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
- Harper Lee tells persistent journalist to “Go away!” (Huffington Post)
- Children’s and YA Authors protest against the gendering of books. GalleyCat has a fairly good summary of the protest, which began with tweets by Shannon Hale after she visited a school where only the girls were allowed to meet with her. (GalleyCat)
- The Folger Library is sending Shakespeare’s First Folio on tour. to mark the 400th anniversary of his death. Every state gets one stop; find out where you can see it!
- Bookstores Try Beacons (Publishers Weekly)
- The Los Angeles Times 2014 Book Prize finalists were announced (LATimes)
- Elizabeth McCracken Wins 2014 Story Prize (Publishers Weekly)
- Pubslush Gives $10K Grant to NaNoWriMo for literacy initiatives. (GalleyCat)
- Neil Gaiman pays tribute to Douglas Adams at this year’s Douglas Adams lecture. (The Guardian)
- Poets & Writers announced the 2015 Barnes & Nobel Writers for Writers Award winners: Margaret Atwood, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, and Christopher Castellani. (Poets & Writers)
- Maya Angelou stamp revealed (U.S. Postal Service)
Worth Reading
- The word-hoard: Robert Macfarlane on rewilding our language of landscape (The Guardian)
- Gaudy Night – an essay by Dorothy Sayers on what is arguably her best novel, and on Lord Peter and Harriet Vane. If you enjoy the backstory of how an author developed a character or book, this is one to read. (on smoke&song)
- Scholastic’s report on Kids and Family Reading is out, and worth exploring. It’s presented largely in graphs. Among the takeaways: kids like being read to, even as they get older, and many wish their parents still read to them.
- The Young Lord Peter Consults Sherlock Holmes (another Dorothy Sayers piece, via Potentialities)
- Warren Adler offers a less-than-optimistic view of the future of publishing (GalleyCat)
- Jamie McGuire talks about why she returned to self-publishing (Smashwords)
Great Blog Posts
- What Makes a Good Book Title? (The Emerald City Book Review)
- [Making Bloggy Mistakes] Like a Book Blogger (Into the Hall of Books) We’ve all made them, haven’t we?
Freebies & Bargains
- Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate books are all on sale for Kindle for $2.99 each as of today. (Buy them separately; the box set is $2 more.)
Awesome Lists
- 12 Empowering Children’s Books to Add to Little Girls’ Bookshelves. Or any child’s bookshelves, really. (Bust)
Movie News
- Teaser Trailer for Mr. Holmes, starring Sir Ian McKellan as an elderly Holmes. (My apologies if it makes you watch an ad first!)
- Dragonriders of Pern Movie Lands a Writer (Hollywood Reporter)
- Luke Evans (Bard from the Hobbit movies) will play Gaston in Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast movie, and Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey will play the beast. (Variety)
Really Cool / Just for Fun
Bookish Quote
That’s it for this week!
Lory @ Emerald City Book Review
That story about schools sending only girls to Shannon Hale’s talk makes me so mad! But the girl book/boy book prejudice is amazingly persistent.
Lory @ Emerald City Book Review recently posted…New Release Review: Echo
Lark_Bookwyrm
It certainly is! And it makes me mad, too.
Bookworm Brandee
Great post, Lark. I loved the stylometry video on Shakespeare. I’m a proponent of Shakespeare being Shakespeare, myself. 😉 I also really enjoyed Into the Hall of Books’ post on blogging mistakes. I’m so glad I’m not the only one. 😉 Oh, and I adore the Anne Lamott quote. I hope you’re enjoying your weekend!
Bookworm Brandee recently posted…My TBR List ~ March ~ What Should I Read Next?
Lark_Bookwyrm
Thank you, Brandee! Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to these comments – almost a month (how embarrassing!) I’m glad you enjoyed these links – it was a good week for fun and interesting posts.
Bea @Bea's Book Nook
Only the girls were allowed to meet with the author? W.T.F? That is so disturbing.
Bea @Bea’s Book Nook recently posted…Sunday Book Share #131
Lark_Bookwyrm
Disturbing and infuriating. And it sends a really bad message to boys: that girls and books about girls aren’t worth paying attention to (except for, you know…) and don’t have any value.
anna (herding cats & burning soup)
Oh I love that quote. 😀
anna (herding cats & burning soup) recently posted…Guest Post w/ Sandy James– Yall I’d love for you to come check this out.
Lark_Bookwyrm
Yes, me too!
Jess@Fairday's Blog
So awesome to have all this information in one place! Lots of great things happening out in the blogging and book world. I adore that last quote. Love, love, love it! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Jess@Fairday’s Blog recently posted…Author Interview with Thanhha Lai
Lark_Bookwyrm
Glad you found it useful!