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
- Princeton alum bequeaths rare book collection worth $300 million to the university. The collection includes Shakespeare folios and a Gutenberg Bible, along with music manuscripts by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and others. Princeton’s Firestone Library has housed the collection since 1959, but the university now owns the materials outright. (Princeton.edu)
- Kindle Unlimited expands to Canada and Mexico. (GalleyCat)
- The #TwitterFictionFestival will run from May 11-15. participating authors include Margaret Atwood, JoJo Moyes, Lemony Snicket, Chuck Wendig, Jackie Collins, Katie McGarry, Ian Doescher, Kristan Higgans, and Sophie Jordan.
- JLo Movie Generates Interest in Rare Copies of The Iliad (GalleyCat)
- Indie Bookstores Fill Void Left By Borders (Publishers Weekly)
Worth Reading (or watching)
- Oliver Sacks on learning he has terminal cancer. The neurologist and author has written an essay on embracing life as death looms. (New York Times)
- Accidence Will Happen review – bad English is no hanging offense (Peter Contrad for The Guardian, on Oliver Kamm’s new book on the English language)
- A Brief History of YA (EpicReads). The video and text cover basically the same material, but it’s worth looking at both.
- Reading, Depression, and Me (Kelly Jensen, on BookRiot)
- The Very Best Policy Memo on Testing (Curmudgucation blog) Talks about whether testing should be driving education reform (nutshell answer: No.)
Philip Levine (photo by Jim Wilson)
Literary Losses
Poet Laureate Philip Levine died last week at the age of 87. Levine sought, through his poetry on the industrial working-class experience, to be “a voice for the voiceless.” In addition to writing and publishing over 20 volumes of poetry, Levine taught at colleges and universities around the country, from Ivy League institutions to state universities. (Obituaries: Los Angeles Times; NPR)
Book & Movie Announcements
- Unpublished manuscripts are popping up all over the place. There’s a new Dr. Seuss book coming in July: What Pet Should I Get? (Publishers Weekly)
- Announcing Tor.com’s Inaugural Novella List. Tor.com plans to publish 3 to 4 speculative fiction novellas or short novels per month.
- Susan Kearsley’s April book tour is coming to my town – and maybe yours!
- Archie Comics are drawing to a close… with issue #666. No, I’m not kidding. And then they’ll reboot the series with Archie #1, updating Archie and the gang to the current day. (GalleyCat)
Awesome Lists
- Where to Start with Feminist Genre Fiction (Book Riot)
- 18 Books Every Woman Should Read When She’s 18 (Bustle)
Really Cool / Just for Fun
- Humorously accurate shelf descriptions for bookstores. I’ve showed just one, but there are plenty more – check them out! (Bored Panda)
- Font Conference by CollegeHumor:
Bookish Quote
That’s it for this week!
anna (herding cats & burning soup)
LOL the shelf descriptions are too funny.
anna (herding cats & burning soup) recently posted…Must Reads (or rather Eats!)– The Tasty Delights NOT to be missed!
Lark_Bookwyrm
I wish I had had the nerve to do that when I worked in a bookstore – it would have given all of us employees a laugh!
Bea @Bea's Book Nook
A Twitter fiction festival? Interesting, and what’s with all of these manuscripts popping up everywhere? Odd.
Bea @Bea’s Book Nook recently posted…Sunday Book Share #129
Lark_Bookwyrm
Kimba remarked on the same thing. It’s weird, isn’t it?
kimbacaffeinate
Whose been hoarding all of these unpublished works? The bookshelf tags are hilarious! Thanks for sharing Lark!
kimbacaffeinate recently posted…Sunday Post #149- longing for my flip-flops
Lark_Bookwyrm
I know – first Harper Lee, now Dr. Suess. Next thing you know, someone will discover an unpublished Dickens novel or something! And those bookshelves made me laugh so hard…
Bookworm Brandee
Thanks for sharing this, Lark. I loved the shelf tags. 🙂 I went to check out the list of books a woman should read at 18. I’ve read quite a few of them but I’m going to be sure to check out Amy Poehler’s. And share it with my daughters, when they’re 18. 🙂
Bookworm Brandee recently posted…#2015HW, #ShelfLove Review ~ Breathe ~ Abbi Glines
Lark_Bookwyrm
I hadn’t read a bunch of them – but then, a lot of them came out well after I turned 18! 🙂