Author: Jamie Canaves

Bibliophile With 1,000 Books Converts Garage Into Public Library: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date November 5, 2020

Bibliophile With 1,000 Books Converts Garage Into Public Library

Author Jeremy Cameron has amassed over 1,000 books between his collection and an inherited collection from his grandfather, parents, and sisters. Rather than get rid of any books, he had a carpenter convert his double garage into a library that he has opened to the public in the English village of West Acre, Norfolk.

Bill Gates’ New Book Recs

We can always count on Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ love of reading and recommending books. His latest batch of recs comes from an interview with the dean of medicine at Stanford University, Lloyd Minor and includes The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander and Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria.

London Book Fair’s New Dates & Director

The London Book Fair has announced that, instead of a March schedule, it will be held from June 29-July 1, 2021, in the hopes of having a live event. And it has a new director, Andy Ventris who is taking the role left by Jacks Thomas’ retirement this summer. “Given the dynamic nature of the pandemic we will continue to closely monitor the situation, and if the current outlook changes will make a final decision on the live event’s feasibility by the end of March 2021 at the very latest.”

Summer Scares Is Back to Celebrate Horror In Libraries (And Beyond!)

The Horror Writers Association, in collaboration with United for Libraries, Book Riot, and Booklist are excited to announce Summer Scares 2021.

Today In Books

Simon Cowell’s New Contest Is Looking For A Children’s Book Writer: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date November 4, 2020

Simon Cowell’s New Contest Is Looking For A Children’s Book Writer

Simon Cowell, known for the Got Talent and American Idol competition shows, has a new competition unlike the others: he’s looking for a children’s writer. Why? Because he and his son Eric have a book series, Wishfits, filled with hybrid animals that needs a storyteller’s help.

Short Story Collection The Things They Carried Being Adapted

Tim O’Brien’s short story collection, The Things They Carried–set in the Vietnam War and based on the author’s experiences–is being adapted into a film. The cast will now include Stephan James and Ashton Sanders, who join Tye Sheridan, Tom Hardy, Martin Sensmeier, and Bill Skarsgård.

40,000 Early Modern Maps Digitized By British Library

My favorite game: what has been digitized now? The British Library has digitized 40,000 maps from 1500 to 1824 that were part of the Topographical Collection of King George III. And about 18,000 have been uploaded for viewing on their Flickr page: Commons collection.

Parents Sue North Carolina Charter School Over The Poet X

Parents call The Poet X “a frontal assault on Christian beliefs and values.” The school won’t censor the title.

Today In Books

Toni Morrison’s Book Collection For Sale: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date November 3, 2020

Sponsored by Instant Karma by Marissa Meyer with Fierce Reads.

Toni Morrison’s Book Collection For Sale

Author Toni Morrison’s Tribeca condo is up for sale by her family, who notes it was left untouched since her 2019 death. But more importantly it looks like the purchaser of the home will have the first right of refusal to purchase her 1,200-plus book collection. Imagine getting to own one of Morrison’s loved books. Check out what’s in the collection.

Netflix’s Munich Adaptation Finds Its Stars

Netflix is adapting Robert Harris’ spy thriller Munich into a film. And now they have the lead roles cast: Jeremy Irons will play Neville Chamberlain and George McKay as Hugh Legat. For fans of The Crown, Christian Schwochow will be directing.

Roundup of BLM And Protest Art Exhibits To View Online

With the ongoing pandemic, traveling isn’t easy or safe for many but thanks to the internet, for those with access, we can still see and “visit” a slew of places. Including art museums and exhibits. Here Library Journal has rounded up a bunch of exhibits and art events focused on the Black Lives Matter movement and racial injustice themes that you can view online.

Storytime is Coming to Public Restrooms

Would you want to be the captive audience for story time in a portable toilet? Learn about Looterature, bringing bathroom books back.

Unusual Suspects

Mystery Writers Who Write Other Genres

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date November 3, 2020

Sponsored by the audiobook edition of Silent Bite, read by Grover Gardner.

Andy Carpenter and his golden retriever, Tara, are finding that all is not calm or bright in Silent Bite, the latest Christmas mystery in this heartwarming series from bestselling author David Rosenfelt. Lawyer Andy Carpenter can finally take a breath. Of course, the family’s first stop is to the Tara Foundation, the dog rescue organization that has always been Andy’s true passion. But when Andy arrives, his partner, Willie, needs his help. Willie’s old cellmate, Glenn Anson, has been arrested for murder. Andy doesn’t necessarily believe in Glenn, but Willie does, which is why Andy decides to take the case.

