Welcome to Check Your Shelf! This is your guide to all things book talk worth knowing to help librarians like you up your game when it comes to doing your job (& rocking it).
“Check Your Shelf” is sponsored by Book Riot’s 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2018 Giveaway.
We’re giving away ten of our favorite works of nonfiction of the year! Click here to enter.
Libraries and Librarians
- The Museum & Library Services Act stalls in the House.
- Carnegie Library (Pittsburgh) & Google team up for a laptop lending program.
- (TW) Amber Fawn Clark, a branch manager for the Sacramento Public Library, was murdered by a man who had been given a no-trespass order by the library for a previous incident. Reports from Missouri indicate that this person had a history of aggressive behavior towards library staff. On an editorial note, this is why we need to take library safety so much more seriously.
- Talking about self-care in LIS.
Book Adaptations in the News
- Marie Kondo is taking The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up to Netflix, and there’s a trailer.
- Amy Poehler’s production company just optioned The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai as a TV series.
- We may have a documentary about Claudia Kishi’s character from The Baby-Sitters Club coming our way!
- Paste Magazine gives us the most anticipated book-movie adaptations of 2019.
- Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark will be released on August 9th of next year.
Books in the News
- Cher announces a memoir for 2020, with a biopic to follow.
- Olivia Newton-John has an autobiography coming out in 2019.
- Alyssa Milano announces a children’s book with Scholastic in 2019.
- Alice Walker is facing criticism for recommending an antisemitic book in the New York Times.
- Publisher’s Weekly posts their Spring Adult Preview.
- Tracy Morgan is publishing a soul-food cookbook, and I want it.
By the Numbers
- AJ Finn is Kobo’s best-selling author of 2018.
Pop Cultured
- Penny Marshall, star of Laverne & Shirley and acclaimed director of Big and A League of Their Own, has passed away.
- True Detective Season 3 premieres January 13, 2019 on HBO. There’s a trailer, too!
- Apple has bought the rights to Peanuts and plans to make new shows featuring the characters.
All Things Comics
- Roxane Gay announces an upcoming crime graphic novel, The Banks, about three generations of black women who are also master thieves in Chicago. YES PLEASE I WANT IT NOW.
- Kelly Sue DeConnick & Matt Fraction signed a deal with Legendary Television.
- Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks have a YA graphic novel coming out August 27, 2019 called Pumpkinheads!
- (TW: sexual assault): Comics author Eric Esquivel has been accused of sexual assault.
Audiophilia
- The Guardian presents a list of the best audiobooks to listen to this Christmas.
Best Books of 2018
- San Francisco Chronicle
- Paste: Best Nonfiction
- Barnes & Noble: Best Horror
- CrimeReads: Best Psychological Thrillers
- EW: Best Romance
- Buzzfeed: Best YA
- Time: Best Fantasy
- Book Riot: Best Under-the-Radar Titles
- Book Riot: Best Mystery, Thriller, & True Crime (I have a couple picks on here!)
Book Lists, Book Lists, Book Lists
- The best backlist titles that Rioters read this year.
- Holiday mysteries for people who enjoy a little mistletoe with their murder.
- 10 food science books to change the way you eat.
- 10 controversial books to shake up your book group discussions.
- 26 powerful memoirs written by women.
- Get those orders ready…here are 51 new romance novels to look for in 2019!
- 20 of the best American family novels (from the post-Obama era).
- 12 children’s books for feminist girls and boys.
- 10 books by Latino authors you don’t want to miss this year.
- 22 Nutcracker-retellings for readers of all ages.
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
- Book Riot announces its bigger, badder book-tracking spreadsheet!
- Beginner’s primers for high fantasy and urban fantasy.
- Check out this pop-up bookshop in London that only sells diverse children’s books!
- Merriam-Webster announces its 2018 word of the year: “justice”
- A fantastic Harry Potter-themed engagement party for a couple who met at a Harry Potter trivia night two years ago.
- How “showrooming” (using physical stores to research future online purchases) is hurting the bookselling community.
- A beginner’s guide to Kindle Unlimited vs. Audible.
Level Up (Library Reads)
Do you take part in LibraryReads, the monthly list of best books selected by librarians only? We’ve made it easy for you to find eligible diverse titles to nominate. Kelly Jensen created a database of upcoming diverse books that anyone can edit, and Nora Rawlins of Early Word is doing the same, as well as including information about series, vendors, and publisher buzz.
Thanks for hanging out and I’ll see you again next week!
–Katie McLain, @kt_librarylady on Twitter. Currently reading Lethal White by Robert Galbraith.