Author: Amanda Nelson

Arsenic and Old Glasses?

A new theory based on an examination of three of Jane Austen’s old pairs of glasses says the author might have died from accidental arsenic poisoning. The glasses show evidence that Austen’s vision went downhill close to her death, and that she possibly developed cataracts (a sign of arsenic poisoning). Speculation about Austen’s skin pigmentation near the end of her life also points to possible accidental arsenic ingestion. Of course, the actual cause of her death is still an open mystery, and one we’re not likely to solve with existing evidence. While accidental poisoning from toxic substances was more common in Regency England than it is now, this evidence is scant.

Young Readers Are Sticking to Print Books 

Ebook sales in the UK have fallen for the second year in a row while physical bookstore sales have risen, and it looks like younger readers are driving the reversal. While the huge numbers of adult coloring book sales probably has something to do with this (alas, you still can’t color on your Nook or Kindle), a 2016 Nielsen survey of readers 16-24 showed that 62% of them prefer to read a physical book to a digital one. Also a notable trend: use of tablets and phones overtook dedicated ereaders as the device of choice for reading digital books. Perhaps younger readers spend so much time looking at screens otherwise, they want a physical book for their reading?

We’re Getting a New Lisbeth

Sony is releasing their adaptation of The Girl in the Spider’s Web in October of 2018, and they’re doing it with a whole new cast. The company is conducting a “global search” for the next Lisbeth Salander, making the lucky actress the third to play the role on the big screen. It’s disappointing that we won’t see Rooney Mara back in the role (she was so perfect). Maybe Lisbeth will become the Doctor Who of thriller movies–same great character, new actress every few years.

Thanks to Unbound Worlds’ Cage Match for sponsoring this week’s newsletter.

Cage Match is back! Unbound Worlds is pitting science fiction characters against fantasy characters in a battle-to-the-death tournament, and you can win a collection of all 32 books featured in the competition. Enter now for your chance to win this library of sci-fi and fantasy titles!

New Books from Gaiman and Pullman

Neil Gaiman and Philip Pullman both announced new books related to their already-published material: Gaiman, a sequel to Neverwhere, and Pullman a companion trilogy to His Dark Materials. Gaiman cites his work with the UN Refugee Agency as the inspiration for the sequel, called The Seven Sisters. Pullman doesn’t seem to name a direct reason for new books in the Dark Materials universe, but the original books are deeply concerned with the anti-intellectual nature of religious fundamentalism, and we could always use more considerations of that topic, especially now.

First Trailer for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The HBO limited series adaptation of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks finally has a trailer (hey-o, Oprah!). Seems like this adaptation has been in the works for years. It’s hard to tell how true the series will be to the book (and therefore to real life), but so far, looks good. It’s a story that needs to be told, and if you haven’t read the book, read it before the series premieres on April 22!

People of Color Accounted for 22% of Children’s Book Characters Last Year

The Cooperative Children’s Book Center out of the University of Wisconsin tracks the diversity of children’s literature year by year (and has since the mid-’90s), and this year about 22% of characters in children’s books were people of color. Twenty years ago, that number was 9%. As with many things in publishing, progress is slow, but happening. The CCBC credits teachers who were searching for books for their minority students that represented them with the creation of the study–go, teachers!

Thanks to A Tragic Kind of Wonderful by Eric Lindstrom for sponsoring this week’s newsletter.

For Mel Hannigan, bipolar disorder makes life unpredictable. Her latest struggle is balancing her growing feelings in a new relationship with her instinct to conceal her diagnosis by keeping everyone at arm’s length. But when a former friend confronts Mel with the truth about the way their relationship ended, deeply buried secrets threaten to upend her shaky equilibrium.

As the walls of Mel’s compartmentalized world crumble, she fears that no one will accept her if they discover what she’s been hiding. But would her friends really abandon her if they learned the truth? More importantly, can Mel risk everything to find out?

Bury the White House in Books?

Readers have come together to organize a massive mailing of books to the White House for Valentine’s Day, specifically a mailing of books readers think POTUS 45 should read. It’s a nice statement about the power of reading, and the encouragement to get the books from local independent bookstores is great. But as he’s said in interviews, 45 doesn’t read books and certainly won’t read these. The best we can hope is that the White House staff will gather these up and send them to a school that needs them. Maybe buy a book to send to the White House, but also buy one to donate to a literacy charity while you’re at it?

Kim Kardashian And Chrissy Teigen Are Starting A Book Club

Kim Kardashian announced on Twitter that her and her best friend Chrissy Tiegen are starting a book club, and the first pick is Embraced by the Light by Betty J. Eadie. They haven’t seemed to announce any other details other than that the book club is happening and what the title is and that you should join them, but this trend of celebrities starting book clubs (hello, Emma Watson) is pretty neat. Not sure about that first title, but to each their own (book club).

Langston Hughes’ Home Saved

You might remember hearing last year about Langston Hughes’ brownstone being for sale and about the art collective that was trying to save it–they’ve succeeded! Through online fundraising, mostly, the I, Too, Arts Collective will be turning the space into a community center for open mic nights and author events in Harlem. Renee Watson, founder of the collective, says that saving the brownstone was about preserving a part of Harlem: “It’s a testament to wanting to hold onto Harlem,” she said. “And just make sure that we also take care of the history here and that we guard it [fiercely].”

Thanks to A Tragic Kind of Wonderful by Eric Lindstrom for sponsoring this week’s newsletter.

For Mel Hannigan, bipolar disorder makes life unpredictable. Her latest struggle is balancing her growing feelings in a new relationship with her instinct to conceal her diagnosis by keeping everyone at arm’s length. But when a former friend confronts Mel with the truth about the way their relationship ended, deeply buried secrets threaten to upend her shaky equilibrium.

As the walls of Mel’s compartmentalized world crumble, she fears that no one will accept her if they discover what she’s been hiding. But would her friends really abandon her if they learned the truth? More importantly, can Mel risk everything to find out?

E.L. James in Talks for 50 Shades Musical

Fifty Shades of Grey is one of the best-selling books, well, ever, and also a successful set of movies. Fans can now also look forward to a musical? E.L. James has confirmed that she’s in talks with theater folks to put her work on Broadway. If a thing can be adapted to the screen I see no reason it can’t also be put on the stage, but…songs? The snarkier corners of the internet is going to have so much fun coming up with song titles/lyrics.

President Obama on What Books Mean to Him

As we transition out of the era of literate presidents, I found solace in this interview with Obama, done by the New York Times chief book critic Michiko Kakutani, about what books mean to him. He isn’t just talking about his favorite works of fiction, which is what most interviews about his bookishness focus on–he also discusses how literature impacted his work as a community organizer, and his life as a writer. I’m looking forward to his (hopefully soon, hopefully upcoming) memoirs.

Is Elizabeth Bennet the Original Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

A manic pixie dream girl is a trope most often used in film: she’s a quirky, lovable female character with no inner life of her own, and only there to amuse the male main character and provide a means for his personal growth (think Penny Lane in Almost Famous). This piece does an interesting thought experiment: was Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet the original MPDG? The answer is, of course, no: Elizabeth isn’t written by a man, she has a rich inner life of her own, and Darcy provides her means for growth as much as the other way around. But it’s always fun (in an unbearably nerdy way) to re-examine our favorite characters through new, modern lenses.

Thanks to Once We Were Sisters by Sheila Kohler for sponsoring this week’s newsletter.

A stunningly beautiful, heartrending literary memoir about the tragic death of the author’s beloved older sister and a tribute to their bond. When Sheila Kohler was thirty-seven, she received the heart-stopping news that her sister Maxine was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned by the news, she immediately flew in, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with the lingering effects of their unusual childhood. In her signature spare and incisive prose, Kohler evokes the bond between sisters and shows how that bond changes but never breaks, even after death.

