Books

Back in August, Kelly Jensen wrote about how conservative propaganda led to Jamestown, Michigan voting down the library millage (tax) rate that was on the ballot, making it impossible for the library to stay open for more than a few months. Jamestown Conservatives called the librarians “groomers” who were “indoctrinating” children because they refused to take LGBTQ books off the shelves. Some Jamestown residents responded by starting a GoFundMe campaign for the library, which received donations from around the world. It soon raised over $100,000, which is when Nora Roberts...

The 2022 Kirkus Prize Award winners were announced Thursday October 27 in a hybrid ceremony at a public library in Austin, TX. The literary award was first given in 2014 and is among the highest paying, granting each of its winners $50,000. The winners are as follows: Fiction Trust by Hernan Diaz Trust shows the fundamental inequality of wealth by following a wealthy couple in New York, starting in the 1920s. The judges appreciated the “multiple perspectives and forms to push the boundaries of what a novel can do.” This...

Amazon bought Goodreads in 2013, but for the most part, there hasn’t been much integration between the retailer and the social reading site. Recently, though, some authors have spotted Goodreads average ratings showing up on Amazon listings of their books, although Amazon has its own ratings system. So. Amazon is starting to add Goodreads ratings to their book pages. Goodreads notoriously doesn't do enough to moderate bot/spam/sock puppet accounts. They don't even require email address verification before rating. And now this will impact sales in a bigger way than ever....

As you mark your calendar for November events, remember to have your plan to vote in place and a nice stack of books to read, or admiringly stare at. Collecting unread books is also valid — you do you! For this month I’ve got a wide variety of moods and crime books. I’m doing my best to keep up with publishing dates changing so you may remember a book from a couple months ago that got moved for real (hopefully) to this month. There’s a lot of great reading to...

Book bans in prisons are nothing new. In fact, censorship thrives in the prison system. Whether the prison is public or private and part of a state-wide system or independent impacts the materials allowed to be sent to individuals (and the method by which they can be sent) and the materials allowed in prison libraries (if those libraries exist at all). Now, Florida prisons have banned a book by a writer who formerly experienced incarceration about her experience. My book is in book jail, y'all!!! Florida prisons "impounded" Corrections in...

We know that the same books show up again and again in these bans and challenges across the U.S. Beyond the copycat effect, what’s driving this push for specific titles to be pulled are book ratings systems created by groups like Moms For Liberty, Utah Parents United, and others. These book ratings systems are homegrown creations, developed my volunteers affiliated with these groups. The volunteers are ostensibly parents, though we know from a year and a half of increased book censorship that many are not. They have no formal training...

This past weekend, Jessie Graham, a woman from Columbia, TN, passionately defended the queer community during a Maury county board of trustees meeting. The speech was in response to Zachary Fox, the Maury county’s former public library director, resigning at a previous meeting. The resignation came after months of complaints about the library’s Prime Month Display and a family-friendly drag brunch he hosted at a brewery last year. During her speech, Graham described the homophobia used to ban books as “vile and disgusting.” She also used her own experiences to...

We need to be reading books by Native American authors year-round. We need to be turning to books by Native American authors to support different themes, as the kickoff to many different kinds of lessons, and as bedtime stories even in the middle of July. However, November is Native American Heritage Month, and it’s also one of the prime seasons where misinformation and whitewashing of Indigenous history runs rampant in the United States. It’s when we’re combating “pilgrim and Indian dress up day” in elementary schools and balancing the family...

A Federal Court has blocked Penguin Random House’s acquisition of one of its main rivals, Simon & Schuster. The ruling by judge Florence Y. Pan was announced late in the day on October 31, but the full order is temporarily sealed to protect confidential information. The case has been watched closely by the publishing industry — which has already seen extensive consolidation in the last twenty years — and beyond. A brief two-page document was released by the District Court for the District of Columbia, stating that “Upon review of...

The Shirley Jackson Awards recognize “outstanding achievement in the literature of horror, the dark fantastic, and psychological suspense.” Beginning in 2007, they award works in these genres according to format, including Novel, Novelette, Short Fiction, and Anthology. This year’s winners are all books published in 2021. Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books. Today In Books Newsletter Sign up to Today In Books to receive daily news and miscellany from the world of books. Thank you for signing up! Keep an eye on...

The dangerous thing about this iteration of the book banning brigade is that they are using strategies and resources that weren’t around in decades earlier. While book banners in the 1990s and the 2020s both equate queer books/kids/teachers/etc. with pedophilia, they are finding this (mis)information and spreading it faster than they ever could in years past. Part of the reason these book banning attempts are spreading so far and so quickly is because they share lists online, such as in Facebook groups or shared Google Drive folders, making it easy...

I love subscription boxes. I consider it a person failing of mine that I will pay mightily to have a stranger send me things they have decided I want. But it’s like presents! I love presents! And I have to say, after spending an entire year reading only books from bookish subscription boxes, many of these bookish subscription box curators are doing a bang-up job of understanding what books I like to read. I found all sorts of interesting books I would likely never have looked twice at. Fun times...

By now, you are most likely aware that her highness, Taylor Alison Swift, has bestowed a new album upon the people of Earth. Midnights is her tenth full-length album since the self-titled Taylor Swift was released in 2006, and while I’ve enjoyed her work since she shifted over from the country scene, I wasn’t really a fan until 2017’s Reputation. Since then, she’s sampled liberally from many different genres, culminating in Midnights, a concept album inspired by “13 sleepless nights” in Swift’s life. Like all art with staying power, Midnights...

Publishers in the U.K. say that books prices will likely rise. The increase is due to a rise in paper and energy costs, as well as the influences of Brexit. Founder of Jacaranda Books Arts Music, Valerie Branded, said that the cost of all formats of books were likely to rise 10-20%. This rise in price is likely to hit independent publishers harder, as they tend to have smaller print runs and aren’t able to benefit from discounts that come from ordering bigger print runs like larger publishing companies. The...