Author: Jamie Canaves

Never-Before-Published Shirley Jackson Story Now Published

Shirley Jackson’s son found “Adventure on a Bad Night”, an unpublished story Jackson wrote, at the Library of Congress amongst the cartons of her papers which had previously been donated to the library. It’s now been published in The Strand Magazine.

Teaser & Release Date For Netflix Adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone

Have you been waiting for the Netflix adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone? Great news: there is now a teaser trailer and release date!

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Owl Stars In Children’s Book

Remember the poor wittle owl whose home got chopped down for the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree? T. Troy Kolo. and illustrator Meredith Miner turned her into the star of a children’s book (or at least were inspired by her) written in verse: Rockefeller the Christmas Owl.

The Great Gatsby Hits Public Domain In New Year

The 1925 works that were supposed to have gone into the public domain in 2001 but didn’t—congress extended the copyright term to 95 years—will now enter the public domain on January 1, 2021. Along with Fitzgerald’s novel, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time, and Franz Kafka’s The Trial will also be in the public domain.

American Indian Library Association’s 2021 Reading Challenge

If you’re looking for a reading challenge to tackle in 2021, here’s a great one: Read Native 2021 by the American Indian Library Association. There’s a reading challenge list for adults and a bingo card style one for kids. The challenges include prompts like “read a book about native food” (yum!) and “horror book by a Native author.” Even if you don’t do challenges, it’s a great list to read and get ideas for a few books to look up and add to your TBR.

BBC To Adapt Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson will be adapted into a four-part drama by the BBC, telling the fictional story of Ursula Todd who in 1910 lives and dies apparently starting her infinite number of lives. Playwright and screenwriter Bash Doran will write the adaptation, John Crowley will direct, and Kate Ogborn will produce.

Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2020

Former President Barack Obama dropped his list of favorite books of 2020.

University Announces Free Textbooks For Undergraduates Next Year

A new initiative at Eastern Kentucky University, the EKU BookSmart program in partnership with Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, will offer free textbooks for undergraduate students next school year. In a statement, EKU President David McFaddin said, “With the addition of free textbooks to the EKU Advantage, a college degree from EKU is now more accessible and affordable than it has been in many years.”

Chernobyl Producer Adapting A Children’s Bible

Chernobyl producer, Sister, is adapting A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet into a TV series. The apocalyptic climate change novel will be adapted for TV with Tayarisha Poe set to write and direct. We love us a limited series adaptation of a great book!

Nonprofit Donates Books To Child Victims of West Coast Fires

The nonprofit organization Teen Readers Society has partnered with Penguin Random House to donate books to kids affected by the West Coast fires. The plan is to provide 5,000 books, which will be rolled out in two phases focusing on hard hit areas: “Some 700 students in the Phoenix-Talent School District in Phoenix, Oregon lost their homes in the fires.”

15 Great English/Spanish Books for Kids

A comprehensive list of the best bilingual English/Spanish books for kids to help you teach your kids another language.

Jay-Z Has An Imprint

The entertainment agency founded by Jay-Z, Roc Nation, has teamed up with Random House to create a new imprint with a great title: Roc Lit 101. There will be rapper memoirs, fantasy, and criminal justice works among the planned releases. “Our aspiration for the imprint is to create books that draw from the best of pop culture — its most imaginative and talented storytellers, innovators, and literary chroniclers — to create beautifully written and produced works that will entertain and enthrall readers, but also illuminate critical issues.”

Elizabeth Acevedo’s Clap When You Land Will Be A TV Series

New York Times Bestselling, award winning poet and author Elizabeth Acevedo will have her most recent novel, Clap When You Land, adapted into a television series by Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories. The alternating narrated novel, between sisters in the Dominican and NY, will be exciting to watch, and if you’ve yet to read Acevedo, all of her novels are beautiful and have perfect audiobook narrations.

2 Agatha Christie Docs Coming To PBS

Armchair detectives make popcorn: Inside the Mind of Agatha Christie and Agatha Christie’s England, two documentaries about the queen of mystery, will air on PBS on January 17th and January 24th. One will focus on her personal life, including childhood, and the other on her literary career, including the real life places her novels are set in.

Ho-Ho-Holiday Horror: Have Yourself a Scary Little Christmas

The weather outside is frightful! If you’re as ready for a good scare as you are for a winter holiday, pick up these holiday horror books, including Dead of Winter by Kealan Patrick Burke.

