Welcome to Check Your Shelf. This newsletter, specifically the Banned Books section, is going to be a little shorter than usual so that I can do some prep before my second round of director’s interviews tomorrow. Eeep! Sadly though, the banned books news continues rolling on, and we’ll just have to pick up where we left off next week.
Libraries & Librarians
News Updates
Libraries in Peterborough (UK) are offering fine amnesty to try and recover 22,000 missing books.
Book Adaptations in the News
Samantha Allen’s queer Bigfoot novel, (yes, you read that correctly) Patricia Wants to Cuddle, has been picked up for a TV adaptation.
Jeneva Rose’s marriage thriller, The Perfect Marriage, is getting a film adaptation.
Carol Mendelsohn, former CSI showrunner, is attempting a series adaptation of Thomas Perry’s The Bomb Maker for the second time.
Octavia Butler’s Kindred is coming to Hulu in December.
Never Let Me Go is also coming to Hulu.
Elena Ferrante’s The Lying Life of Adults will release on Netflix in January.
Here’s a first look at Tom Hanks in A Man Called Otto, which is based on the book A Man Called Ove.
Banned & Challenged Books
Republicans propose a federal “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Because it’s never been about the actual books.
Do people who fill out a Request for Reconsideration form have a right to privacy?
What’s happening at the Arlington Public Library in Texas?
Florida’s Education Department has quietly selected several anti-gay and anti-mask conspiracy theorists to serve on a book-banning council to retrain public school librarians.
Louisiana school librarian Amanda Jones is asking for a new trial after her defamation lawsuit was dismissed.
Nora Roberts has pitched in $25,000 to the Craighead County Jonesboro Public Library (AR) to assist in their fight for public funding.
Utah parents have filed hundreds of requests to remove books from school libraries since the state passed a law in May banning “pornographic or indecent” books in schools.
Books & Authors in the News
Salman Rushdie has lost sight in one eye and the use of one hand following his brutal attack in August. This is devastating.
Oprah selects Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver as her next book club pick.
Here’s what changed in Dinesh D’Souza’s book 2000 Mules after it was recalled.
Olivia Wilde may have answered the salad dressing mystery with a reference to Nora Ephron’s 1983 novel, Heartburn.
Here’s an attendee’s account of the recent 8-day Gone Girl-themed cruise down the Danube.
Numbers & Trends
Here are the best-selling books of the week.
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Award News
Khadija Abdalla Bajaber has won the inaugural Ursula K. LeGuin Prize for Fiction for The House of Rust.
Thomas Keneally shares the $50,000 prize from the ARA Historical Novel award with his fellow nominees.
Pop Cultured
Actor Leslie Jordan has died at 67.
A new Star Wars movie is reportedly in the works.
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
Butcher Cabin Books, a horror bookstore in Lousiville, Kentucky, opens its doors just in time for Halloween.
On the Riot
The neglected tale of the Tougaloo Nine and their 1961 read-in.
There’s lots of cool stuff at the Library of Congress.
How to create an extraordinary reading experience.
Look at this sweet sleeping Gilbert! I wish I could sleep as peacefully as this snuggly boy, but alas, I’ve been cursed with a human brain and periodic insomnia.
All right, folks. Time to prep. I’ll talk to you next week!
—Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter.