Author: Jamie Canaves

Anthony Bourdain’s Final Book Releasing This Year

TV host, travel writer, and chef Anthony Bourdain, who died by suicide in 2018, will have the book he was working on publish this October. World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, an illustrated collection that focuses on Bourdain’s favorite places to eat and travel to around the world was completed by Laurie Woolever, his longtime assistant. Why yes I am crying while hitting the prebuy button.

More Awards!

2019 is the 69th year for the National Jewish Book Awards and they’ve just announced their 2019 winners–including a Lifetime Achievement Award to Robert Alter for The Hebrew Bible: A Trans­la­tion with Com­men­tary. You know the drill: prepare your TBR and get to reading!

Proposed Missouri Bill Tries To Legalize Book Banning

The proposed Missouri bill Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act wants public library funding to have several provisions, including creating a review board to determine if library material has “age-inappropriate sexual material.” And if it’s determined, by these self appointed people, then the library must bar minors from accessing these books or face loss of funding and possible imprisonment of librarians.

Obama Library’s Athletic Facility Gets Nike Funding

You can put a check mark on funding for the Obama Presidential Center’s athletic facility since the charity department of Nike is giving $5 million. While we still don’t know all about the project it sure is looking like this Presidential Center will be a place for the community of Chicago’s South Side to gather, rather than a museum, which will also house a branch of the Chicago Public Library.

“Men, they are everywhere, and women’s works are rarely published.”

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015, Svetlana Alexievich gave the above reason for starting a new publishing house just for women. Set to open in a few months we look forward to what’s to come.

New LGBTQ+ Romance Imprint

Harlequin’s digital-first romance imprint, Carina Press, will be launching Carina Adores with the goal of publishing contemporary and classic LGBTQ+ romances taking into account the spectrum of voices in the community. The first two titles will publish in June, female/female and  male/male romances, followed by one release a month. All the heart-eyes emojis!

2 Plead Guilty In $8 Million Library Theft

Former Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh archivist, Gregory Priore, and Caliban Book shop owner, John Schulman, have pleaded guilty in a case alleging $8 million worth of rare books, plates, and maps were stolen from the Pittsburgh library and sold. Sentencing is set for April 17th.

In Guapo News

HBO Max’s 10-episode limited series adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven has cast its Arthur: Gael García Bernal! The post-apocalyptic drama series is being produced, written, and showrun by Patrick Somerville (Maniac) with Hiro Murai directing.

Perry Mason The Detective

Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey are bringing us a new Perry Mason series (adapted from Erle Stanley Gardner’s character), and now more thanks to a one-year, first-look deal with HBO. The Perry Mason series will follow the character as a low-rent private investigator before he became a defense lawyer, starring Matthew Rhys, Tatiana Maslany, and John Lithgow.

NYPL List Has Addendum Because Librarian Hated Book So Much

Celebrating its 125th anniversary the New York Public Library shared their 10 most checked out books of all time list but there’s a catch about why Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon is added as an honorable mention: “influential New York Public Library children’s librarian Anne Carroll Moore disliked the story so much when it was published in 1947 that the Library didn’t carry it … until 1972.” That’s a lot of book hate. Or moon hate?

Congrats!

Taking up the U.S.’s National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature position, after the current Jacqueline Woodson, will be Jason Reynolds! “’My mission is to take a different approach: Instead of explicitly encouraging young people to read, my goal is to get them to see the value in their own narratives — that they, too, have a story, and that there’s power not just in telling it, but in the opportunity to do so,’ said Reynolds…”

Oh, And Another Congrats!

The National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for its 2019 awards in Autobiography, Biography, Criticism, Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry. While a few books have gotten a lot of attention, and other award noms, many may be new-to-you titles and perfect if you’re looking for what to read next.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s CINDERELLA Musical Coming This Year

Gillian Lynne Theater in London West End will open Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella musical this summer. The original idea for the contemporary take on the classic fairy tale Cinderella came from Emerald Fennell, the lead writer for Killing Eve season 2.

Olof Palme Prize Awarded To John le Carré 

John le Carré, former spy and current author of spy thrillers, has been awarded the $100,000 Olof Palme prize in part for his career being “an extraordinary contribution to the necessary fight for freedom, democracy and social justice.” Le Carré plans to donate the prize money to NGO Médecins Sans Frontières.

2020 National Poetry Month Poster Contest for Students Winner

The Academy of American Poets named the winner for the 2020 National Poetry Month Poster Contest: Samantha Aikman. While she will receive money, art store gift card and supplies the poster will also have 100,000 prints and be distributed by the Academy of American Poets. Check out the winning poster!

73 Library Systems Loaned 1 Million+ Ebooks Last Year

Hello delicious book data: Digital distribution vendor OverDrive reported that 2019 saw a record level circulation of e-books, audiobooks, and digital magazines, a 20% increase from 2018. In five countries 73 public library systems loaned out 1 million+ digital books in 2019.

Romance Writers Of America Meltdown Update

The trainwreck that has been RWA ever since a racist incident occurred right before Christmas really started to feel like it would never end. But now, after cancelling the RITAs and publishers pulling out of the RWA2020 national conference, the president and executive director, Damon Suede and Carol Ritter, have resigned leaving many to wonder if this will allow for an inclusive RWA or if everything that has happened has left POC and marginalized voices unable to feel safe and place their trust in the organization.

Authors Offer $200K For White House Press Briefing

Authors Don Wilson and Stephen King have offered a $200,000 donation to a children’s hospital if Stephanie Grisham, White House press secretary, holds a press conference. There has not been a press briefing in more than 300 days.

Color In Aquaman’s Biceps

Have you been watching Jason Momoa’s Aquaman on repeat because sweet sweet biceps? Well you can now color in those biceps in a new coloring book that is currently the number one grown-up comics and coloring books new release on Amazon: Crush and Color: Jason Momoa: A Coloring Book of Fantasies With an Epic Dreamboat. No you just bought the Crayola big box!

Group Proposes Scary New Approach To Ban Books

The phobic group Florida Citizens Alliance spends a lot of time trying to ban books, especially ones containing sex scenes and LGBTQ relationships, and now wants “the state Attorney General to prosecute schools that make the materials available to school children.” Making this particularly scary is the group’s connection to Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis.

Six Degrees Of Mark Twain

UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library has published a new multimedia project exploring Mark Twain’s life and how it intersected with P.T. Barnum, Nikola Tesla, Helen Keller, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Ulysses S. Grant. Naturally it’s called Six Degrees of Mark Twain.

Checkout A Bike With A Library Card

I love the game “what item that isn’t a book can you checkout from the library?” and today’s answer is: a bike! At least at the San Mateo County Library in California. If you’re 18 or older and have a library card, go check out a bike–and helmet with a GoPro mount and also that first aid kit just in case. You have all day with the bike!

Stacey Abrams Picks Up Mighty Pen Again

Stacey Abrams–who already has a slew of romantic suspense novels and a memoir, Lead From The Outside, under her belt–is publishing a new book this summer. Our Time is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America will publish from Henry Holt and Company in June with the goal of calling for reform to make voting easier and putting an end to voter suppression.

God Has Been Cast

Four seasons into Lucifer and we’ve yet to see a main character: God. But looks like all that will change with the fifth, and final season, as President Palmer–er, I mean Dennis Haysbert has been cast as God. This is gonna make for an awkward family reunion and I can’t wait.