Categories
Check Your Shelf

Yeah, There’s Library News, But Also FREE BOOKS FOR LIFE!!

Welcome to Check Your Shelf. This has been a WEEK, and thankfully I’m off today, because my work week ended yesterday with me getting a COVID swab up my nose (no symptoms, but I had contact with a potentially positive case at work). But maybe waiting for the test results will distract me from the anxiety of the election? Maybe??

But on a more positive note, IT’S HALLOWEEN TOMORROW! Yeah, we’re all staying inside, but I’m gonna watch all the horror movies I can handle, and then some.

Let’s library.


Libraries & Librarians

News Updates

Charlotte removes the name of a white supremacist North Carolina governor from a branch library.

The Brooklyn Public Library released the shortlist for its 6th annual Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize.

The NYPL has acquired Arthur Miller’s personal study library.

Cool Library Updates

Little Free Library launches its Read in Color diversity initiative.

Worth Reading

The Panorama Project published a directory of Best Practices for Public Library Events.


Book Adaptations in the News

Children of Blood and Bone has been optioned by Lucasfilm.

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas is coming to the movies!

Project X has optioned the film rights to Mia Sosa’s The Worst Best Man.

Rachel Howzell Hall’s Lou Norton series has been optioned to Lionsgate Television.

Jake Gyllenhaal is starring in and executive producing HBO’s adaptation of The Son by Jo Nesbo.

David Fincher confirms that Mindhunter will not be returning to Netflix for a third season, or at least not any time soon. (So disappointed – that show was mesmerizing.)

Candyman’s release date gets pushed back to August 2021.

First trailer for The Dry!!

New trailer for News of the World.


Books & Authors in the News

A group of parents have threatened to sue the Lake Norman Charter School in North Carolina if they do not remove Elizabeth Acevedo’s book The Poet X from its required reading list for freshmen, but students are fighting back.

Oprah puts aside her usual book club recommendation and instead suggests seven titles that “help her through.”

There have been multiple copies of John Grisham’s A Time For Mercy that contain so many extensive printing errors that Doubleday has recalled copies and is replacing them.

An inside look at Agatha Christie’s 100 year pop culture reign.


Award News

Anna Burns becomes the first Irish woman to win the International Dublin Literary Award.

Richard Owain Roberts wins the 2020 Not the Booker Prize.

The longlists for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction & Nonfiction have been released.

Who are you voting for in the Goodreads Choice Awards?

Shortlists for the 2020 British Fantasy Awards.

Take a peep at the shortlist for the 2020 Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year.


Pop Cultured

Tim Burton is directing a live-action Addams Family TV series.

Sneak peak at season 2 of The Mandalorian.

A first look at the Game of Thrones sequel, House of the Dragon.


Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous

Free books for life?! Hell to the yes!

Readers have some opinions on the most disappointing book ending.

You can now read the only surviving full draft of a Jane Austen novel, in her own handwriting.

Check out this surreal bookstore that just opened in China.


On the Riot

Library inductions for students, post lockdown.

How to genrefy your library.

How to start a virtual book recommendation service.

How the Tournament of Books changed this reader’s reading life.

How to improve your reading comprehension as an adult.

When reading is more stressor than stress-relief. (I feel this SO HARD right now.)


Go read something scary, people, and gird yourself for Tuesday (and wash your hands!).

—Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter.

Categories
Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships for October 30: Space Horror

Happy Halloween Eve, shipmates! It’s Alex, here to talk to you about space horror and a bit of news. But mostly, I’m here to enthuse about it being Halloween and a full Moon, and for 24 hours, let’s hold on to that and let nothing ruin it. I am making a pavlova to celebrate. The color of the fruit decorations will be thematically appropriate, at least, but it’s the fanciest dessert I know how to do. Have a wonderful weekend, stay safe, and I will see you on Tuesday!

Happy second anniversary to one of my favorite (and season appropriate) tweets.

Looking for non-book things you can do to help in the quest for justice? blacklivesmatter.card.co and The Okra Project.

News and Views

Zin E. Rocklyn’s debut novella has been announced: Flowers for the Sea

2 new novellas coming from Kate Elliott as well

And an anthology of Chinese SFF in translation is incoming

Nibedita Sen writes about the Art of Restraint

A panel of editors discuss how diversity is transforming science fiction

A Room of One’s Own bookstore is offering customized science fiction and fantasy subscription boxes in 6 months or 12 month options

Lindsay Ellis on how science fiction makes sense of the present

There’s a Kickstarter for Xenolanguage, a board game about first contact, and a lot of science fiction authors are involved. There’s an anthology that goes with it.

