Category: Today In Books

Hello fellow bibliophiles, it’s been a week, so today’s newsletter will be a little different: we’ve rounded up all of our COVID-19 book related coverage. Stay informed. Stay safe. Stay entertained.

Scribd, the audiobook, ebook, and magazine subscription service, is offering 30 days of free access to their entire library of titles.

Audible has launched Audible Stories, a free service that offers family-friendly educational and entertaining audiobook content.

You can now download ten free ebooks on social and economic justice from Haymarket Books to read while social distancing.

LibraryThing is now free! Add, catalog, and organize unlimited books while stuck at home.

Chicago Public Libraries Need To Close Now To Save Lives

Cookbook authors are helping with what to cook during quarantine.

Nicole and Matthew discuss the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of racism and social media, how the virus is impacting school kids and families, and how the kidlit community is responding.

Artists and writers are chronicling their journey with COVID-19 in interesting and thought-provoking ways.

Take this quiz to find your next 500+ page read!

Two major independent booksellers are laying off employees as they close their physical shops in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Free resources on the coronavirus pandemic to help you stay informed, from news outlets and newsletters to podcasts and more.

These closed-space book recommendations make for perfect quarantine reading.

The many reasons why library staff should not have to report to work as we work to stop the spread of COVID-19 on a global level.

Amy Adams and Jennifer Garner have partnered to launch #SAVEWITHSTORIES.

Amazon has been flooded by an influx of self-published books on coronavirus, many of which are plagiarized or contain false information.

Kidlit authors offering read alouds, drawing lessons, and other free resources for education and entertainment.

Editor’s Note: Apologies to those of you who received a test email from us; it was sent in error. Here’s actual news from the book world.

 

Poet Freed From Prison Refuses To Be Silenced

Poet Stella Nyanzi spent 16 months in Uganda’s Luzira prison for a poem on Facebook about Yoweri Museveni’s (Uganda’s president) mother’s vagina. No, that was not Mad Libs and no Nyanzi’s time in prison did not work to silence her. Now released she discusses the poems she wrote while incarcerated, including the poetry collection she released while in prison.

Keep Book Clubbing

If you’re social distancing and missing your book club time, there are ways to still social distance and meet your book club. Online, baby! With some tweaks y’all can be arguing or agreeing over how much you loved your last read. Here’s some tips to become a digital book club.

Bittersweet

The animated fantasy epic She-Ra and the Princess of Power has had a fantastic four seasons on Netflix so far and now we’ve learned, through showrunner Noelle Stevenson, that the fifth season will be its last. While it’s always sad to see a great thing end, it was always designed and written to have five seasons and we’ll soon have an awesome completed story to rewatch a billion times. I will definitely be dropping everything on May 15 for the final season.

Bye-Bye Library Ebook Embargo

Macmillan publishers had angered librarians, patrons, and bibliophiles last year when it decided to implement an embargo on its new ebook releases with libraries. Macmillan just announced it has eliminated the embargo, including on new releases. Libraries closing because of the current COVID-19 outbreak and patrons turning more to ebook lending certainly played a role in this decision. Time will tell if the new model also wasn’t working for them financially and if they’ll leave it alone or try again later.

Join In and Help Write the Great Librarian Novel

The Twitter account “Fake Librarian Statistics” (“Tweets from a real librarian. Not currently wearing a cardigan.”) has created and shared a Google Doc for everyone to join in and write a book together. As of me writing this, there are four chapters written so go have some fun and read what has been written so far and/or join in and write the next page or chapter.

Physical Books No Longer A Priority At Amazon

Amazon informed third-party sellers that its current focus, and warehouse space, will be designated for “household staples, medical supplies and other high-demand products.” While they are hiring 100,000 additional warehouse and delivery workers for the recent demand, as everyone is buying supplies online during social distancing, the focus will only be for prioritized products at the moment and no other products will be accepted at Amazon fulfillment centers until April 5th.

Amy Adams Joins IG For Bookish Project

In an effort to help Save the Children and Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign, actresses Amy Adams and Jennifer Garner have teamed up with children’s publisher Scholastic to launch #SaveWithStories. They’ll be posting videos on Instagram and Facebook of celebrities reading children’s books to help drive donations to Save the Children and No Kid Hungry, since many kids unable to go to school during the current coronavirus outbreak are missing out on education, and also a school meal they rely on and need.

We’re Now Getting Movie Theater Movies At Home

Kind of hard to go to the movies when we’re social distancing, so Universal Pictures has decided to make movies currently in theaters available on demand. You can watch adaptations like Emma and The Invisible Man for the rental fee of $19.99 starting on Friday on Apple, Amazon, Sky, and Comcast.

Peru’s Nobel Literature Laureate VS China

Peruvian author, and Nobel literature laureate, Mario Vargas Llosa used his mighty pen to write an article in Spain’s El Pais newspaper where he opined that if China had been a democracy instead of a dictatorship, the coronavirus would not have spread the way it did. China’s embassy responded, calling on Llosa “as a public figure, not to spread irresponsible and prejudiced opinions that serve no purpose.”

Book Decorated Shopping Cart Races

The second Middletown Kiwanis shopping cart challenge raised money for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library by having eight teams decorate shopping carts with bookish themes and then race around to complete tasks and games at selected downtown businesses. Fun!

Voice Of Frozen‘s Olaf Will Read You Children’s Books

Josh Gad, the actor who voices Olaf in Frozen, has decided to help everyone staying home during the coronavirus outbreak by reading children’s books and livestreaming it on Twitter. He started by reading Olivia Goes to Venice by Ian Falconer.

