Books

With the new legislative season in full swing, now is a crucial time to write to your representatives. We’re seeing unbelievable numbers of new proposals to outlaw intellectual freedom, to criminalize library workers and educators for providing queer and/or diverse literature to their communities, to ban drag shows (including drag storytimes), and to make being queer or a person of color even harder than it already is. You can track every single bill of concern to the freedom to read here, and you should. In addition to keeping an eye...

After nearly three months of striking, the HarperCollins Union, representing about 250 employees across sectors of the publisher, have reached a tentative deal. This happened quickly after the publishing giant agreed to meet with the Union to discuss their demands. It comes on the heels of the publisher also announcing a 5% reduction in its workforce over the next few months. HarperCollins Union members began their strike in November. Among their short list of demands were an increase in the starting salaries from $45,000 a year to $50,000, as well...

Russell Books is an iconic new and used bookstore in Victoria, BC, Canada. It was started in 1961 in Montreal by Reg Russell and relocated to Victoria in 1991. It’s now being run by the third generation of the family: Reg Russell’s granddaughter, Andrea Minter, and her husband, Jordan. It started as a 300 square foot, one aisle bookstore and has expanded over the years to two floors connected with escalators and 18,000 square feet. The aisles ares packed full of used and new books in every conceivable genre, and...

Twilight fans rejoice! Stephenie Meyer has announced that two new Twilight books will be released. The details, though, aren’t all there yet. The author mentioned having an outline and one chapter written, but also spoke on how she’d like to explore new territory, saying “I want to do something brand new. For me, a lot of the joy of writing comes from creating and I really want to do a new world and new rules and new mythology. Mythology is kind of my thing.” What we do know so far...

Haymarket, a Chicago-based independent nonprofit book publisher, is offering free Black History books to combat book bans and the attack on education coming from the right. The publishing company released a statement February 2nd stating how they stand in solidarity with those in Florida and across the U.S. who are fighting book bans and education censorship. They especially want to connect with people in Florida to help distribute books to younger people without access because of the Ron DeSantis-led assault on education, the consequences of which have included the College...

Barbra Streisand is an EGOT winning (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) performer with a career spanning six decades and many mediums. She won a Golden Globe for directing; she wrote, produced, directed, and starred in the major studio film Yentl; and she is one of the best-selling artists of all time — to name just a few of her accomplishments. Streisand and the publisher Viking Books have announced that her long-awaited memoir My Name is Barbra will be coming out November 7, 2023. The book will cover her path to...

In the 2023 Grammy Awards, Viola Davis won in the Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording category for her narration of her memoir, Finding Me. This win secured her a membership in an exclusive club of people who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award. Including Davis, only 18 people have EGOT status, including Rita Moreno, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, and Whoopi Goldberg. Davis previously won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in How To Get Away With Murder, an...

Social media seems harmless enough, right? Wrong! It’s a scary place, and if you don’t know how to navigate the wild world of Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, etc., well then you might just find yourself lost in the weeds. Thank goodness we have social media influencers. Their whole job is to make sense of the world of social media, create content for us to enjoy, and create a sense of organization on the otherwise chaotic Internet. Have you ever dreamed of becoming a social media influencer? Or maybe you already are...

There are only so many ways to state that book censorship is not coming to an end any time soon. That until there is significant money and action on the part of those dedicated to the First Amendment rights of all, until anyone in the government does anything meaningful, we’re all subject to the rule of right wing Christian nationalist bigots. Here’s a look at the recruitment website for “Community Patriots of Manatee County,” meant to call in members to go raid the schools and public libraries of books they...

This week across the book banning social media world, a new guidebook to inappropriate books across the state of Iowa has been circulating. This 111 page guidebook, put together by Moms For Liberty in Polk County, reiterates that their quest to remove inappropriate books from schools is not about book banning. Indeed, they use the Stephen King philosophy to suggest that just because they do not want books in schools does not mean that students cannot get them from public libraries (conveniently leaving out their quest to get those books...

On January 30, James Gunn and Peter Safran, the new architects of the DC Universe in film and television, announced the first ten projects for the brand-new DC Studios. There had been a lot of speculation leading up to this announcement, given DC’s deep catalog of characters and their consistent failure to, um, make good stuff with them. Some of the announcements are unsurprising; some are exciting; some are baffling. So I’m here to break down “Gods and Monsters,” a.k.a. “the first part of Chapter 1 of the DCU” into...

Kerry Washington will publish her first memoir on September 26, 2023 in the U.S. and the UK simultaneously. The award-winning actor, producer, director, and activist is best known for her role as Olivia Pope in Shonda Rhimes’ hit drama Scandal, as well as her starring roles in Django Unchained, The Last King of Scotland, and more. With the memoir, titled Thicker Than Water, Washington will give readers an intimate look at her life — from a trauma-filled childhood in the Bronx, to an extraordinary career of acting and activism. Find...

The Rainbow Round Table is part of the American Library Association. It started in 1970, and every year, it awards both the Stonewall Awards and the Rainbow Book List. The Rainbow Book list is in recognition of exceptional LGBTQ children’s and teen’s books of the previous year. It also provides an annotated list of notable LGBTQ kids’ and YA books of the previous year. For 2022, the full list includes 190 titles, selected from the 550 eligible books published last year. In the introduction to the list, The Rainbow Round...

The American Library Association has announced the 2023 winners of the Youth Media Awards, including the Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz. These are some of the prestigious awards in children’s literature; the Newbery Medal has been awarded for over 100 years. Here are this year’s winners. Descriptions of each book are from the publisher. John Newbery Medal For the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature. Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson Debut author Amina Luqman-Dawson pens a lyrical, accessible historical middle-grade novel about two enslaved children’s escape from a plantation and the many ways they...