The Most Popular Books at US Public Libraries

Happy day for Paula Hawkins: The Girl on the Train is the most frequently checked out book from eight of the 14 US public libraries surveyed by Quartz. Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton also tops the list (unsurprisingly), and books from mega-best-sellers James Patterson and Janet Evanovich. Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up continues to fascinate American audiences, apparently.

Amazon Bookstore Coming to Manhattan

Amazon is opening a 4,000 square foot bookstore in Manhattan’s Time Warner Center, joining its existing brick-and-mortar stores in Seattle, Portland, and San Diego. Their foray into physical bookstore spaces is interesting–it seems to me that the things people value about local bookstores (keeping money in the hands of small business owners, author events, concerns about literary culture) will be absent in Amazon locations and therefore the people who shop at physical bookstores won’t care to visit the Amazon ones. We’ll see!

Simon & Schuster UK Declines to Publish Milo Yiannopoulos

The book world was sent into a tailspin when news that Simon and Schuster was paying Breitbart editor and vocal sexist and racist Milo Yiannopoulos $250,000 for a book about, well, sexism and racism, one assumes (does it really matter?). The company’s UK division has announced that it would not be following suit. Milo probably isn’t as well known in the UK and wouldn’t sell as well, but a publishing insider also said it would be a “toxic book to try and sell here.”

12 Authors We Lost Too Soon in 2016

2016 feels like a garbage fire for a lot of people, in large part because we lost so many amazing artists, musicians, and writers (David Bowie and Prince in one year? What were you thinking, 2016?). I doubt 2017 or many of the coming years will be much better–the baby boomer generation is getting older, and those are the artists many of us grew up with. But before we hold our noses and see what 2017 brings, let’s remember Umberto Eco, Katherine Dunn, Anna Dewdney, Natalie Babbitt, and of course, Harper Lee.

Nancy Drew Re-imagined as Femme Fatale

In what is an almost offensively bad idea, Nancy Drew is being re-imagined as a femme fatale who “aids” the Hardy Boys in their crime solving in a new comic from Dynamite Entertainment. First of all, re-imagining a teenager as a sexy noir femme fatale is gross. Objectively, that’s icky. Secondly, way to take one of the few characters girls my age grew up with who had her own series and possessed agency and make her a side-kick to a bunch of dudes. And while I am at it, can we please find new ways to re-imagine things that isn’t just “take this light-hearted thing and make it gritty“?

Pantsuit Nation Gets a Book Deal

Libby Chamberlain, founder of Pantsuit Nation, the “secret” Hillary Clinton-supporting Facebook page with millions of members, has gotten a book deal for the page. Not everyone is happy about it–people who have posted on a private group are concerned that their stories will now be published for literally the whole world to see, probably with no compensation. Until more details about how the page’s members will be paid (if at all) and their permission obtained (if at all), criticism will likely continue.

Amazon Reveals the Best-Selling New Releases of 2016

The machinery of and inherent biases in the publishing industry and the reading community are never more apparent than in the best-selling new releases list. The recipe for a best-seller is a big name + a hefty marketing budget + a white author. With only one author of color on the general list and zero on the kids/YA list (but plenty of Bill O’Reilly), it’s hard not to worry about the progress we are (or aren’t) making in combating complacency and institutionalized racism in reading.

Virginia School District Pulls Classics

Accomack County Schools in Virginia have pulled To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn from their curriculum after a parent complaint about racial slurs used in the books. The parent’s biracial son told her he had a hard time getting past the slurs in his reading. I really wish parents used these moments as opportunities to discuss history, language, and context with their kids instead of insisting an entire school district be deprived of the opportunity to think critically about a text.

