Welcome to Check Your Shelf! This is your guide to help librarians like you up your game when it comes to doing your job (& rocking it).
“Check Your Shelf” is sponsored by Wishtree by Katherine Applegate.
A special edition of Katherine Applegate’s New York Times-bestselling novel about an oak tree and a crow who help their neighbors embrace their differences.
“Speaks movingly to a noisy, fractious world.” —The Washington Post
“A beautifully written, morally bracing story that will leave its imprint on a reader of any age.” —The New York Times Book Review
Libraries & Librarians
- A look at “other duties as assigned” in the library world.
- Salt Lake County libraries give away free gun locks to promote gun safety.
- Houston judge shuts down drag queen story time lawsuit. But there are still other protests going on nationwide.
- A library in North Carolina has installed cameras in the common areas of their public bathrooms as a “security measure” to prevent vandalism. Holy cow, how many ways are there to say “NOPE”?!
- This couple is trying to visit all 85 branches of the Los Angeles County Library system, and they’re over halfway there!
- Check out this new podcast series for library lovers!
Book Adaptations in the News
- Deadly Sexy, an adaptation of Beverly Jenkins’ book, is available to watch on Amazon.
- Please don’t take the Bird Box challenge.
- Ingrid Michaelson is turning The Notebook into a musical.
Books in the News
- Karamo Brown, one of the stars of the new Queer Eye series, is releasing a memoir this year! Can you believe?!
- Michael W. Twitty, author of The Cooking Gene, announces a new book for December.
- We’re getting a sequel to the award-winning Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke in September! (Read it, folks! It’s SUPER good.)
- Reese Witherspoon picks The Library Book by Susan Orlean as her January book club title.
- Cixin Liu is publishing a standalone science fiction novel, Supernova Era, in October.
- Senator Kamala Harris published a children’s book called Superheroes Are Everywhere.
By the Numbers
- Check out this really cool infographic about world reading habits in 2018!
- eBook and eAudiobook numbers are up from 2017, according to OverDrive. eBook usage increased by 19%, eAudiobook usage increased by 29%, and eAudiobooks outpaced eBook usage for the 5th year in a row!
- Author’s Guild survey shows that writers’ incomes have fallen drastically in the last 5 years.
Award News
- Costa Book Awards have been announced! Sally Rooney becomes the youngest recipient of the Costa Best Novel Award, and Stuart Turton wins the debut novel prize for The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.
- Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America are honoring William Gibson as the 35th Damon Knight Grand Memorial Grand Master for his life’s work.
- Check out the #readRchatAwards winners – some great romance titles to be familiar with.
- Longlist for International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
Pop Cultured
- Killing Eve sets a Season 2 premiere date.
- A list of all the Star Wars projects in 2019.
All Things Comics
- A DIY comics reading challenge for 2019.
- Getting kids into nonfiction with graphic nonfiction.
- YA graphic novels coming out January – March 2019.
- Ruby Rose as Batwoman? Yes please!
- Entertainment Weekly: Comics to read in 2019.
Audiophilia
- Bustle: 15 super short audiobooks you can listen to in a day.
Best Books of 2018
- Top 25 books of 2018, as voted on by indie booksellers.
- Liberty Hardy, Book Riot’s resident velocireader, gives us 150 of her favorite books from 2018!
Coming Up in 2019
- Huffington Post: 61 books to look forward to in 2019.
- Nylon: 50 books you’ll want to read in 2019.
- Book Riot: Most anticipated 2019 reads.
- And Book Riot again: 50 YA books for 2019.
- Barnes & Noble Teen: 25 #ownvoices YA titles in 2019.
- AV Club: 15 books for 2019.
- Vulture: 37 books we can’t wait to read.
- The Millions: the Great First-Half Book Preview.
- Crime Reads: Most Anticipated Crime Novels, Part 1.
- Tor.com: Upcoming SFF titles for teens this winter.
- Elle India: 10 books to read by South Asian authors.
- And we’ve got more January 2019 lists from Amazon, Barnes & Noble (SFF), Bustle, Cosmopolitan, PopSugar, Refinery 29, CrimeReads, and The Millions.
Book Lists, Book Lists, Book Lists
- 6 books on climate change written by women.
- 10 Asian American poetry collections.
- The best books you’ve never heard of.
- Books to read in a single (sleepless) night.
- Several Rioters give us the last books they read in 2018.
- 14 children’s books about books.
- Read Harder suggestions for epistolary novels and alternate histories.
- 6 books recommended by Michelle Obama.
- 50 books about tech & startup culture.
- How about a few SFF book & beer pairings?
- Latinx authors that should be on your reading list this year.
- 5 books to read before you get married (and no, Gone Girl is not one of them).
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
- Three words: Black. Feminist. Bookmobile.
- Garrison Keillor is selling his book store, Common Good Books.
- Marie Kondo’s decluttering advice has sparked a lot of strong feelings in book lovers.
- A 97-year-old Holocaust survivor turns her poetry into heavy metal songs, and this may be the greatest sentence that will ever be written in 2019.
- Classic literature as fortune cookies. (A Christmas Carol: You will become better acquainted with a coworker.)
- 12 of the best cities for book lovers.
Level Up (Library Reads)
Do you take part in LibraryReads, the monthly list of best books selected by librarians only? We’ve made it easy for you to find eligible diverse titles to nominate. Kelly Jensen created a database of upcoming diverse books that anyone can edit, and Nora Rawlins of Early Word is doing the same, as well as including information about series, vendors, and publisher buzz.
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Thanks for hanging out and I’ll see you again next week!
–Katie McLain, @kt_librarylady on Twitter. Currently reading Deception on All Accounts by Sara Sue Hoklotubbe.