Literary Losses
The fantasy world is mourning the death of Christopher Tolkien, son of J. R. R. Tolkien and steward of Tolkien’s literary legacy. Christopher died on January 15, 2020, at the age of 95.
I published a brief tribute yesterday, with links to a number of obituaries and tributes.
Bookish News
- Romance Writers Of America Leadership Resigns (NPR)
- In Filing, Former B&N CEO Claims Malicious Firing Destroyed His Career (Publishers Weekly)
- Booksellers Launch Certification Program (Publishers Weekly)
- ‘Crawdads’ Takes the Triple Crown for 2019, selling the most print books, ebooks, and audiobooks “at outlets that report to NPD BookScan.” (Publishers Weekly)
Worth Reading/Viewing
- Where Does RWA Go From Here? Sarah at SBTB discusses recent (as of Jan. 10) developments in the RWA debacle (Damon Suede has resigned as president, as has Executive Director Carol Ritter; all major publishers have pulled out of RWA Nationals) and talks about the problematic future of RWA. (Smart Bitches Trashy Books)
- Asimov’s Empire, Asimov’s Wall. Alec Nevala-Lee tackles the thorny issue of Isaac Asimov’s legacy, both as a writer of SF and popular science, and as a well-known sexual harrasser. While the piece is good, I couldn’t help feeling that it should have been written by a woman — particularly from that generation of women SFF writers who had to succeed without Asimov’s mentorship or imprimatur because they found it safer to avoid him. (PublicBooks.org)
- The Crack Squad of Librarians Who Track Down Half-Forgotten Books (Atlas Obscura)
Awesome Lists
Bookish Quote
Bea
I love that quote. I was sorry to hear about Christopher Tolkien. Great job with the link roundup!
Lark_Bookwyrm
Thank you! I cried over some of the tributes to Christopher Tolkien. We owe him a huge debt of gratitude. Without him, all that material could have been thrown out, or locked in Oxford’s archives and only available to scholars.