Upcoming Adaptation News

A few exciting adaptation bits of news for you! Elizabeth Banks has optioned Lindy West’s Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman for a TV show. West’s memoir is hilarious and necessary, and I’d love to see it on any screen. Also, Hugh Jackman will have a role in Fox 2000’s upcoming adaptation of Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Alexie himself is adapting the screenplay, which is always a vote of confidence in my book (see what I did there?).

A bit of a light week in books and publishing with the Thanksgiving holiday, but a few noteworthy things:

J.K. Rowling Sends Books to Syrian Fan

Bana, a seven-year-old girl live-tweeting her experience in rebel-held Eastern Aleppo, (she has over 141,000 followers!) saw the Harry Potter movie and loved it. Her mom realized she couldn’t get the books in Syria and reached out to Rowling on Twitter–the author responded and sent Bana the ebooks to read. A tiny but bright literary spot out of Syria, where the news is rarely good.

Public Library Books Defaced with Swastikas

Evanston public librarians discovered several books about the Middle East had been defaced with swastikas and racial slurs in the days leading up to a public lecture on the Middle East. The library has reported the incident to both the police and the Southern Poverty Law Center, and states that “those who are caught defacing library materials will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” Hate crimes have been sharply on the rise since Trump’s election, and the fact that they’re moving into our libraries, which should be centers of tolerance and open-mindedness, is very chilling.

New Feminist Classics to Read

On the flip side of a rise in hate crimes, the election has also brought about a metric ton of lists of books to read about feminism, immigration, climate change, and other social justice issues. Flipping (or scrolling) through them often brings up the same titles over and over, so this list of 40 new feminist classics–only those published in the last 10 years, both fiction and nonfiction–is refreshing.

Thanks to Searching for John Hughes for sponsoring This Week in Books.

For as long as Jason Diamond can remember, he’s been infatuated with John Hughes’ movies. From the antics in National Lampoon’s Vacation to the teenage angst in The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink to the insanely clever Home Alone, Jason could not get enough. And so the seed was planted in his mind that he should write a biography of his favorite filmmaker. It didn’t matter to Jason that he had no qualifications, training, platform, or direction. Thus went the years-long, delusional, earnest, and assiduous quest to reach his goal. What he did get was a coming-of-age story that fills the pages of this unconventional, hilarious memoir.

Tennessee Parent Wants Textbook Pulled 

A mother in Tennessee (and founding member of Sullivan County Parents Against Islam Indoctrination, because of course) is calling for the pulling of a history textbook because it “promotes Islamic propaganda” by saying factual things about Islam, like that it exists, and that it has a long and interesting history, and what that history is. This specific case has been going on for awhile, but in our new atmosphere of emboldened racism and xenophobia, I expect we’ll see a sharp uptick in this sort of thing.

Medieval Book Curses!

Hand-crafting a book during the Middle Ages was excruciatingly time intensive, and it turns out that scribes protected their work by adding medieval curses to the beginning or last pages of their books. The curses threatened painful death and excommunication for anyone who caused damage to the book. Perhaps a good idea for those of you who routinely have books people borrow from you returned damaged?

You’re More Likely To Land on the Best-seller List if Your Name is David Than If You’re a Minority

The Bookseller Magazine has analyzed the top 500 best-selling books of the year, and found that a writer has a better chance of landing on the list if their name is David than they do if they come from an ethnic minority background. There were only six authors of color on a list of 500 titles–and that’s actually an improvement over previous years. Yay?

Thanks to Swoon Reads for sponsoring This Week in Books.

Swoon Reads publishes the latest and greatest in YA fiction with the help of readers and writers like you. We’re dedicated to the undiscovered, and we seek out the very best in bright, new bookish talent. From heroic epics, to alien adventures, to all-the-feels romance—if you’re loving it, we’ll publish it. We involve our community in every step of the publishing process, and work closely with selected writers to get their book ready for publication. Together, we bring new stories to life, because we believe that great books are better shared.