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
- Copyright claim against Tolkien estate backfires on Lord of the Rings fanfiction author (The Guardian)
- First-time author loses book deal for ‘review bombing’ authors on Goodreads (Washington Post [paywall possible]) Similar stories at The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, and Time magazine. See also NPR’s article, Goodreads has a ‘review bombing’ problem — and wants its users to help solve it.
- Hoover, Yarros Top OverDrive’s List of Most Borrowed E-books for 2023 (Publishers Weekly)
- To fight so-called book bans, some states are threatening to withhold funding (NPR)
Worth Reading
- ‘It’s totally unhinged’: is the book world turning against Goodreads? (The Guardian)
- Reading print improves comprehension far more than looking at digital text, say researchers (The Guardian) There are a few problems with this article… and this study. First of all, it’s an aggregate study, not primary research. More importantly, they don’t seem to be talking about reading digital books as much as they’re talking about reading social media or sites like Wikipedia — in other words, reading on devices where you are likely to be distracted by ads or encouraged by the app’s design to scroll through quickly. I know I read differently on, say, Instagram or Facebook on my phone than I do when I’m reading an actual book on my (e-ink) Kindle, with no built-in distractors and no need to scroll. I would really like to see some hands-on studies on reading comprehension for print vs. print-like e-readers.
- The lives upended by Florida’s school book wars (Washington Post, and really worth reading, if you haven’t used up your free articles for the month)
Book Lists
- NPR’s Book Concierge is back for 2023, and they’ve got some terrific books to show you.
- Eight Fantasies About the Joys of Bread and Baking (Tor.com) With links to recipes!
Bookish Quote
