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
- AS Byatt, author and critic, dies aged 87 (The Guardian)*
- The National Book Award winners were announced on Nov. 15, 2023. (Shelf Awareness)
- National Book Awards: finalists use ceremony to call for Israel-Hamas ceasefire after sponsors pull out (The Guardian)
- Goodreads Awards Category Removal Sparks Outcry. Goodreads eliminated the categories for Children’s & Middle Grade, Poetry, and Graphic Novels, but added Romantasy. (Publishers Weekly)
- Controversy Surrounds Tillie Cole’s “Darkness Embraced” Novel on BookTok (Read More CO); there’s also an article on Centennial.
*NOTE: I usually pull together an obituary and provide several links, but I don’t have time this week.
Worth Reading/Viewing
- ‘It is a beast that needs to be tamed’: leading novelists on how AI could rewrite the future (The Guardian)
- What Makes A Knight: The Continuing Influence of Alanna of Trebond (Esme Symes-Smith, Tor.com) An examination of identity, standing up for what’s right, queer representation in the Song of the Lioness quartet (and Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books more broadly.)
- How TikTok Has Transformed Romance Publishing (Publishers Weekly)
Free Fiction Online
- “Some Ways to Retell a Fairy Tale” (Kathleen Jennings, Tor.com) This is really more of a poem than a story, but as an aspiring writer, I loved the way it looks at a myriad of ways to retell and play with fairytales… and they way the poem itself plays with words, with images, with bits and pieces of familiar tales.
Books, Movies, and TV
- The official Percy Jackson trailer is out, and it looks awesome! I can hardly wait! (But I guess I’ll have to sign up for Disney+.) (The teaser trailer is pretty great, too.)
- Where to Buy Books Online After Book Depository’s Closure: 7+ Alternative Sites You Need to Know (Books Are My Third Place)
- Best Disability Books of 2023 (Book Riot)
Cool, Fun, and Awesome
- Gift Guide 2023: Bookish Personalized Gifts! Customizable book stack mugs and posters, library stamps, and even miniature book collections. (Collected by SBTB. Make sure you read the comments; there are a few more good suggestions there.)
Anne - Books of My Heart
You always find some interesting items.
Anne – Books of My Heart recently posted…🎧 Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros @RebeccaYarros @rsolervo @TEDDYHAMILTON14 @recordedbooks #LoveAudiobooks
Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits
Customizable bookish gifts? That sounds fun!
And the Goodreads Choice Awards just made me mad this year. I had noticed that the MG and graphic novel categories were gone, but in my anger over those I missed that they also got rid of poetry. I’m even more convinced that leaving GR entirely is what I want to do now, but I know reviews there still help the authors. So… I’ll keep leaving reviews. But I really dislike what that site has become.
Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits recently posted…Author Spotlight ~ Drew Hayes
Lark_Bookwyrm
Also, the books in the Goodreads Choice Romance category are incredibly white and hetero this year (with a very few exceptions.) And there wasn’t a single historical on the list. I suspect both are a direct result of BookTok’s influence. The books I’m seeing on Instagram from the romance accounts I follow are more diverse in terms of subgenre as well as main character demographics.