Category: Today In Books

Download 300+ Art Books From Getty Museum

Libraries’ digital catalogs have quickly become one of my favorite things about the internet: The Getty Museum’s Virtual Library has over 300 art books free for download and cleared of copyright issues. “The initiative is a way to keep compelling and historically important books available even if they have, literally, gone out of print.”

Let’s Play A Game

A board game that is! Or card game. Maybe a puzzle? Prospect Heights and Crown Heights branches of the Brooklyn Public Library will begin lending games out to members, who can check out the games for home play for up to three weeks. Fun!

Latin American and Caribbean Presidential Library Center

Broward County, Florida is looking to house a Presidential Library that would contain memorabilia and papers from dozens of Latin America and Caribbean presidents and prime ministers. But first the money. Broward Mayor Dale Holness is looking at Broward taxpayers first for $2 million to get the project started. “Nineteen former presidents or prime ministers from the region have pledged to support the center and to participate in future programs held there.”

New Nobel Prize For Literature Resignations

The Nobel laureate is awarded each year by the Swedish Academy, which after sexual assault allegations in 2018 led to resignations and the formation of an external committee to oversee reforms. Now two of the external committee members have resigned, one explaining: “I leave my job in the Nobel committee because I have neither the patience nor the time to wait for the result of the work to change that has been started.”

Dictionary.com’s Word Of The Year

After the year we’ve had, I look at the “word of the year” announcements having braced myself because this year isn’t going to be fun pop-culture words or anything of the sort. Ready for Dictionary.com’s 2019 word of the year? Existential. “It captures a sense of grappling with the survival—literally and figuratively—of our planet, our loved ones, our ways of life.”

Pulp Classics Entering Public Domain

At the start of 2020 (almost here!) works that were copyrighted in 1924 will enter the public domain and a handful of the books are pulp classics like The Land That Time Forgot and Tarzan and the Ant Men. Also entering the public domain are Agatha Christie mysteries:The Man in the Brown Suit and Poirot Investigates.

Fine-Free Public Libraries

There have been waves of fine forgiveness in public library systems across the county. And we’ve shared lots of those specific stories in this newsletter! Read about the movement and its impact.

Another Year-End Book List

’Tis the season for “Best Of” lists, and the Guardian has released their picks for Best Books of 2019. Have fun adding to your TBR pile!

Speed Reading Is A Lie

According to science, speed readers are actually just skimmers. Save this link to humble anyone who shames you for your slow-but-steady reading speed.

The Library You Knew Would Get Sued Gets Sued

The new Hunters Point Library in Queens, designed by Steven Holl Architects, opened to lots of oohs and aahs and complaints of lack of accessibility. Now the Center for Independence of the Disabled New York has filed a class-action lawsuit arguing “that ‘inaccessible features pervade’ the new branch, and calls out three levels with bookshelves, a reading and small-group space in a children’s section, and a rooftop terrace for featuring accessibility barriers that prevent ‘full and equal enjoyment’ of the library.”

100+ Star Wars Items Auction

Sotheby’s has an online-only sale of 100 lots from George Lucas’ Star Wars franchise that will run through December 13th. For non-rich fans who are in London between December 6-11, you can check out some of the pieces displayed at Sotheby’s New Bond Street galleries.

Anonymous Claims They Won’t Remain Anonymous

The anonymous author of A Warning recently did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit and defended their decision to remain anonymous while publishing, and also claimed they will not always remain anonymous. “It’s not clear whether the author still works in the administration — although some of the comments in the AMA suggest that they do.”

Waterstones Announced Author & Book Of The Year

The British book retailer Waterstones has named Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, author of the year for her book No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference. And Waterstones’ booksellers across the UK voted for their favorite book of the year leading to this year’s book of the year award to go to The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy.

Kittens In Bookstores!

If you’re struggling on this day of work because someone thought a Thursday holiday was a brilliant idea without a mandatory Friday off, here is a bookstore with kittens: Otis and Clementine’s Books And Coffee has a mama cat and her six kittens, who have been given free reign of the shop. Enjoy all the pictures and videos.

Messy Handwriting The Decoder

A 16th-century translation of Tacitus had remained anonymous until an academic identified the author, Queen Elizabeth I, by her “appalling handwriting.” John-Mark Philo: “Her late handwriting is usefully messy – there really is nothing like it – and the idiosyncratic flourishes serve as diagnostic tools.”

