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
- The Hugo Awards finalists for 2016 have been announced. The Sad and Rabid Puppies managed to influence some of the categories pretty heavily, but the major categories (Best Novel, Best Novella, and both Best Dramatic Presentations) contain plenty of more general favorites. For perspective on the Sad/Rabid Puppies campaigns, see John Scalzi’s article in the Los Angeles Times. For a brief history of the Sad & Rabid Puppies and their (successful)
attempts to influence the Hugos, see David Barnett’s article in The Guardian. - The 2016 Edgar Awards were announced at the annual Edgars dinner on April 28. (Edgar Awards website) This years nominees and winners were more diverse than in past years. (Publishers Weekly)
- Harper Lee’s article for FBI magazine on infamous killings found(The Guardian)
- Barnes & Noble founder and chairman retires (Publishers Weekly)
- Amazon posts $1 billion profit in first quarter of 2016 (Publishers Weekly)
Worth Reading
- Bowie, Prince, and a note to (baffled) Millenials (novelist A.J. Hartley’s blog)
- “Quoting Shakespeare” by Bernard Levin. Don’t miss this poem made almost entirely of phrases from Shakespeare, delightfully declaimed by comedian and actor Rob Brydon. (The Telegraph) Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to embed it, so you’ll have to go to the site to watch it.
- If YA Books Were Musicals (Writer of Wrongs blog). She’s got playbills and even suggested songs for musicals of a bunch of popular YA novels. Personally, I’m voting for the Uprooted musical, but I think the Raven Boys musical would be pretty awesome, too.
For Writers & Bloggers
- How Book Blogging Has Changed Me as a Reader (Jen at Starry-Eyed Revue)
- Camp NaNoWriMo: My Writing Sucks. Molly from Molly’s BookNook reminds writers you shouldn’t feel like your writing sucks, especially during a first draft.
- How To Organize Your Goodreads Shelves (Second Run Reviews)
- Let’s Talk About Genres (Greg at Book Haven) Or more specifically, genres and blogging.
Book & Movie Announcements
- SYNC starts on May 5. Check out this summer’s free audiobooks, and mark your favorites on your calendar, so you don’t miss any. Remember, each pairing is only downloadable for a week!
- Charlie at Girl of 1000 Wonders has put together a list, with links, of all the free audiobooks available this summer through the SYNC program. I was planning to do that post myself, but why duplicate it when hers is so well-put-together?
- Andy Weir shared details of his next novel and talked about the future of space in an interview with Smithsonian magazine. Weir catapulted to success with his first novel, The Martian, which he self-published before it was picked up by Crown Publishing Group’s Broadway Books.
Awesome Lists
- What Would Your Favorite Game of Thrones Characters Read? (Lawrence Public Library’s tumblr)
- Modern Retellings of Shakespeare for Every Reader (BookRiot) This is going to be dangerous for my TBR list.
- 8 Unapologetically Meta SF/F Novels (Barnes & Noble’s ‘Sci-Fi & Fantasy’ blog)
Really Cool / Just for Fun
This recreation of the Game of Thrones opening sequence is done with over 7,600 paper cut-outs. It was produced by Italian firm Dadoman for Moleskine, the journal company. (via GalleyCat)
Bookmarks by CoolBookMark on Etsy
Bookish Quote
That’s it for this week!
Terri M
Thank you so much for linking to my GoodReads post!
I love the bookmarks. A cat owner I can appreciate that one the most.
Terri M recently posted…Introducing Eric Matheny, author | In the Spotlight Interview
Lark_Bookwyrm
You’re welcome! It’s a great post. 🙂