In Catalyst news, two of our wonderful authors got works published this week! In New Frame, Unmaking Grace author Barbara Boswell writes on the role of Booker shortlisted author Tsitsi Dangarembga’s art and activism in Zimbabwe and beyond, and The Lion’s Binding Oath author Ahmed Ismail Yusuf evaluates what the death of George Floyd and – just a few months later and a few blocks away – the death of Somali-American Dolal Idd means for the future of the American police force.
In celebrity book news, E.L. James, famed author of the Fifty Shades of Grey series, announced a new book in the series to be published this summer: Freed, written from Christian Grey’s perspective. Fans of the cult television series “American Horror Story” are reading Dante’s The Divine Comedy after a fan theory went viral, and a self-published cookbook by Andy Warhol is going to auction later this month and is expected to sell for no less than $30,000. And ICYMI (although I don’t see how), Dr. Seuss‘ publishing house has made the decision to cease printing of six of the author’s earlier children’s books, including McElligot’s Pool and And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, on account of racist imagery and derogatory character portrayals. Read up on the debate, then check out this Guardian piece on the history of removing racist sections from children’s books and one poet’s response on Book Riot.
The 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist was announced this week. The shortlist will be announced April 28th and the winner on July 7th. LitHub has been doing a feature over the last month highlighting the finalists of the NBCC award, and this week’s profile covered The Shore by Chris Nealon. 2018 Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk released a picture book on patience and happiness last week, and Diane Abbott, the first Black woman to be elected as an MP in the UK, is releasing a memoir.
The Internet graced us with some great interviews this week. Viet Thanh Nguyen talked with Electric Literature about colonialism and anti-Asian violence, and with the Guardian on writing his second novel, The Committed. Naoise Dolan (author of breakout hit Exciting Times) wrote on hiding her autism and seeking relief in COVID-19 isolation, and chatted with Dominique Sisley at AnOther Magazine about queerness, class, and ableism. The New York Times profiled author Harlan Coben at home, and Deidre Coyle talked female monsters with Electric Literature Editor-in-Chief Jess Zimmerman – with “the universality of living inside a rotting meat-coated vehicle” coming in at the #1 spot on my list of favorite lines this week. (On the topic, why won’t we just let women be villains?) Finally, on LitHub, Harmony Holiday described a 1973 interview between James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, and a young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., which Time Magazine commissioned but never released.
A research study that began in 2010 showed that digital versions of children’s books could harm children’s narrative comprehension, but that if they included the right digital enhancements, the digital versions actually outperformed physical copies on comprehension metrics. Speaking of digital books, Amazon isn’t selling eBooks and audiobooks of their titles to public libraries, preventing library users access to thousands of titles.
This week’s best book lists: here’s bestselling author Caitlin Moran on the 6 books that changed her life, occult books for beginners, 15 virtual book clubs to join, and 4 unlikely manga heroes you should know. If music’s your thing, here’s five books for you, if it’s the outdoors, Book Riot‘s got a list for you, and if you’re feeling meta, here’s 12 romance novels about writers. (Mad for meta? Here’s Elizabeth Knox with a book list on books about fictional books.) Add these 10 novellas by authors of color to your wish list and relive these 15 cringeworthy film adaptations of your favorite book scenes, before checking out these 20 must-read queer essay collections and 31 celebrity memoirs that don’t suck.
In this week’s thought-provoking reads roundup, learn about the challenges of getting books into prisons, why we should all read multiple books at once (@me), and a brief history of the exclamation mark. Follow one reader’s account of her challenge to read a female-authored book from every country in the world, and then check out this feminist reading of the Bridgerton novels and what you should be reading instead.
Here’s Laurie Elizabeth Flynn on the allure of the college campus setting for thriller novels, and Lilly Dancyger on resisting the publishing urge and waiting for the right book contract. Seven writers comment on coping with lockdown, Anandi Mishra comments on writing in her colonizers’ language, and Katherine May teaches us what we can learn from wintering trees. Lastly, check out this fascinating Smithsonian Magazine piece on the neuroscience behind eight popular story elements.
And finally, for your viewing pleasure, here’s 50 awful book covers for literary classics, and a short film on closeness and the poem by David Whyte that inspired it.
