In Catalyst news, CrimeReads included Sifiso Mzobe’s North American debut, Young Blood, as one of their most anticipated crime books of 2021! Young Blood will be available in April. BookClubz also selected Helen Brain’s The Thousand Steps, the first book in her dystopian Fiery Spiral trilogy, as their Young Adult pick for January! The second book in the series, The Rising Tide, is out later this year. And we’ll soon be partnering with BookClubz to coordinate a Catalyst Press book club featuring contemporary and classic African literature – so stay tuned!
The writing world lost Eric Jerome Dickey this week, who died at 59 after a several year battle with cancer. Dickey wrote almost 30 novels on topics of Black life and love and sold more than 7 million copies. In South Africa, beloved cookbook author and food critic Dorah Sithole died at the age of 67, just months after the release of her newest book, 40 Years of Iconic Food, which follows her journey from a child in a South Africa township learning to love food to traveling the world as a leader in African cuisine.
In celebrity book news, Duchess Camilla is starting a book club, Lil Nas X is asking readers to buy his new kids’ book C is for Country so that he can pay his rent, Tim Tebow wrote a children’s book about his favorite (dead) dog, and Meghan Markle is very chilled about her half-sister’s new tell-all, The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister Part 1. Martha Stewart, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Ethan Hawke, and more are also slated for 2021 books. Karl Ove Knausgaard has a new book of essays, the author of the bestselling medical memoir This is Going to Hurt has a new book for kids about anatomy, and my treasured Maria Popova announced a children’s book three years in the making, about a snail (and a human) with a rare genetic defect.
The Costa Awards announced the winners of all five categories in advance of announcing the overall winner later this month. Read up on the winner for best biography, Lee Lawrence’s memoir The Louder I Will Sing, about seeking justice for his mother who was left paralyzed after being shot by police in her own home.
Book list round up: if you love Netflix’s new binge favorite Bridgerton, here’s some book recommendations for you, and a run-down of all of author Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton novels. Read these feminist retellings of mythology, the best films about writers that you can stream now, and check out this list of literary characters destined to be great librarians to see if your favorite character made the cut. Everyone’s got a 2021 “most anticipated books” list: here’s Vogue’s, LitHub’s, Crime Reads’ (hey again, Sifiso!), and Electric Lit’s. But my personal favorite: 44 books by women of color coming out this year. Finally, need your annual Hercule Poirot fix? Catch up on the world of private investigators with these books, blogs and podcasts from real-life private eyes.
We sat down with our amazing cover artist Karen Vermeulen, who designed the covers for several of our books including The Thousand Steps and Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu’s North American debut, The Theory of Flight, out this month. Karen walks us through her process for designing Siphiwe’s cover, which is equally as stunning as the story inside.
This week, Chris Arnone defended cookbooks, a teacher defended her decision to teach Lolita as a feminist text, Electric Lit’s Jess Zimmerman defended your right not to read, and the police defended the Capitol from a violent mob. I digress….
I’m not an avid reader of science fiction, but I’ve always held science and speculative fiction writers as some of the industry’s top talent, bringing entirely new universes to life on the page. The Guardian interviewed a few bestselling sci-fi writers like Nnedi Okorafor and Becky Chambers to chat about world creation. Speaking of which, Terry Pratchett’s daughter spoke out on the new BBC series “The Watch” to clarify that, while it’s loosely based on her father’s Discworld fantasy books, the two series have nothing else in common.
Some thought provoking reads: Felicia Rose Chavez on creating an Anti-racist writing workshop, Lindsay Pérez Huber on how to identify – and remove – racism from children’s books, and Danielle McLaughlin on handwriting her novel. Here’s a deep dive into Oscar Wilde’s life and mind, and the ethics “tsunami” that hit the French publishing world after the release of Vanessa Springora’s Consent.
Finally, the 2021 literary calendar you’ll want bookmarked on your desktop, and Toni Morrison on loving your body.