Amazon is adapting Havenfall

So Russian scientists have allegedly defrosted 40,000 year old parasitic worms and found a couple of them still alive and I’m sure nothing bad could come of it.

On Book Riot

A guide to conquering your demons with 5 mathematical sci-fi books

Edward Cullen is a comedian, and other thoughts on Midnight Sun

This week’s SFF Yeah! is having an existential crisis.

This month, you can enter to win a $250 Barnes & Noble gift card.

Free Association Friday: Space Horror

I’ve noticed that the Halloween-themed Free Association Fridays have all been rather weighted toward the fantasy side of things (aside: Sci fi authors, get it together. I want some ghosts in space! And space witches other than the ones I wrote!). So this time around, it’s all Sci-Fi, or at least Sci-Fantasy, for our slightly horror-tastic offerings.

Salvation Day by Kali Wallace

The House of Wisdom was a massive exploration ship; now it’s a ghost ship, abandoned for a decade due to an outbreak of a deadly virus on board, one that killed its entire crew—minus one—in a matter of hours. Any would-be shipbreak has a rich target, and all they need to do to get it is not care about the potential for the disease surviving… and kidnap the sole survivor of the disaster, whose gene code will allow entry to the ship. Zahra head a ship breaking crew brave (and stupid) enough to do just that… but none of them are prepared for what they find waiting on board.

Toxic by Lydia Kang

The bioship Cyclo is a home to many secrets—one of which is Hana, a child hidden by her mother in a secret room, until one day the entire crew simply disappears. But the Cyclo is destined to die as well, and a group of mercenaries have been sent to observe her death. One of the mercenaries befriends Hana, and the two of them must figure out how to survive the dying ship and all the secrets that the human government would like to die with her.

the luminous dead cover image

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

An expedition to map mineral deposits promises mundane dangers like gear malfunctions and cave collapses. The fat paycheck seems well worth the risk to Gyre… until she gets Em as her surface contact, Em who has no problem manipulating her with drugs, withholding information, and blackmail. And there’s more in the caves than just Gyre—there’s the Tunneler that calls them home, and the ghosts in her own head that grow ever louder.

Blindsight by Peter Watts

Two months ago, 65,000 alien objects coated the atmosphere of the Earth, screaming out that humans were being watched for a brief second before burning up in the atmosphere. After those days of tense silence, an almost-defunct probe catches an alien signal—but it’s not there to talk to us. Something is coming, and it doesn’t care about humanity. The only hope to attempt First Contact with a disinterested alien mind is to send a group of humans who seem alien to their own species, and hope they can handle what’s waiting for them out in the black.

Pitch Dark by Courtney Alameda

Human civilization is dying, and the key to its salvation might wait in the hold of the USS John Muir, a chunk of Earth taken from the planet long before straits became so dire. The crew of the John Muir have been in cryogenic sleep for centuries and have no idea what’s going on… but that’s no problem for ship raider Laura Cruz. But soon she and the no longer sleeping crew have a different, more immediate problem: alien monsters that can kill with a sound.

Ring by Koji Suzuki, translated by Glynne Walley

You may be familiar with the movies this book spawned—the evil video tape that kills, the mysterious monster named Sadako who crawls out of your TV. But the deadly threat that kills in seven days has a far different—and much more science fiction—origin in the book, and a much more tragic and horrifying history. I’ll also note this is one of the best translations from Japanese I’ve ever read that wasn’t a Murakami novel.


See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.

Categories
Unusual Suspects

Mindhunter Season 3 Not Happening

Hi mystery fans! Hopefully I have at least one distraction for you amongst this list of posts, podcasts, Kindle deals, and what to watch.

From Book Riot and Around The Internet

On the latest Read Or Dead Rincey and Katie mourn the ending of The President is Missing adaptation, celebrate some revivals and reboots and talk about their love of audiobooks.

10 Historical Mystery Series to Whisk You Away

mexican gothic

The Best Book Covers of 2020

Mindhunter Season 3 Not Happening

Is this what really happened when Agatha Christie disappeared?

(Spoilers) The major differences between Rebecca the book and the movie

The adaptation of Jane Harper’s The Dry, starring Eric Bana, will premiere in Australia in January and here’s the trailer!

