Author: Sharifah Williams

Walmart To Compete With Amazon Kindle

Walmart is poised to compete with Amazon’s Kindle business with plans to sell ereaders, ebooks, and audiobooks. The company is partnering with Rakuten, Japan’s biggest e-commerce company, to make it happen. Walmart will start selling Aura-branded ereaders made by Kobo, and offer customers access to Kobo’s library of nearly six million titles through a co-branded Walmart-Kobo app.

The Award For Thrillers That Avoid Sexual Violence Against Women

Author and screenwriter Bridget Lawless is launching (and funding) the Staunch book prize for the best thriller “in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered.” The winner of the £2,000 prize will be announced on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Lawless decided to launch the prize after seeing the number of films featuring rape as a plot device at the 2017 Baftas.

Blame The Internet

…For your failing memory of the books you’ve read, that is. The Atlantic explored the deterioration of recall memory—”the ability to spontaneously call information up in your mind”–in the age of the internet, research that has shown that the internet functions as a type of externalized memory, and binge reading in relation to our ability to remember the stories we’ve read.

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This edition of Today in Books is sponsored by Dara Horn’s Eternal Life, on sale now from W. W. Norton.

PEN America Announces Literary Awards Finalists

PEN America announced the 2018 PEN America Literary Awards finalists. Finalists include No Time to Spare by Ursula K. Le Guin, White Tears by Hari Kunzru, and Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang. Nearly $315,000 will be awarded to writers and translators whose works were published in 2017 and span fiction, nonfiction, poetry, biography, essays, science writing, sports writing, translation, and more. Check out the complete list of finalists here.

Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy Will Be Adapted

Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy will be adapted for television, courtesy of Paramount TV. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world and follows three people who come together as scientists begin genetically engineering humans. David Kanter (Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams) and Linda Carlson (Five Came Back) will produce the series. A network is not yet attached.

Incoming Dr. Seuss Cartoons

The Warner Animation Group signed a deal with Dr. Seuss Enterprises giving them exclusive rights to produce film and television adaptations of Seuss’s children’s books and characters. A Green Eggs and Ham television adaptation, an older project co-executive-produced by Ellen DeGeneres, will air on Netflix later this year. And the first project in the exclusive partnership will be a feature-length animated adaptation of the The Cat in the Hat.

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This edition of Today in Books is sponsored by Penguin Teen, publishers of Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh.

Fire and Fury Book Sales Reach 1.7 Million Copies

Henry Holt announced that it has sold 1.7 million copies of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury across all formats. After excerpts from the book about Trump’s first year in office were leaked, and Trump’s personal attorneys sent cease and desist letters to the publisher and author, the book reached No. 1 on Amazon’s bestsellers list. Bookstores sold out, and Amazon reported shipping delays, but the publisher announced that there are now 1.5 million hardcover books in print.

The Big Sick Co-Writer Will Adapt The Nest For Amazon

Oscar-nominated screenwriter Emily V. Gordon will adapt Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s best-selling novel The Nest for Amazon. Gordon received her nomination for best original screenplay for the summer indie The Big Sick. The team adapting the novel for film also includes Transparent’s Jill Soloway who will produce. The Nest follows four middle-aged siblings as they grapple with new realities in light of a depleted inheritance.

Elif Shafak Joins Goldsmiths Prize Judging Panel

Elif Shafak joins Deborah Levy, Nicholas Lezard, and Adam Mars-Jones on the judging panel for the 2017 Goldsmiths Prize for fiction. Shafak is the award-winning author of Three Daughters of Eve, and is the most widely read female writer in Turkey. The Goldsmiths awards a £10,000 prize to the fiction novel that “breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form”; it’s only open to novels written by authors from the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

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This edition of Today in Books is sponsored by Walking The Bones by Randall Silvis.

 Ursula K. Le Guin Is Dead, Age 88

Ursula K. Le Guin, acclaimed science fiction and fantasy writer, author of the Earthsea Cycle, died on Monday at her home in Portland, Oregon. Her son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, said she had been in poor health for several months. Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide.

