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
- Goodreads Asks Users to Help Combat ‘Review Bombing’ (Publishers Weekly; also Goodreads)
- Scholastic Backtracks on Book Fair Policy (Shelf Awareness)
- KKR Purchase of S&S Completed (Shelf Awareness)
Awards
- The 2023 Hugo Awards winners were announced at the 81st World Science Fiction, held this year in Chengdu, China. Nettle and Bone (T. Kingfisher) won the award for Best Novel in a strong field that included Legends and Lattes, The Spare Man, The Kaiju Preservation Society, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, and Nona The Ninth. Best Novela went to Where the Drowned Girls Go (Seanan McGuire), while “The Space-Time Painter” (Hai Ya) took Best Novelette. The Best Short Story award went to Samantha Mills’s “Rabbit Test.” Adrian Tchaikovsky’s series, The Children of Time, won Best Series. And the film Everything Everywhere All at Once beat out a strong field of contestants for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. The Lodestar Award for Best YA Book went to Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Woman, and Travis Baldree won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer in his first year of eligibility. You can check out all the finalists, as well as the awards for editors, ‘zines, related works, and fan artists, on the Hugo Awards website.
- Dagger awards adds categories for ‘cosy crime’ and psychological thrillers (The Guardian) The Daggers are awarded by the Crime Writers Association, an organization based in the UK.
Worth Reading/Viewing
- Library Board Adventuring, One Year In (SBTB) Crystal Anne talks from firsthand experience about serving on her library board, how her library and others are handling challenges to books, and what you can do to help your own library.
- How We Fight Back: Library workers and advocates are turning to new policies, lawsuits, and legislation to stem the tide of book bans (American Libraries magazine)
- How to Fight Book Bans and Challenges: An Anti-Censorship Tool Kit (Book Riot)
- Notes from Yale University’s Romance Conference (Elizabeth Held, for SBTB)
- What Does a Happy Ever After Look Like? The Pudding takes a look at the history of romance covers (particularly since 2000.)
NaNoWriMo-related
- Is tome. Your Secret To Finally Finishing Your Novel? Book Riot reviews an app for aspiring writers. (My take, after reading the review, is that I’m better off listening to the Writing Excuses podcast, which offers insights and advice on writing fantasy and science fiction from terrific authors… for free.)
Books, Movies, and TV
- On Stage: Neil Gaiman to Revive A Christmas Carol Performance (Shelf Awareness)
- How Isaac’s Reading List on Heartstopper Is Diversifying Booklists (Book Riot)
Writing Quote
In honor of NaNoWriMo, today’s quote is about writing, not reading.
Nicole @ BookWyrm Knits
I love that Pratchett writing quote!
My post today is also about the Hugo (and Ignyte) award winners. I was really please with some of the winners — you’re right, the finalist pool was very strong this year!
Nicole @ BookWyrm Knits recently posted…2023 Ignyte & Hugo Award Winners!
Lark_Bookwyrm
This was the first year in a while that I had actually read more than one of the Best Novel finalists (Legends & Lattes and The Spare Man.) Two more are on my TBR list, including the winner, Nettle and Bone, as well as Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society. I admit that I was rooting for The Spare Man because I’m a huge fan of Mary Robinette Kowal, but I would have been happy to see any of these win.