Category: Today In Books

Forgotten Fairy Tales By Radical French Women

Brothers Grimm are permanently associated and attributed with fairy tales but have you ever heard of the 17th century conteuses? French women fed up with the repression of the times wrote and published “fairytale”–the term being coined by Baroness Marie Catherine d’Aulnoy who published her first in 1690. “It was in the repressive milieu of the troubled last decade of 17th century France that fairytales crystallised as a genre. Performed and recited in literary salons, from 1697 the fairytales of D’Aulnoy, Comtesse Henriette-Julie de Murat, Mademoiselle L’Héritier and Madame Charlotte-Rose de la Force were gathered into collections and published.”

New Animated Series

Thriller author Brad Meltzer and illustrator Christopher Eliopoulos’ children’s book series Ordinary People Change the World has been adapted into a PBS animated series: Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum. You can start watching today and travel in time with Xavier, his little sister, Yadina, and their friend Brad as they meet inspiring historical figures to help them solve problems.

“Hidden Figures” Receive Congressional Gold Medals

Christine Darden (engineer), Mary Jackson (engineer), Katherine Johnson (mathematician), and Dorothy Vaughan (computer programmer) have been awarded the highest civilian award in the US. The four women finally got recognition thanks to Margot Lee Shetterly’s book Hidden Figures which inspired the film starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe.

Disney+ She-Hulk Series Names Its Showrunner

The “Pickle Rick” episode of Rick and Morty is epic, and Emmy-winning. And the writer responsible for it will now be responsible for the Disney+ She-Hulk series. Congrats, Jessica Gao!

Updated Adaptation of H. G. Wells

Elisabeth Moss is all about those terrifying literary adaptations lately, huh? I say this after watching the trailer for Invisible Man, loosely based on H. G. Wells’s serialized novel The Invisible Man.

She’s Evil, but Also a Style Icon

There’s lots to take away from the film version of Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep, but at least one person is fixating on the villain’s boho wardrobe. Spoilers here (but also maybe the beginnings of a mood board).

Heating Books To Kill Bedbugs

The Grand Rapids Public Library has a system in place to fight bedbugs from coming to live in the library. All books returned are inspected by librarians trained to visually inspect the books but then they get cooked overnight: “Workers put all returned material on carts that are rolled into a large bedbug heat-treating tent. The books remain in the tent for hours overnight until their core temperature exceeds 122 degrees — the threshold for killing bedbugs and their eggs.”

Tori Amos Memoir

Atria Books will publish singer-songwriter Tori Amos’ memoir which is also a political call to action: Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage. She tells the story of her career and also shows readers how to engage with our political times from the #metoo movement to fighting for rights and visibility. Here for the flaming piano cover.

The Miami Book Fair!

The Miami Book Fair returns November 17-24 kicking off at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus. As usual there will be food, live music, film screenings, so many books and book events–and even a murder mystery event!

Women Wrote Earlier Than Supposed

In a classic case of people finding ways for history to leave out certain people, a new book by Diane Watt’s contends that women were writing before the late middle ages–the time English women’s writing is first dated. In Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650–1100 Watt’s argues that some anonymous texts were probably written by women and works written by women were rewritten by men.

Get A Warehouse Of Tissues

Tembi Locke’s memoir, From Scratch, will be a Netflix limited series starring and produced by Zoe Saldana with Attica Locke, Tembi’s sister and crime author, as showrunner and executive producer. The story is about Tembi falling in love with a Sicilian man, his family not approving because she’s Black, him dying from an illness, and her connecting with his family. Tissues. Lots of tissues. Also, the adaptation will be amazing because of the Locke sisters–so much talent!

Indian Government Revokes Writer’s Citizenship Doc Over Article

After writing an article titled India’s Divider in Chief that criticized the Indian government in Time magazine, Aatish Taseer received an email from the Consulate General of India in New York stating his OCI card had been cancelled by the Government of India. The OCI card (Overseas Citizenship of India) “allows foreign citizens of Indian heritage to live and work in India indefinitely – Taseer was born to an Indian mother and grew up in the country.”

Reading Vigils For Book Launch

Elena Ferrante’s fans are holding reading vigils across Italy in anticipation for the release of her new book: La Vita Bugiarda Degli Adulti / The Lying Life of Adults. “’I have a feeling that the phenomenon is bigger abroad than it is in Italy,’ said Laura Della Pietra, an avid fan who grew up in Rione Luzzatti. ‘People have been coming from all over the world. Ferrante talks about simple things that can be recognised by everyone.’” Book excitement is the best!

Sex Positive Feminist Merch!