Audiobooks Now Available On Google Play

Google Play Books launched an audiobook store in 45 countries and nine languages. The service allows users to purchase audiobooks without a subscription plan, available for listening on the Google Home speaker or phone Assistant. To celebrate, Google Play is offering a 50% discount on the first audiobook purchase, and popular titles under $10.

Cheryl Strayed, Roxane Gay, And More 2018 Best American Series Editors

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has selected a team of writers to guest-edit this year’s Best American Series collection. Among the names to be featured as editors are Roxane Gay (Hunger) for the Short Story collection; Cheryl Strayed (Wild) for the Travel Writing section; Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker theater critic Hilton Als for Essays; and food critic Ruth Reichl for the Best American Series’ first-ever book on Food Writing. The Best American Series is a 103-year-old collection of books published annually.

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This edition of Today in Books is sponsored by Dynamite Entertainment, publisher of Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys.

National Book Critics Circle Awards Finalists

The National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for the 2017 awards. The 30 finalists fell into six categories––autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Finalists include Masha Gessen’s The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir, and Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. The awards will be presented on March 15 at the New School in New York City. Find the complete list of finalists here.

Book Publisher Seized In China

Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong-based book publisher with Swedish citizenship, was seized by police officers on a train headed for Beijing. He was one of five Hong Kong booksellers who disappeared in 2015, only to resurface in police custody in China. The bookseller was released from detention last October. According to the New York Times, supporters are calling the detention of Mr. Gui and the other booksellers “a campaign by the Chinese government to shut down publishers of books offering unsparing criticism and also unflattering gossip about the party elite.”

New A Wrinkle In Time Trailer

Those of us anticipating the upcoming adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time were treated to another peek at the film with the release of a new trailer from Disney UK. See more of the cast, including Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling as the Mrs Ws, more eye candy settings, and more Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin.

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This edition of Today in Books is sponsored by BALLS by Chris Edwards.

Rare Harry Potter First Edition Stolen

A rare first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, described as the “Holy Grail” for Potter collectors, and worth £40,000, was stolen from a Norfolk bookshop. (Is this the beginning of a real life version of The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry except with a Rowling book rather than a Poe? P.S. Happy Birthday, Poe!). The book was one of only 500 copies with Rowling listed as Joanne Rowling, and 300 of those copies went to libraries. Police are appealing for help tracing this book, and several other valuable titles that were stolen.

Edgar Allan Poe Nominees Announced

Fittingly, on this the 209th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, the Mystery Writers of America announced the Nominees for the 2018 Edgar Allan Poe Awards. This year’s Poe Awards honor “the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2017.” Nominees include Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke, Idaho by Emily Ruskovich, and Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann. Check out the full list and categories here.

HarperAudio Will Produce Audiobooks On Vinyl

Hey, hipsters! HarperAudio is planning to produce a series of spoken word vinyl audiobook titles this year. The series will launch in April with Wild Horses Vinyl Edition by Joe Hill, read by Nate Corddry. Other “vinyl-first” editions will include A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket and Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni. Digital editions will accompany the vinyl audiobooks.

This edition of Today in Books is sponsored by Mulholland Books, publisher of The Girl on the Velvet Swing by Simon Baatz.

First Look At Harry Potter Mobile Game

Jam City revealed its first look at Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, a mobile game where players can create their own character and experience life as a Hogwarts student. The game, which will be launched under Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s Portkey Games, is set in the time between Harry Potter’s birth and his enrollment at Hogwarts. Players will encounter familiar characters as well as fan-created characters.

Elena Ferrante, Guardian Weekend’s New Columnist

Elena Ferrante’s weekly column for the Guardian’s Weekend magazine will cover her thoughts on topics including childhood, ageing, gender, and first love. The column will be translated by Ann Goldstein, translator for Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. Ferrante called the experience of writing a weekly column “a bold, anxious exercise in writing.”