No Time To Buy: James Bond Reportedly Considered a Streaming Sale

Goodreads Awards are up for voting in the first round and I am super happy some amazing books have landed in the mystery & thriller category including When No One Is Watching, Winter Counts, One by One, The Searcher, Blacktop Wasteland, And Now She’s Gone. You can also find Winter Counts under the debut novel category and The Hand on the Wall and Grown under the YA category. Under the historical fiction category you have Deacon King Kong. For true crime memoir readers, We Keep The Dead Close and Notes on a Silencing are under the nonfiction category. So many great books to have to choose between!

Deacon King Kong and Hurricane Season are on the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction longlist.

This is going to be awesome!––‘Mudbound’ Co-Writer Virgil Williams to Adapt ‘Blacktop Wasteland’ for Picturestart, John Legend’s Get Lifted

Win a Book Lovers Puzzles Prize Pack

Enter to win a $250 Barnes and Noble Gift Card

Watch Now

HBO: You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz has been adapted into an HBO miniseries, The Undoing, which is written by David E. Kelley and stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant. It’s a psychological thriller about a therapist who has a happy life until her book is about to publish, telling women how to use their intuition towards terrible men and, well, now she’ll have to take a look at her own husband… Watch the trailer.

Kindle Deals

meddling kids

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

If you’re looking for a snarky mystery read playing off the Scooby gang Meddling Kids is $2.99.

The Bright Lands by John Fram

If you want a murder mystery + horror mash (it is Halloween!) The Bright Lands is $2.99 and I’m it has the most WTF horror ending I’ve ever read. (Review) (TW homophobia, slurs/ talk of suicide, detail/ brief mentions of domestic abuse case, detail/ fat shaming/ forced nude photos/ statutory)

Broken Harbor (Dublin Murder Squad, Book 4) by Tana French

If you’re making your way through Tana French’s procedural series–each book reads as a standalone–and haven’t gotten to Broken Harbor yet it’s currently $1.99!

I Know A Secret (Rizzoli & Isles #12) by Tess Gerritsen

For another book in a procedural series you can pick up this Rizzoli & Isles novel for $2.99! (Review) (Don’t remember TWs, sorry)

Categories
Today In Books

Mindy Kaling Adapting Jennifer Weiner’s GOOD IN BED: Today In Books

Mindy Kaling Adapting Jennifer Weiner’s Good In Bed

Jennifer Weiner’s 2001 debut novel, Good In Bed, is being adapted by Mindy Kaling, who will not only produce but also start in the film. The New York Times Best Seller (wonder if this news will put it back there?) is about 28-year-old Cannie Shapiro and what starts off as the worst year of her life turning into the best as she learns to accept herself, love, and life even when it isn’t perfect.

Dear Sugar Returning

Cheryl Strayed–the author of Wild, Tiny Beautiful Things, and Brave Enough–is putting her Dear Sugar writing cap back on. She’ll begin answering letters in November (which is already almost here!), and you can sign up for her newsletter and write in your questions.

Netflix Renews The Baby-Sitters Club

Netflix’s adaptation of the Scholastic series The Baby-sitters Club will live on to see a second season. The books’ author, Ann M. Martin, is returning as producer along with Rachel Shukert as showrunner and executive producer. The second season of the series currently has a 2021 premiere date.

Tour The TWILIGHT House Tonight From Your Own Home

Take a virtual tour of Bella Swan’s home tonight, October 29, and fall in love with the story again.

Categories
Read This Book

Read This Book: Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

Welcome to Read This Book, a weekly newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!

This week’s pick is a creepy pick, of course, because tomorrow is Halloween! I went with a middle grade horror novel that I love…and totally scared my socks off!

Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

Olive is a kid who has lost her mom, and she’s not in the best of places. She spends her days reading, daydreaming, and holding herself back from making friends. When she picks up a mysterious book about a girl, two brothers who love her, and a dangerous deal with a mysterious Smiling Man, it’s just a distraction…or so she thinks.

One day, Olive and her classmates head to a nearby farm for a field trip, and when it’s over, their bus breaks down on the way back to town. While their teacher heads off to go get help, the kids are supposed to stay on the bus with the driver. But Olive very quickly gets a bad feeling, and she and two other kids leap out of the back door just in time to avoid being taken captive by a mysterious force in the woods. Now they’re caught in a weird liminal space where they have to outsmart the Smiling Man, who is very real indeed, or they’ll be stuck there forever. Olive has to learn how to accept help, and she discovers assistance from a very unlikely source.