Publishing’s Big Stories In 2020

2020 has been a super long and, to put it mildly, difficult year, so it’s easy to hear about something and swear that couldn’t have happened this year because it feels years away, but it did! So jog your memory with this roundup of big news from 2020, from problematic books and publishing’s terrible handling of them to the pandemic’s effect.

5th Grader Publishes 2nd Book; Will Donate Books With Sales Money

The children are doing great! Ayrika Jones, a 5th grader at Glen Iris Elementary School in Alabama, has now published her second book: The Real Meaning of Christmas (Mr. Tomato Series). Her plan for the sales money is to purchase and donate books to 500 Birmingham-area students.

Netflix UK Adapting The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Stuart Turton’s unique mystery The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (published in the US with the title The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle) finds the lead in a Groundhog Day situation except he wakes up in a different body every day until he solves a murder. And it’s being adapted by Netflix UK.

10 Literary Families to Make the Holidays Less Lonely

Spend the holidays with some families from literature, like the Mortmains from I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

Master Spy Novelist John le Carré Has Passed Away

We’ve lost a giant. John le Carré, who transitioned from working for MI6 in real life to writing some of the best novels about espionage (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; The Spy Who Came in from the Cold), has passed away at the age of 89. You can read fellow authors’ tributes, and about his career and life in countless obituaries, and a quick search will also bring up many of his great interviews. He will be missed by many.

Another Book Heist Solved

It feels like this year we’ve linked to a few book heist stories that sounded like fictional movie plots but were far from. Now we have another involving a 2017 heist where thieves broke a skylight and dropped down into a warehouse to steal more than £2.5m worth of manuscripts and books, which included “works by Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci and the 18th-century Spanish painter Francisco de Goya.”

Judges Named for 2021 Eisner Awards

Are you looking forward to anything and everything 2021, hoping it’ll be a long leap from 2020? Well Comic-Con International has announced the six judges for the 2021 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Check out the announcement and their bios.

7 Questions About the New BRIDGERTON Trailer

A list of seven questions one fan has about the BRIDGERTON trailer as she eagerly awaits the series premier on Netflix.

Shonda Rhimes Continues Year of Yes with Peloton Partnership

Shonda Rhimes didn’t stop saying “yes” after she published her inspirational memoir Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person. Now she’s taken her motto of saying “yes” and partnering with Peloton for an eight week course where you can join Rhimes for live and on-demand workout classes.

Bill Gates’ 5 Books of 2020

2020 did not break Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates’ reading habit and he’s sharing his annual list with us: five good books for a lousy year. His recommended books to wrap up this year range from heavy topics to lighter reads as he walks us through trends from his reading year. Check out the list, which starts with The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander.

The Poppy War Series Will Be Adapted for TV

This week has brought a lot of exciting adaptation news and we are here for it. Included in that news is the announcement that Rebecca F. Kuang’s epic fantasy Poppy War series is being adapted for television by the same company that adapted Crazy Rich Asians. If you missed the first book’s release in 2018, when it landed on multiple Best Of lists, now is a great time to read it.

Awesome Interactive Article On Octavia E. Butler’s Literary Life

The Los Angeles Times has created a fantastic interactive page that takes you through award-winning science-fiction author Octavia E. Butler‘s literary Pasadena life. Get lost in the maps, photos, and documents of the beloved author’s bookish life.

Disney Dropped All The News

Wow. Disney held their 2020 Investor Day and announced all the upcoming projects at once, and there’s a lot to be excited about. Verge broke it down by franchise including Marvel, Star Wars, Disney Animation, and Pixar, including Disney+ news related to the service and price changes. Or you can scroll through Disney’s massive Twitter thread.

Also, this would probably be a good time to make sure Alan Dean Foster gets paid.

Bernardine Evaristo Makes History With New Job

Award-winning British author Bernardine Evaristo (Girl, Woman, Other) is no stranger to being the first, having been the first Black British person and first Black woman to win the Booker Prize. Now, according to the Guardian, she’ll be the UK’s first Black female head of a major drama school: she’s taking on a ceremonial role at Rose Bruford college, the school she previously attended. “I think it’s really good to have a black woman as the head, even if it’s the titular head of a drama school, because it makes a very powerful statement.”

15 Books About Appalachia to Read Instead of HILLBILLY ELEGY

Better understand Appalachia by skipping Hillbilly Elegy and reading these outstanding books instead.