A big thanks to all of the readers, writers, booksellers, and more who participated in our fourth annual #ReadingAfrica week! There’s a lot of really cool content to catch up on: WorldKidLit provided some great African lit resources, Bookshop.org featured Catalyst on their homepage, and Powell’s Books jumped on board with a reading list! And in case you couldn’t tune into our two #ReadingAfrica week events, here’s the recordings of our Kickoff event and our African crime novel panel. We can’t wait to see you next year!
2020 is almost over, which means it’s time for LitHub‘s annual Biggest Lit Stories of the Year list! They released their first two iterations this week, from the 50th to 31st and the 30th to 11th biggest stories of the year. The last list comes out next week, featuring the top 10 stories of the year. The 2021 Booker Prize judges were announced, and ICYMI, catch up on the Latinx Kid Lit Book Fest on YouTube.
In adaptations news, Stephen King’s all-too-pertinent mega-novel (at over 1,000 pages) The Stand is getting a mini-series on CBS, premiering this week. Disney has announced a partnership with Nigerian-Ugandan animation studio Kugali to release the studio’s African science fiction series Iwájú, based in Lagos, on Disney+ in 2022. Kate Atkinson’s 2014 novel Life After Life is getting a four-part miniseries on the BBC, and here’s BookRiot‘s guide to the best upcoming YA book-to-movie adaptations.
In comics news, DC Comics announced that the new Batman will be a black man, the son of Bruce Wayne’s business guru Lucius Fox, and the series will be written by 12 Years a Slave screenwriter John Ridley. Method Man of the Wu-Tang Clan talks comics with Forbes, and Book Riot continues its features of B-list comic heroes with Lady Shiva from the DC Universe.
Elizabeth Warren’s memoir, Persist, will be published in April. At Rose Bruford College, Girl, Woman, Other author Bernardine Evaristo just became the first black woman to serve as head of a drama school in the United Kingdom. John le Carré, the author of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy who redefined the canon of literary spy novels, passed away this week at age 89. Read some tributes from his celebrity fans, and check out this reading list of his most beloved work. 300 unpublished letters between Simone de Beauvoir and Violette Leduc sold for almost $70,000 at an auction this week, including Beauvoir’s rejection of Leduc’s romantic advances.
While we’re on the topic of celeb authors, here’s a piece about the rise of celebrity children’s book authors, book recommendations from some of the biggest names in literature, politics, and art, and a sneak peek at some A-list celebs’ bookshelves, including Anthony Fauci, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jeff Bezos, and more.
Two CrossFit fans wrote a parody of Goodnight Moon called Goodnight Box, and the beloved owl who was discovered hiding out in New York City’s famous Rockefeller Christmas tree got its own children’s book (and was also released back into the wild). Speaking of animals, Animal Wife by Lara Ehrlich was the winner of Electric Literature‘s annual Book Cover of the Year tournament, with cover design by artist Caitlin Sacks. In South Africa, the popular hashtag #ImStaying, featuring positive news stories about South Africa to counter negativity about the country’s future, has hit the lit world with Natasha Freeman’s new book, #ImStaying: The Unspoken Impact Of The #ImStaying Movement.
Book list round-up: Here’s 25 must-read Buddhism books, 10 literary podcasts for your daily commute (to your kitchen and back), 9 poetry collections from Latinx authors, and a reading list for lovers of my favorite podcast Pod Save America. Train ’em young with the best children’s books about entrepreneurship, then treat yourself with one of these comforting reads recommendations from booksellers. And while not technically a book list, take a moment to peruse some of these steamy scenes from classic lit, including a scene from Giovanni’s Room, one of my top 5 books ever.
For more thought provoking reads, here’s Let Him Go author Larry Watson on the modern western and Unsustainable Inequalities author Lucas Chancel on how environmental degradation (and the methods to solve it) overwhelming disadvantage the poor. Read up on why a black student at a predominantly white school was expelled after his mother raised concerns about racial slurs in August Wilson’s Fences, and share your thoughts here. Learn about Gertrude Trevelyan, the forgotten female literary star of the 1930s, then for some good news, head to Brain Pickings for a pick-me-up from Muriel Rukeyser and read how indie booksellers survived – and thrived – amidst one crazy year. We love you, indies!
And on this week’s procrastination station: guess the book titles using only emojis and check out my favorite cartoon of the week.