This is a middle grade novel that I read in one massive gulp–I seriously couldn’t put it down! I read it when I was still not sure what I thought of horror novels, and it turns out that this was the perfect way for me to explore the genre because this book was unsettling but not disturbing–it’s written for kids, after all! Arden builds tension and suspense through Olive’s journey through grief, so that in order to save herself and her classmates Olive must open herself up to the pain she’s been avoiding and learn to trust others. The emotional heart of this story is as compelling as the high stakes thrills and action, but the beautiful fall setting that quickly turns into a nightmare of scarecrows and abandoned fields definitely had me shivering as well! If you’re curious about horror novels, or you want something creepy but not too chilling for this weekend, then I highly recommend picking up this book or any other middle grade horror novel for that matter!

Bonus: There’s a sequel called Dead Voices, in which Ollie and her new friends head to a haunted ski lodge, and it’s just as chilling and good!

Happy reading!
Tirzah


Find me on Book Riot, the Insiders Read Harder podcast, All the Books, and Twitter.

If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, click here to subscribe.

Categories
True Story

True Crime Reads

Happy Friday! Lots going on for sure, so take care of yourself this weekend. Possibly by reading a book? We’ve got a whole new themed list to march into the weekend with: true crime, but true crime NOT focused on murder. Here we go:

Diamond Doris cover image

Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World’s Most Notorious Jewel Thief by Doris Payne

Payne was a jewel thief for over 60 years, once arrested “after stealing a diamond ring in Monte Carlo that was valued at more than half a million dollars.” But then she broke out of jail with the help of nuns? This story sounds extremely fun and good for a winter read.

The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell: A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code, and the FBI’s Hunt for America’s Stolen Secrets by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

In 2000, the FBI received a package. It was “a series of coded letters from an anonymous sender to the Libyan consulate, offering to sell classified United States intelligence.” What made the code much harder to crack was the sender had dyslexia. This is is billed as a “true-life spy thriller,” which is excellent, and is great for all you code-crackers out there.

The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson cover image

The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson

A flautist breaks into a museum and steals hundreds of bird skins. Why? Fly fishing. “What?” you correctly say. This not only goes into that super-weird story, but also the history of the man who collected some of the skins in the first place, Alfred Russel Wallace, who was perhaps equally weird (but not in a necessarily bad way).

American Sherlock cover image

American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI by Kate Winkler Dawson

Ok sure, murder’s in the title, but it’s not the POINT of the book. It’s all about the “American Sherlock Holmes,” Edward Oscar Heinrich. Using forensics (in the 1930s and beyond), he solved over two thousand cases! It’s pretty satisfying to read about how someone found clues and deduced answers, especially in this time of chaos in which we all find ourselves. Facts! How comforting.


Have an excellent weekend! You can find me on social media @itsalicetime and co-hosting the nonfiction For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time, enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.

Categories
Events

It’s Time For Haunted Riot!

:Cue organ music: Got your garlic and talismans in hand? Or perhaps you are the thing that goes bump in the night? Come in, come in, and enjoy our Big Creepy Crawly Mood! We’ve got horror podcasts, gothic novels, picture books, cursed objects — we’ve even got a post for those of you who would prefer all this Halloween nonsense be over, thanks very much. And, of course, that’s just the start.

Cast your protection circle and read on!

Categories
Audiobooks

Audiobooks 10/29

Hola Audiophiles! I’m taking a page from the Patricia playbook (Book Riot Contributing Editor and fellow All the Books cohost) and reminding everyone to drink some water, unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders. If you’re in the US like me, this week is… not an easy one on the ol’ stress levels. I hope you find ways to manage any anxiety, to find and feel some hope, and to take care of your minds and bodies.

If you haven’t already, vote! Make sure you drop off your ballots in person since it’s officially too late for mail-ins. If you need any help breaking down positions and policies of candidates, details of proposed legislation, or even how to get a ballot and where to drop it off, I found the “Know Your State” section at Vote Save America so helpful. There are a lot of options out there—don’t be afraid to seek them out or ask a friend!

Ready? Let’s audio.


New Releases – Week of October 27  (publisher descriptions in quotes)

Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco

If you thought I wasn’t going to sneak in at least one more witch book, HA! This one is about Emilia and Victoria, twin sisters who are also both strega! That’s right: outwardly, they’re living a normal life, working in their family’s Sicilian restaurant; secretly, they’re witches. When Victoria misses dinner service one night, Emilia goes looking for her and finds her badly desecrated body. Emilia will stop at nothing to avenge her beloved twin, even if that means using that old forbidden magic.

