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Welcome to Check Your Shelf, where it’s been a bit of a week, and I’m very much looking ahead to the weekend. By the time you read this newsletter, I’ll be at Wrigley Field watching the Cubs play the White Sox, and even though my heart is still shattered into a million Bryant/Rizzo/Baez-less pieces, it’ll be good to enjoy some live baseball.
Okay, let’s talk about libraries now.
Libraries & Librarians
News Updates
New York Public Library’s staff members are speaking out about their growing concerns around COVID-19.
Whitefish Bay (WI) residents and a social justice group protest the library’s removal of a sign addressing systemic racism.
A Drag Queen Story Hour program was canceled in Nebraska after receiving numerous threats.
Carmel (IN) parents share outrage over “sexually explicit” content in library books.
Shelly Millender Jr., who helped desegregate the Birmingham Public Library, dies at age 86.
For all your patrons who still use their old Kindles: certain older models will start losing internet access beginning in December.
Cool Library Updates
This sixth-grade author helped launch a pop-up library in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Bay Area librarians bring information to inmates, one letter at a time.
Libraries across the United States are eliminating late fees.
Worth Reading
A new study reveals that the majority of academic librarians have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.
Connecticut libraries see a lot more book removal requests, but few actually get pulled from the shelves.
Why other libraries should be paying attention to the #SaveNilesLibrary Campaign.
Book Adaptations in the News
Paramount has acquired the rights to Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children fantasy series, with the plan to create a franchise around this series and its characters.
We’re getting two new Octavia Butler adaptations: one for Fledgling and one for Parable of the Sower.
A Jaws-themed musical (yes, MUSICAL) is in the works for 2022. SIGN. ME. UP.
A TV series based on the life of Malcolm X is in the works at Sony, which will be based on the novels X, by Kekla Magoon and Ilyasah Shabazz and The Awakening of Malcolm X by Tiffany D. Jackson and Ilyasah Shabazz.
Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline is being adapted as a series.
Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar universe is being adapted for TV.
Garth Greenwell’s novel What Belongs to You is being adapted as an opera.
Love, Victor has been renewed for a third season on Hulu.
Natalie Portman’s adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Days of Abandonment is no longer moving forward at HBO.
Casting updates for Killers of the Flower Moon and the new Exorcist trilogy.
Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series teases a release date.
Trailers for the Dexter revival series and the last season of The Walking Dead.
Books & Authors in the News
Crime author Mo Hayder has died at age 59. (This woman wrote some of the most horrifying crime fiction I’ve EVER read, and if you know me, that’s meant as the highest possible compliment.)
A new wave of “concerned citizens” discover and challenge the classic book It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health.
A fake Cormac McCarthy account is causing a stir on Twitter.
Numbers & Trends
Is it worth your 2500? (Don’t worry if this puts you into a temporary existential crisis…that’s what it did for me.)
Americans read nearly 25% more during the pandemic, according to new research.
Award News
The RWA has stepped in it again by presenting a VIVIAN Award to a book with a genocidal “hero.”
The National Book Foundation plans to hold a limited, in-person ceremony for the National Book Awards in November.
Awkwafina is hosting the 2021 PEN America Literary Gala.
The 2021 Comedy Women in Print Award longlists have been announced.
The Newberry Library announces a $25,000 Chicago-specific book award.
Pop Cultured
Mystery, mayhem, and nostalgia: inside the intense world of Nancy Drew computer game fans.
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
Hemingway “wannabes” celebrate the author with a lookalike contest held in Key West.
A brief history of summer reading.
On the Riot
Why this reader values their trips to the library with their son.
Diversifying Little Free Libraries: learn, support, and get inspired.
5 lessons learned from working at your childhood library.
The most popular in-demand books in US libraries from April – July, 2021.
Book pirates buy more books, and other unintuitive book piracy facts.
Investigating punny mystery titles.
15 amazing Indigenous Bookstagram accounts to follow.
Okay, that’s it for me, everyone. Mask up, stay safe, and remember to hydrate and moisturize! Catch you all next week!
—Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter. Currently reading The Happiest Girl in the World by Alena Dillon.