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
- Tracy K. Smith Named U.S. Poet Laureate (NPR’s Morning Edition) The poet calls poems her “anchor,” according to NPR’s The Two-Way. Smith’s 2011 collection, Life on Mars, won the Pulitzer Prize.
- Israeli author David Grossman wins Man Booker International prize (The Guardian)
- Amazon is buying…Whole Foods? Yup. (Amazon press release)
- Milkweed Unveils Lit Prize Honoring Young Poet (Publishers Weekly) The prize honors Max Ritvo, whose debut collection was published posthumously in 2016.
- This year’s Women’s National Book Association Awards go to novelist/poet/bookseller Louise Erdrich and Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. (Publishers Weekly)
Worth Reading/Listening To
- What Makes A Good Whodunit? ‘Magpie Murders’ Author Spells It Out (NPR’s All Things Considered) Anthony Horowitz, the creator of the Foyle’s War and Midsomer Murders television series, and the author of two officially-sanctioned Sherlock Holmes novels as well as the Alex Rider series of YA espionage thrillers, talks about mysteries — writing them and reading them.
- Selling controversial books (Shelf Awareness)
- In Defense of Happily Ever After: Nalini Singh on Hope, Love, and ‘Realistic’ Endings (Goodreads blog)
- Can Instagram Keep People Reading Books? (Forbes)
- Podcasts And Audiobooks Reach Out To A New Audience: Children (NPR News) This was interesting for the information on podcasts. But as someone whose child started listening to audiobooks on cassette tape about 18 or 19 years ago, and given their popularity since the Harry Potter books came out, I have a hard time understanding how the reporter could see them as a new phenomenon.
Awesome Lists
- Books To Read If You Like Wonder Woman (Book Riot)
- 10 Things To Read When You’re Grieving (PBS NewsHour)
- 100 Must-Read Books Set In London (Book Riot)
Really Cool / Just for Fun
- Try to guess these 35 book titles from a one-sentence summary. (How Stuff Works) It’s not very hard; I got them all.
Bookish Quote
Rita @ Paging Through Books
Ha, that quiz! I hadn’t read many of these titles, but obviously as a bibliophile I knew of so many. I got 33/35, missed two on classics because I don’t pretend to be a personal fan of them (just me!)
…and as I tell my husband all the time when we watch the news, “Jeff Bezos controls the world” and then he says, “wait, who?”.
I do like the convenience of Amazon Prime and have been using the site almost since its inception when it wasn’t well-known. But…. wow, with his power and money, who knows what he will do next? He owns The Washington Post now, by the way. Let’s hope he doesn’t forget to concentrate on his original item, books! They have a bricks and mortar Amazon shop in San Diego, within driving distance of me, but I don’t have a burning desire to see it, except perhaps for curiosity’s sake.
Rita @ Paging Through Books recently posted…Weekly Book News
Lark_Bookwyrm
I’m starting to think Amazon wants to take over the world LOL! Re the quiz, I got all of them right, not because I’ve read them all but because I used to teach, and before that I worked in a bookstore, so either I knew enough about a title to identify it, or I could rule out the other three choices!