Updated COVID-19 Impact List

PW is keeping a list of the book events cancelled and/or rescheduled, industry functions impacted, policy changes etc. due to the coronavirus outbreak.

She’s Rewriting Western Fairy Tales For Muslim Children

Fawzia Gilani-Williams is an educator with a PhD in children’s literature, and a passion for helping Muslim kids see themselves reflected in books. So she decided to rewrite classic Western fairy tales starring Muslim characters, reflecting Muslim values. This is an important step forward, as the UK is seriously lagging in their efforts to diversify children’s literature.

Leslie Marmon Silko Wins $100,000 Arts Academy Prize; Alex Kotlowitz Also Recognized

Leslie Marmon Silko has won the Christopher Lightfoot Walker Award for her significant achievement to American literature. The award is given biannually, and Silko is the second writer to receive it. Her work aims to prove that Indigenous people have contributed just as much to world culture and history as the Greeks, Romans, and Scandinavians.

Why These Nipsey Hussle Fans Started a Book Club

Maria Gates and Joe Gardina are continuing Nipsey Hussle’s legacy by founding a book club that reads some of the rapper’s favorite and recommended books. Gates and Gardina are hoping to give fans a productive way to mourn and heal, while also continuing with the work that he started in giving back to his community. They hope that members will become more literate–in business, history, and in social action–and that together they can build stronger ties in their community.

New Baby-Sitters!

Kristy, Mary-Anne, Claudia, Stacey, and Dawn are back! Okay, thanks to the popularity of The Baby-Sitters Club books, they never went anywhere (and even got new audiobooks narrated by Elle Fanning and one of my all time favorite narrators Bahni Turpin), but now they’re getting a Netflix adaptation and we have the first look at the cast!

Volume Of Octavia Butler’s Work

Library of America publishers are working on a volume of Octavia Butler’s work to release in 2021, edited by Nisi Shawl and Gerry Canavan. The collection will include “novels Kindred and Fledgling, the contents of her collection Bloodchild and Other Stories, as well as a handful of other short stories.” And it’s just the beginning: they plan on publishing a new volume every year or two to end up with four volumes of Butler’s work. Here for all of it!

Sneaky, Sneaky

In a plan to fight censorship around the world, Reporters Without Borders and Blockworks have created a library inside the game Minecraft with hundreds of virtual books that contain articles that are censored/banned around the world by governments. Now, no one tell those governments about the game.

The Everywhere Book Fest Announced

You may have noticed that quite a few things are getting cancelled in these here pandemic times, and book festivals have not been spared. To keep society safe while also continuing to support authors and readers, a virtual gathering of kidlit authors, books, and readers is coming May 1st and 2nd: The Everywhere Book Fest. You can follow them on Twitter and await more news on their site.

Excellent Books Get Awarded

National Book Critics Circle announced the winners for fiction, autobiography, nonfiction, biography, poetry, criticism, and the John Leonard Prize. If you’re looking for your next read, here are seven, award winning, excellent picks: Everything Inside; Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland; The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth; Know My Name: A Memoir; Magical Negro; Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval; The Yellow House: A Memoir.

Supporting Your Indie Bookstore

Small businesses usually get hit first in times like recessions, economic downturns, and sudden changes in physical store foot traffic. With social distancing being a reality at the moment, indie bookstore co-owner Josh Cook talked with PW about ways readers who have the means and desire to can support indie bookstores, ranging from simple acts of signing up for their newsletters all the way to local activism.

Kentucky Lawmakers Go After Libraries

Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear proposed $7.8 million overall library aid and House GOP majority cut it to $5.3 million while tacking on “restrictive language requiring all remaining funds to be spent only on construction.” This will impact rural libraries first and hardest as those communities rely on the library for free internet, GED exams, and classes, among other services not available to them anywhere else.

Rare First Edition

The text believed to be the foundation modern physics was built on, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, was written by Isaac Newton in Latin in 1687. Now a rare first edition of his book has been found in the Fesch Library on the island of Corsica. If you’re wondering how rare and valuable to collectors the book is, in 2016 one sold at Christie’s for $3.7 million.

The Avengers Theme Park

Starting July 18th you’ll be able to visit the Marvel area at Disneyland! What exactly will this Avengers Campus offer and be? EW got a tour and all the deets, pictures included–and of course there will be Easter eggs for diehard fans to try and spot!

Indiana Jones of the Art World Finds Stolen Poetry

Persian poet Hafez, born approximately in 1325, is one of Iran’s most celebrated literary figures, known for his Divan. One of its earliest known copies was privately owned by Jafar Ghazi, until his death when his family discovered many of the items in his collection were missing. Enter Indiana Jones of the art world, known for finding a stolen Picasso, to the rescue, helping to find the stolen Divan.

Want Now

YA mystery author Tiffany D. Jackson (Allegedly; Monday’s Not Coming; Let Me Hear a Rhyme) has set her aims at being YA’s Jordan Peele by 2021, and by that she means she’s writing social horror. Smoke is pitched as Get Out meets The Haunting of Hill House and The Weight of Blood is a remix of Carrie set at an integrated prom. Why are these not in my hands right now?!

State of Racial Diversity in Romance Publishing Report

The fantastic romance bookstore The Ripped Bodice has released their fourth annual report to determine where romance publishing is in regards to publishing authors of color and indigenous peoples. “According to the study, for every 100 romance books published in 2019, only 8.3 were written by people of color, a percentage of 8.3%.” It’s an increase from the previous 7.8% in 2016 but if that’s the pace we’re moving to acknowledge people’s humanity/equality, I want off this snails-slathered-in-molasses-ride please.