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
- Midnight Ink to close doors in August 2019, after its Spring/Summer 2019 season. (Publishers Weekly) Pam Stack of Authors on the Air posted the press release on her Facebook page. Editor Terri Bishoff posted about the closure on her Facebook page; it appears her post has been removed (or at least, I couldn’t find it), but Readers Entertainment Magazine quoted it here. The news has hit the cozy mystery fandom hard, and is devastating to the many authors affected by the closure.
- PEN America sues President Trump “to stop President Trump from using the machinery of government to retaliate or threaten reprisals against journalists and media outlets for coverage he dislikes.” (PEN America)
- The 2018 Man Booker Prize was awarded to Anna Burns for Milkman. She is the first Northern Irish writer to win the prize. (Additional articles: The Guardian, Publishers Weekly)
- Penguin Random House (PRH) is merging Random House and the Crown Publishing Group (Shelf Awareness)
Worth Reading/Viewing
- The Underrated 90-Second Newbery Film Festival (Book Riot) Children create short-short films of Newbery award winners.
- A Century of Reading: The Books That Defined the 1940s is part of a series by Literary Hub on the defining books of past decades. Chances are you’ve read at least a few of the books discussed here; I guarantee you’ve heard of almost of them.
Awesome Lists
- 13 Horror Reads for the Squeamish (Book Riot) I’d call some of these spooky or creepy rather than horror. I don’t do horror, and I would happily read at least half of these books.
- 10 Speed Reading Apps to Help You Tackle Your TBR (Book Riot)
Bookish Quote
That’s it for this week!
Nicole
Yeah, I don’t usually do “horror” books either, but “creepy” are okay. It’s sometimes hard to determine what a book is going to be before I pick it up, though.
I don’t know if I’ve read any Midnight Ink books yet, but I want to read A Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum Mystery which I saw was on their backlist. Sad to hear that the imprint is closing.
Nicole recently posted…Party Post Part 3 ~ the Night Circus
Lark_Bookwyrm
It’s funny; I can handly atmospherically spooky or creepy, but not too scary/spooky/creepy, and definitely not too graphic—and it all has to turn out all right in the end.
It’s really sad about Midnight Ink. They published some wonderful series. Luckily, Crooked Lane is still around doing cozy mysteries (and other subgenres.)Kensington publishes cozies as well.