbye Columbus, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Pastoral as well as a number of other novels, died May 22, 2018 at the age of 85. His novels were controversial, drawing fire from various groups for the misogyny of some of his male protagonists, for the explicitness of Portnoy’s Complaint, and for his perceived attitude toward Judaism (Roth was Jewish.) Nonetheless, he was reckoned as a literary powerhouse: in addition to the Pulitzer Prize, his works garnered three PEN/Faulkner Awards for Fiction, two National Book Awards, and two National Book Critics Circle Awards. In his last decade, Roth received both a National Medal of Honor (U.S.) and the Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement in fiction.
Obituaries and tributes: BBC; The Guardian; NPR; Vogue
Bibliography and Biography: Goodreads; Wikipedia
Worth Reading/Viewing
- BookExpo 2018: Will Trump Make Copyright Great Again? (Publishers Weekly)
- Courtney Milan likens writing to dog training, where the writer is both trainer and dog. Turns out to be a very useful comparison. (This is a Twitter thread.)
This Week’s Free SYNC Audio Titles
- Love at First Sight by Josh Sundquist, Narrated by Pat Young (Hachette Audio)
- Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider, Narrated by Khristine Hvam and James Fouhey (HarperAudio)
Awesome Lists
- The 10 Best Mystery Authors of All Time (Book Riot)
- Time Travel Romances Beyond Outlander (Book Riot)
Katherine @ I Wish I Lived in a Library
I was going to hit the roof if Agatha Christie wasn’t on the list but luckily she was though I think she could have been higher up. I was sad to hear about Phillip Roth. The #cockygate is crazy and I’ve been trying to follow the story the best I could.
Lark_Bookwyrm
I don’t think they could leave Christie off any “best mystery” list. For one thing, it’s hard to beat her for sheer inventiveness. I don’t know if she was the first to employ a surprise ending, but she certainly was one of the earliest and best to make use of it. For another thing, she was prolific and has remained hugely popular—probably the best-known mystery author after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I love her books, and often reread my favorites. 🙂
Nicole
I didn’t know Somewhere In Time was a book before it was a movie! I am so going to have to read that one. 🙂
Also, I’m not sure I can take any list seriously that considers J.K. Rowling a great mystery writer. One of the “10 Best Mystery Authors of All Time”? Um, no.
Nicole recently posted…You Come Too ~ two of my favorite Robert Frost poems
Lark_Bookwyrm
That one had me wondering, too. Though the author is right that many of the HP books are mysteries as well as terrific fantasy. But I think the post author’s fondness for Rowling had a lot to do with that particular choice.