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
- To Kill a Mockingbird wins top spot in The Great American Read. The Outlander series, the Harry Potter series, Pride and Prejudice, and The Lord of the Rings series took the #2, 3, 4, and 5 spots respectively. You can see the full voting results on the Great American Read website. (PBS)
- A Russian Engineer in Antarctica Stabbed a Colleague for Spoiling His Books. The victim, another researcher at the tiny Bellingshausen science outpost on King George Island, is in critical condition but expected to live. (Quartz)
- How Do You Move A Bookstore? With A Human Chain, Book By Book (NPR) A Southampton bookstore got its customers to help it move down the street—in one day.
- California strikes deal with FCC to delay state net neutrality law (The Verge)
- Bram Stoker’s reference materials for Dracula discovered at the London Library— not just the titles but the actual copies. There’s a video made by the London Library that accompanies the article. (BoingBoing)
Worth Reading/Viewing
- American democracy is fracturing. Libraries say they know how to help (Quartz)
- Inside The Ever-Expanding Wizarding World: Harry Potter At 20 (NPR Books)
- Tamora Pierce: ‘Everybody thinks fantasy is so safe. Are you kidding?’ Alison Flood interviews the YA fantasy author whose books have influenced several generations of young women. (The Guardian)
- Th*nks for asterisks: the maligned punctuation enjoying Twitter revival: thoughts on bowdlerisation, punctuation, and unmentionable words. (The Guardian)
Free Fiction Online
- “The Little Tailor” by Stephanie Burgis . (Magical Realism) Burgis says of this story, “One of the first short stories of mine ever published, “The Little Tailor,” was written in memory of my great-grandfather Moshe Gerschfeld, who was a refugee from the Ukraine and the best storyteller I ever met. I still vividly remember him telling me and my little brother the story of the little tailor with fantastic, sweeping gestures and huge charisma, while my parents and great-grandmother talked politics on the other side of the room. This story (first published in 2005 and then republished in 2007) was my tribute to him.” (quote from Burgis’s Facebook page)
Book & Movie Announcements
- A Discovery of Witches WILL go on for seasons 2 and 3, Sky One announced this week. (Facebook) That means the entirety of the trilogy can be filmed.
Awesome Lists
- ‘NYTBR,’ NYPL Announce Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2018 (Publishers Weekly)
Bookish Quote
That’s it for this week!
Angela
That quote is so true! I checked out the list for the Great American Read – lots of classics, but lots of newer books, too, I was a little surprised but as long as people are reading!