Hi mystery fans! So I’m gonna start off with a note that I have written this newsletter before November 3rd (U.S presidential election) so please excuse if my tone seems way off to whatever may be happening right now. Okay, on to this week’s reads: I thought I’d mention mystery writers who also write in other genres because it’s a great way to explore in your reading life– if you already love a writer’s work in one genre it may be a good bridge into another genre.

Untamed Shore by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Silvia Moreno-Garcia has finally gotten the recognition she should have gotten a long time ago for her new Gothic suspense/horror novel Mexican Gothic (so good!). But she has great work in many genres: for slow-burn suspense you have Untamed Shore (Review); she has one of my favorite vampire novels with her urban fantasy Certain Dark Things (Review); for a coming-of-age with some fabulism start with her first novel Signal to Noise set in Mexico City in the ’80s; for romantic historical fantasy you’ll want to pick up The Beautiful Ones; and for historical fantasy inspired by Mexican folklore grab Gods of Jade and Shadow.

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole

Alyssa Cole put out her first social thriller this year, knocking it out of the park, but she was already an established romance author. And because romance is a vast genre, with many different types that Cole also writes in, there is definitely lots to explore: for a contemporary romance series that starts with an African prince the heroine mistakes for an Internet scam, pick up A Princess in Theory; if you want to see an author actually pull off a historical romance set during the Civil War (spies!), start with An Extraordinary Union; and if you need some romance in your dystopia, start with Radio Silence.

Goldie Vance: The Hotel Whodunit (Goldie Vance #1) by Lilliam Rivera

Lilliam Rivera is currently writing the middle grade series Goldie Vance based off of the graphic novel series. But she’s also an essayist and has YA novels that are contemporary, dystopian, and magical realism: The Education of Margot Sánchez is a great coming-of-age novel with a fantastic voice; the dystopian Dealing in Dreams explores family, addiction, and gender roles with a girl gang; Never Look Back is an Afro-Latinx retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice Greek myth; and you can find her essay in the anthology Body Talk: 37 Voices Explore Our Radical Anatomy.

The Other Americans by Laila Lalami

Laila Lalami wrote a beautiful crime novel, The Other Americans, for fans of literary novels that has a hit-and-run mystery running throughout it (Review). But she also has a historical fiction novel that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, The Moor’s Account. Her latest work is nonfiction, Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America. And she also writes short stories, Gods and Soldiers: The Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing. She has a deep catalog to dive into for anyone looking for beautiful writing.

Death Prefers Blondes by Caleb Roehrig

In the last few years Caleb Roehrig seems to have been writing up a storm. Not only does he have three YA mysteries–Death Prefers Blondes (Review); White Rabbit (Review); Last Seen Leaving–but he also has a fantasy novel for vampire fans, The Fell Of The Dark and the start to a horror series for werewolf and Riverdale fans, A Werewolf in Riverdale. For fans of short stories he is a contributor to a few anthologies: Life Is Short and Then You Die: Mystery Writers of America Presents First Encounters with Murder; Out Now: Queer We Go Again!; His Hideous Heart. All the work I’ve read so far is both fun and heartfelt and I always look forward to what may be coming next.

Browse all the books recommended in Unusual Suspects previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming releases for 2020 and 2021. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy–you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own, you can sign up here.

Today In Books

Popular Kid Covers Modernized To Benefit Indie Bookstores: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date November 2, 2020

Sponsored by Nothing Like I Imagined by Mindy Kaling.

Popular Kid Covers Modernized To Benefit Indie Bookstores

Raj Haldar, co-author of P is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever, has not only done a modernist take on his own book cover but also famous children’s books including The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Wanting to help indie bookstores during the pandemic he decided to release a poster print of his modernized P is for Pterodactyl with all profits going to Book Industry Charitable Foundation.

In Sad News Author Rachel Caine Has Passed Away

Roxanne Conrad who penned more than 50 books under the name Rachel Caine passed away on November 1st. She had been diagnosed in 2018 with soft tissue sarcoma, a rare type of cancer. She wrote adult and YA across genres including sci-fi and thrillers with bestsellers including her serial killer thriller Stillhouse Lake and The Morganville Vampires YA series. You can read her personal wishes and lovely messages from her friends and family in this statement.

Minnesota Police Officers Want Book Explaining Racism Removed From School Teachings

Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice has been used in elementary schools to help children understand the public discourse surrounding police shootings of Black people “and counter racial injustice in their own lives.” The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association are especially upset over its use as a 4th-grade assignment in Burnsville and have written a letter to have the book removed. “In response to the complaint, the Minnesota Departments of Education and Health issued a joint statement saying: “‘The book in question won multiple awards and was authored by psychologists seeking to help children process a difficult set of issues.'” They went on to point out how the MPPOA left out information from the book and took quotes out of context.