Romance author Sarah MacLean has a merchandise line with Jordandené set to officially release in February 2020. But you don’t have to wait that long: Read Romance Fight Patriarchy and Gracefully Furious are already on t-shirts and mugs to purchase now. Take my money!

Time To Fly!

Or get pushed off a cliff. Not sure yet. But here’s the trailer for Wendy, a wildly reimagined film based on the story of Peter Pan. The Fox Searchlight film will be in theaters February 28, 2020.

100 Novels That Shaped Our World

The BBC asked writers, critics, and curators for the novels that impacted their lives. The result? This eclectic list of 100 novels ranging from classics to page-turning recent releases. Any books that impacted you on the list?

Scary Times Are Here

Citrus County, FL commissioners denied the public library from purchasing digital access to The New York Times for patrons. The commissioners laughed before explaining that they wouldn’t pay for “fake news” and that they support Trump. 70,000 tax paying library-card holders have been denied library access to a newspaper because of a handful of men’s political views. The article links to the video of the commissioners’ rejection.

2020 Carnegie Medals Shortlist

I love the end of the year award season and Best Of book lists because I get to find all the books I may have missed and am reminded of ones to move up on my reading list. And with that in mind here’s the ALA’s six finalists for fiction and nonfiction!

DOJ Wants To Know Who Anonymous Author Is

A Warning by Anonymous is scheduled to publish on November 19th and is being marketed as “An unprecedented behind-the-scenes portrait of the Trump presidency from the anonymous senior official whose first words of warning about the president rocked the nation’s capital.” The Department of Justice is demanding assurances from the publisher and literary agency that the author didn’t sign a nondisclosure agreement or the dates and department of the author’s employment. Both declined to comply.

Vote For Your Favorites!

The Goodreads Choice Awards is live and ready for your votes! There are 20 categories–from fiction to picture books, including all the major genres–with a lot of great books published this year. You have until the 10th to vote in the first round!

Be Ready On January 1st

The New Year brings a lot of new things, including creative works (books, films, artworks, and sheet music) published in 1924 entering into the public domain. Basically, you can do whatever you want on January 1st with the works on this list including Agatha Christie’s The Man in the Brown Suit and Poirot Investigates, Pablo Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair,  and A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young.

Val Kilmer Is Your Huckleberry

Simon & Schuster will be releasing Val Kilmer’s memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry, in April 2020. The memoir is set to cover the actor’s career, relationships, and his recent diagnosis and recovery from cancer. If you’re wondering about the title of the book: it’s a line from Tombstone that he said while playing Doc Holliday. Between the memoir and Top Gun 2 you can expect a lot of Kilmer press to come.

Angie Cruz’s Instagram Archive

While researching for her novel, Dominicana, Angie Cruz found a lack of photos of working-class Dominican women in 1960s NY. Hoping to fix that she created the Instagram account Dominicanas NYC asking for people to send in images and stories of their Dominicana relatives in NYC between 1950s-1980s.

Book References Coming To Wikipedia

You know how the bottom of Wikipedia entries have reference links to online sources for the information? Now Wikipedia is working on adding digitized books and the specific page referenced to the links so you can see the book reference. It’s already linked 130,000 book references to 50,000 digital books at a cost of about $20 for the digital transformation per book.

That’s What’s Up, Danger

Oscar-winning superhero film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is getting a sequel! But be patient; we have to wait until 2022.

April Fools? Surprisingly, No

Fashion collaborations are nothing new. But it’s still hard to believe that Jonathan Safran Foer and Stella McCartney put together a capsule collection. On second thought…no, it’s not.

The House of the Dead Will Be a Hotel of the Dead

James Joyce’s “The Dead” is set in this townhouse, and it’s a treasured part of Ireland’s cultural heritage. Now, Dubliners are lamenting a city plan to turn the historic house over to developers.

Comic Book Villain Themed Bar

First Edition is hoping to attract comic book fans and cocktail drinkers with their just opened bar in Uptown Oakland. They even went so far as to consult a local comic book shop when creating the menu and design: “They’re the ones that suggested we do a panel format, like ‘Watchmen.‘”

The Witcher Trailer

The Witcher, Netflix’s adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski‘s fantasy series will premiere December 20th. You can check out Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, the mutated monster hunter in the new trailer!

Poetry Collection Adaptation!

In the sea of novel and nonfiction adaptation news here’s an exciting poetry adaptation! Electric Arches, Eve L. Ewing’s debut poetry collection, will be adapted by AMC Studios into an Afrofuturistic anthology series. Too early to start making all the popcorn?