Barnes & Noble Did What Now?!
The importance of inclusivity is to acknowledge that people of color/marginalized voices are equal and worthy voices. B&N and Penguin Random House missed this message and decided inclusivity means reprinting classic books with people of color on the covers. The stories, many racist, aren’t changing, making this very ill advised window dressing at best. Why not spend that time/money/energy on promoting modern books inspired by classics written by authors of color/marginalized voices? Books such as A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney; Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi; A Summer for Scandal by Lydia San Andres; Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin; The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore. Update: Barnes & Noble cancelled the event for these books and here’s their statement.
650+ Japanese Illustrated Books Online
The Metropolitan Museum of Art now has 650+ eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese illustrated books digitized! Many of the works are by ukiyo-e artists, but there are also various schools of Japanese art represented. This is what the internet was invented for.
Patti Smith Helps Burgled Bookstore
Singer-songwriter, author, and poet Patti Smith heard about Portland’s Passages bookshop in Oregon being vandalized and robbed and offered to help. It took a bit for the owner to realize who it was on the phone: “In the week after the story appeared, I’d gotten a few crank calls and emails, so I was a little wary. But when she said she had read that one of her books had been taken, and that she couldn’t replace the missing Warhol but would be happy to send a box of signed copies of her books, I realised that it was Patti Smith calling.”