Stacey Abrams Adapting Her Romance Book

Stacey Abrams is not only a politician out there fighting to make sure all voters’ votes count, but she’s also an author who will executive produce one of her romantic suspense novels into a CBS series. Never Tell, written under her pen name Selena Montgomery, is about a linguistics professor and an investigative journalist teaming up to solve a missing persons case–and probably teaming up for shexy things because romantic suspense?

Happy Birthday Indeed

Betty X. Davis was asked by staff at her senior living and memory care facility what she wanted to do for her 104th birthday and she had the loveliest answer of only wanting to do something for others. And so for her 104th birthday they’ve collected 104 books to donate to a local elementary school library. And now I want to donate my age in books every year on my birthday.

NYPL’s Best Books

From kids to adults, including so many genres, the New York Public Library has a really great list of their Best Books of 2019. They even have a category for best books for children in Spanish and there’s 10 picks for poetry lovers.

Shakespeare Gets Algorithmed

It has been believed that Shakespeare worked with a ghostwriter to complete Henry VIII, but who that uncredited author was has remained debatable among historians. Enter an algorithm: “Petr Plecháč of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague trained an algorithm to identify patterns in language and rhythm in all three playwrights’ works written during the same time period as Henry VIII.”

Idris Elba Adapting

Idris Elba’s production company will adapt a forthcoming book from #Merky Books, Stormzy’s publishing imprint. Teaching My Brother To Read by Derek Owusu will be adapted for television and tells the story of “Owusu as he tries to connect with his brother, who was increasingly getting into trouble, by offering him £50 ($64) for every book he reads.” Somebody pay me $64 per book I read, please and thank you.

New Book Club App

While Bookclubz has had a site for a while, it just launched an app for Android and iOS to help you keep your book club organized. You can manage invites, create polls, and keep track of all the books your group has read and rate the books. Did I mention it’s free?

Daniel Craig Retires From Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Ian Fleming’s super spy will have to find another actor to play him onscreen. Daniel Craig, who donned the tuxedo for the first time in 2006’s Casino Royale, will wrap up his time as James Bond with 2020’s No Time to Die.

Overdue Book Returned After 76 Years

Elaine Wilk checked Mrs. Miniver out from her high school library, but neglected to return it. Now, the book has found its way back to her hometown thanks to Elaine’s daughter, Kasia. It just took 76 years.

Yeah, He Really Did That

Marriage can be challenging. But there’s really no excuse for terrorizing a spouse through books, as you may have seen in this season of The Crown. If you were hoping that Lord Snowdon’s mean notes hidden in Princess Margaret’s reading material were fiction themselves, I’m sorry to share this article explaining the historical basis.

Adaptation Gives Harrison Ford A Furry Costar

Jack London’s The Call of the Wild is now a film starring Harrison Ford and the “big-hearted dog Buck.” The adventure film set in the 1890s Gold Rush in the Alaskan Yukon will hit theaters February 21st, and we have a trailer.

Another Amazing Library Program

King County Correctional Facility and the King County Department of Public Defense partnered with The Seattle Public Library to create Read to Me: incarcerated parents record themselves reading children’s books, and their kids are given the recordings along with the read book and a note. And this is why my face is wet. May this program expand to all prisons and library systems.

Busted

While the RNC has denied bulk purchasing and claimed they were only “ordering copies to keep up with demand” for Triggered by Donald Trump Jr. there’s this pesky thing called receipts. In an FEC filing it shows that the Republican National Committee spent $94,800 at Books A Million for the book.

Michelle Obama Grammy Nom

Michelle Obama and her memoir Becoming continue to be fire with a Grammy nomination for best spoken word category. This is her second nomination; in 2012 her book American Grown also got an audiobook nomination. Her competition this time is the Beastie Boys, John Waters, Eric Alexandrakis, Sekou Andrews & The String Theory.

Speaking Of Awesome Memoirs

Jacob Tobia’s memoir, Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story, is being adapted into a half-hour dramedy for Showtime! Tobia is set as co-writer/co-executive of the show which will follow as “Tobi quickly learns that NYC is less ‘glittering trans paradise’ and more ‘trash-filled hell with a side of street harassment.’” Can’t wait!

1619 Project Gets Book Series

The New York Times’ 1619 Project–which was a special issue focused on the “400th anniversary of the first enslaved Africans to be brought to the U.S. and slavery’s enduring legacy”–will have a series of books for all ages published by Random House Group. The series will include a graphic novel, issues for young people, and an expanded magazine issue.