Sorry, Dan Brown, you’re not welcome at the Oxfam Shop in Swansea. Oookay, that’s totally not true. I’m sure the shop’s employees and customers would love to meet the man himself, but they ask–they beg–please, stop giving them copies of The Da Vinci Code. The charity shop has been receiving an average of one copy of the book per week, resulting in a dearth of space for other books. The situation grew dire enough that the Oxfam posted a sign asking customers to stop it with the copies. Don’t worry, Oxfam. Next time I’m in the UK, I promise I won’t show up on your doorstep with The Da Vinci Code. But how about this copy of Fifty Shades of Grey?
Whatever your opinion of Amazon, it has undeniably become the online book buying destination. So when the retailer launched Amazon Charts, their first weekly bestseller list, the book world took note. Amazon Charts will include not only their top 20 bestsellers in fiction and nonfiction, but also the 20 most read books in both categories. The list is unconventional with a unique array of features, which you can see for yourself.
Lately, when I read the news I hear a desperate, shell-shocked voice in my head. It mutters, “But that can’t happen…right?” But when I learned about the ceasing of all library services in Oregon’s Douglas County where residents voted down a ballot measure that would have saved their libraries from a funding crisis, that voice went silent. It did happen, it does happen, it will happen when we don’t make libraries a priority; when we don’t stop to consider the important services they provide, and I’m not just talking about books. I hear an ominous voice and it says, “Anything can happen.”
Netflix’s adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, Anne with an E, was released last Friday, and I’ve watched them all. I was ready to curl up into a new version of the cozy story I’d loved so much as a kid (although, truly, Emily of New Moon was my jam), but where’s the cozy at, Netflix? I’m going to watch the next season when it’s out, but I can’t deny HuffPost’s conclusion that the show seems to revel in Anne’s pain. That opening sequence tho.
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Tender: Stories by Sofia Samatar, published in hardcover and ebook from Small Beer Press.
Sofia Samatar’s first novel won three awards. Now you can dive into twenty of her stories collected for the first time in Tender: Stories. Discover the “Ogres of East Africa” or read a student’s paper on the maybe-urban-legend-maybe-not “Walkdog.” Feel your heart break reading “Selkie Stories Are for Losers” and wonder who if anyone is telling the truth in “An Account of the Land of Witches.” Kirkus Reviews, in a starred review, said “These stories are windows into an impressively deep imagination guided by sensitivity, joyful intellect, and a graceful mastery of language.”