Read by Marisa Calin (A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson, The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix, Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle)

Sea Trial: Sailing After My Father by Brian Harvey

John Harvey was a neurosurgeon a decade into retirement when a sheriff showed up at his door with a summons. It was a malpractice suit, it did not go well, and Dr. Harvey never got over it. In this memoir, his son Brian Harvey shares the story of a boating adventure he took with his wife, his dog, and a box of documents that surfaced after his father’s death. That box turns out to contain every nurse’s record, doctor’s report, trial transcript, and testimony related to the malpractice case. Only Brian’s father had read it all – until now. Brian finally finds out what happened in the OR on that crucial night and why Dr. Harvey fought the excruciating accusations.

Read by Jason Gray

cover image of House of Correction by Nicci French

House of Correction by Nicci French

Tabitha has just returned to her hometown in England when a body is found and she’s blamed for the murder. She attempts to solve her own case from prison as her entire life and past are picked apart. As she attempts to unravel the truth, she realizes her memory of the day in question is a blur. She can’t be guilty. She knows she’s not guilty! She.. thinks she’s not guilty?

Read by Michelle Ford (The Last Wife by Karen Hamilton)

Memorial by Bryan Washington

Mike and Benson are a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and a Black day care teacher living together in Houston. While the years they’ve been together have been good ones—good food, good sex, and, ya know, love—they’re not quite sure why it is they’re still together. When Mike finds out his estranged dad is dying in Osaka, he picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye. There he undergoes an extraordinary transformation as he discovers the truth about his family and his past. Pick this up if you’re in the mood for a “funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you’re supposed to be, and the limits of love.”

Read by Akie Kotabe (Inheritors by Asako Serizawa) and Bryan Washington ( Lot: Stories)

Latest Listens

Everything's Trash But It's Okay

Everything’s Trash but It’s Okay by Phoebe Robinson

I did not do much non-work reading last week, in part because I took a week off to relax and celebrate my 36th turn around the sun, and mainly because November 3rd is just around the corner and I have apparently just now reached peak Can’t Deal. My focus is non-existent.

So for what I’m sure are obvious reasons, I’m going to go with a throwback hit and reminding everyone about Everything’s Trash, but It’s Okay. I recommended this book waaaaaaay back when I first took over the Audiobooks newsletter! Phoebe Robinson is a hilarious comedian, actress, writer, and one half of the Two Dope Queens podcast and HBO special (I wish both were still going!) Her first book, You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain had me hollering in public and this second effort did not disappoint. No one does excessive hashtags, silliness, and Bono thirst (and I do mean thirst, so much thirst) with an injection of thoughtful social commentary quite like Phoebe does. Phoebe’s narration of personal anecdotes had me cry-laughing and cringing at the same time. Really though, it’s her cultural criticism and musings on feminism, politics, body image, workplace parity, and dating that really set it off. This book is the essence of Phoebe: smart, funny, and a little (a lotta) extra.

If you, like me, are hyper aware that everything’s trash and aren’t feeling all that okay, pick up this audiobook. Permit yourself some laughter and hope.

From the Internets

at Audible: From Page to Scream: Spine-Chilling Listens that Inspired Horror Movies

at Audiofile: 5 Chilling Romance Audiobooks – I read that post title and thought, “Romance? Chilling?” Then I saw the titles. I def did not think to classify When No One Is Watching as a romance because *shudders*… well, stuff! But I see what they’re going for.

at Libro.fm: So you know how first volume of Barack Obama’s memoir is coming out next month (muppet arms x 100000)? Well check this out: if you pre-order A Promised Land in print from an independent bookstore, Libro.fm will give you a free audiobook!

Over at the Riot

8 of the Best Audiobooks to Escape Into – As you may recall from am awkward incident involving a steamy sex scene and a stoplight, that Talia Hibbert romance is perfect, steamy, escapist fun!

9 Audiobooks by Debut Authors – I forgot that Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line was a debut! Gotta get to that soon.


Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with with all things audiobook or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the In The Club newsletter and catch me once a month on the All the Books podcast.

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.

Vanessa

Categories
Giveaways

102920-TheRavens-Giveaway

We’re giving away five copies of The Ravens by Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige to five lucky Riot readers! 

Enter here for a chance to win, or click the cover image below!

Here’s what it’s all about:

From New York Times best-selling authors Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige comes a thrilling, dark contemporary fantasy about a prestigious sorority of witches and two girls caught up in its world of sinister magic and betrayals.

Categories
The Stack

102920-BrokenMariko-The-Satck