Vandalization at Major Libraries Aims At Voter Intimidation

Three libraries, including two major metropolitan downtown facilities, have seen vandalism related to voter intimidation in the last two weeks.

Today In Books

French Bookshops Ask For Essential Service Treatment: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date October 31, 2020

Sponsored by Zikora by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

French Bookshops Ask For Essential Service Treatment

With France starting a four-week lockdown, due to a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, bookshops and publishers are asking the government to give them essential status so they can remain open. “Leave our bookstores open so that social confinement does not also become cultural isolation.”

PRH Extends Online Reading Open License

With no end to the pandemic in site, Penguin Random House has once again extended its Open License, through March 31, 2021, which applies to read-aloud videos and online story times. “Our hope in extending the program is to give some stability for educators, librarians and booksellers in knowing that they can still use our authors’ books for story times.”

Netflix’s The White Tiger Adaptation Has A Trailer

The Man Booker Prize winning novel The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga has been adapted by Netflix into a film starring Priyanka Chopra, Rajkummar Rao, Adarsh Gourav, and Perrie Kapernaros. The dark humor tale of a servant who rebels was filmed in India, by director Ramin Bahrani, and now has a trailer.

Welcome to Haunted Riot!

We’re celebrating the creepiest time of the year with the Haunted Riot, featuring some of our favorite shiver-inducing reads!

Today In Books

Hachette Launched BIPOC Focused Imprint Legacy Lit: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date October 30, 2020

Sponsored by Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Hachette Launched BIPOC Focused Imprint Legacy Lit

With a focus on publishing work by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) writers, Hachette has launched a new imprint, Legacy Lit. Krishan Trotman will be running the imprint which will have select fiction titles and focus mostly on nonfiction, with 12-15 titles a year starting in 2022.

Kristin Scott Thomas To Narrate Trilogy

For fans of the actress Kristin Scott Thomas (*raises hand!), we will have her lovely voice in our ears for a trilogy: she’ll narrate Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy. “I have been practicing for years, reading them aloud to myself, hoping that one day somebody would ask me to record them.”

Chrissy Teigen Is Working On Her Third Cookbook

In delicious news: Chrissy Teigen posted on her Cravings Instagram account that she’s once again teamed up with her Cravings cookbook co-author Adeena Sussman and started working on Cravings 3. She’s also open to ideas for what you want to see in the cookbook.

You’ll Want To Ohh and Ahh Over Baby Yoda Made of Bread

You read that right. It’s Baby Yoda made out of bread, aka Baby Dough-da.

Unusual Suspects

Mindhunter Season 3 Not Happening

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date October 29, 2020

Sponsored by the audiobook edition of The Darkest Evening by Ann Cleeves, read by Janine Birkett.

From Ann Cleeves – New York Times best-selling and author of the Vera and Shetland series – comes the stunning new Vera Stanhope novel, The Darkest Evening, read by Janine Birkett. On the first snowy night of winter, Vera finds a car has skidded off the narrow road in front of her and stops to help. There is no driver to be seen, so Vera assumes that the owner has gone to find help. But a cry calls her back: a toddler strapped in the back seat. As the blizzard traps the group deep in the freezing Northumberland countryside, Vera digs deeper into her investigation and begins to uncover her family’s complicated past.

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

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 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)

Today In Books

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

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date October 29, 2020

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.

Today In Books

2021 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction Longlist: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date October 28, 2020

2021 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction Longlist

The 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction longlist has been announced by the American Language Association. Twenty-six fiction and 20 nonfiction titles are in the running for the honor and $5,000. You can check out the list of 46 titles here to introduce to your TBR, which includes The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich, Deacon King Kong by James McBride, Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong, and The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio.

Beat Poet And Activist Diane di Prima Has Passed Away

Diane di Prima, a prominent voice of the Beat Generation, has passed away at age 86. She was named Poet Laureate of San Francisco in 2009 and had published more than 40 works of poetry and memoir focusing on love, sex, politics, and community. During her Poet Laureate of San Francisco press conference, she said, “Her deepest service … was to poetry and to humans.”

Mudbound Co-Writer And John Legend’s Get Lifted To Adapt Blacktop Wasteland

The action packed–hello, awesome car chase scenes!–crime novel Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby is being adapted into film by Erik Feig’s Picturestart and Mike Jackson, John Legend’s Get Lifted Film Co. And writing the screen adaptation will be Virgil Williams, who co-wrote the Mudbound screenplay. This is going to be awesome!

Who Will Win the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards?

The opening round of the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards is open for voting. Cast your vote and write in your chosen titles now.