Rare Book Collection Destroyed In Freak Accident

A large portion of a Stephen King enthusiast’s private collection of works was lost to a freak flooding accident after the collector moved to Bangor, Maine, the town the author calls home. Lost were thousands of first edition books, manuscripts (the original typed manuscripts of Maximum Overdrive and The Eyes of the Dragon), and signed works from J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin. The flood was the result of an exploded water main directly in front of the store where the collection was stored.

This edition of Today in Books is sponsored by A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman, new in paperback from Vintage Books.

Female Writers Dominated 2017’s Bestsellers

Margaret Atwood, Sarah Perry, Zadie Smith and more women dominated the UK’s list of top 10 bestselling literary authors of 2017, according to an analysis by The Booksellers. Atwood topped the list at almost £2.8m with The Handmaid’s Tale and Alias Grace, followed by Perry at £1.6m with The Essex Serpent. Haruki Murakami was the only male writer on the list. The Bookseller noted that they “made somewhat arbitrary value judgments about what is ‘literary,'” and limited themselves to those who won or were shortlisted for major awards.

Lupita Nyong’o Will Publish Her First Children’s Book

Look out for Lupita Nyong’o’s first children’s book, Sulwe, in January 2019. The story follows five-year-old Sulwe from Kenya as she learns to see the beauty of her dark skin while on an adventure in the night sky. According to a New York Times piece, the 12 Years A Slave and Black Panther star was motivated to write the story because of her own childhood struggles with her complexion and self-image.

Fire and Fury Picked Up For TV Adaptation

Endeavor Content has purchased film and television rights to Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Endeavor Content plans to adapt the controversial book about Donald Trump’s first year as president as a TV series, though a network is not yet attached. Wolff will executive produce the series.

Celebrities Will Lend Voices To PBS’s The Great American Read

Publishing and entertainment celebrities including Junot Díaz, Margaret Atwood, George R.R. Martin, and Gaye King will share personal stories about their favorite books as part of PBS’s eight-part TV competition. The series will launch with a two hour special on May 22 on PBS stations. Viewers will have the opportunity to vote on their favorite books over the 15 weeks the show airs. PBS said the list of 100 titles competing will be chosen from a “demographically representative national survey.”

Garbage Collectors Open Public Library In Turkey

Garbage collectors in Turkey have opened a library stocked with books that would have ended up in landfills. The Ankara public library came into existence after sanitation workers started collecting discarded books. Residents have begun donating books directly to the library, which currently has over 6,000 books, including a children’s section and a section for scientific research.

One Million Moms Threatens To Boycott Scholastic For Publishing LGBTQ Kids Books

One Million Moms asked its supporters to notify Scholastic that they’d boycott the company unless it stops “publishing and promoting pro-homosexual and pro-transgender books for children.” The conservative advocacy group took particular issue with George, a middle grade book about a transgender child written by queer writer Alex Gino. In an NPR interview, Gino said they wrote the book in hopes it would help transgender kids feel less alone.

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2 Trailer Is Out

We got The Handmaid’s Tale season two trailer, and it looks as bleak and terrifying as you might expect. Hulu also announced an April 25 release date–the season will begin with a two-episode premiere. The trailer provides a fairly thorough look at what’s ahead for this adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s classic, so check it out.

Margaret Atwood Receives Backlash For #MeToo Opinions

Speaking of Margaret Atwood, the author experienced social media backlash for her opinions on the #MeToo movement, and for signing an open letter last year calling for due process for a University of British Columbia professor facing allegations of sexual misconduct. Atwood wrote on both subjects in a piece entitled, Am I a Bad Feminist? for The Globe and Mail.

Carrie Brownstein’s Memoir To Be Adapted

Carrie Brownstein’s memoir, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, is going to be adapted for a Hulu series. Hulu ordered a pilot episode of Search and Destroy, which is currently in development. Brownstein, Portlandia co-creator and Sleater-Kinney guitarist, will write, direct, and executive produce the series.