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OUTLANDER Series to End Finally…Probably: Today in Books for September 23rd, 2017

Post author By Jeff O'Neal
Post date September 23, 2017

Diana Gabaldon Says Outlander is Over…Probably

In an interview last week, Outlander series author Diana Gabaldon said that she knows exactly how the last book will end and that it will probably be at the end of book 10. Apparently, a mysterious incident in the first book is the key to the story’s finale, so Outlander fans, rev your conjecture engines.

Kenneth Branagh Will Narrate New Audiobook Version of Murder on the Orient Express

As part of the run-up to the release of his new film adaptation of Christie’s most famous work, Kenneth Branagh will record a new narration of Murder on the Orient Express. The new version will be available on October 19th, just a few weeks before the film premieres on November 10th.

A Deep Dive into the Archive

The Village Voice has a great profile of the archives of the New York Public Library, featuring the so-called “most interested man in the world.” It would seem that the rising tide of interesting paper document produced over the last few centuries has led to a glut of collected, and largely unprocessed, information. The work of archivists might be among the most important least heralded anywhere.

Today in Books is sponsored by Rakuten Kobo Inc:

Calling all listeners—audiobooks are now available from Kobo. Find all your eBooks and audiobooks together in the FREE Kobo App for iOS and Android. Save with a subscription for the best deal on audiobooks—your first 30 days are FREE.

Giveaways

Giveaway: Penguin Teen Game Changers

Post author By Jeff O'Neal
Post date September 23, 2017

As hard as it may be to believe, it was 50 years ago that the iconic novel, The Outsiders, was published. It was a game-changing moment that essentially launched the Young Adult genre. Penguin Young Readers is proud to have been on this YA ride from the beginning and is thrilled to present our Penguin Teen Game-Changers collection, highlighting five stellar novels that are sure to transform the YA scene this fall. Titles include Marie Lu’s Warcross; Kristin Cashore’s Jane, Unlimited; Stephanie Perkins’s There’s Someone Inside Your House; Peter Bognanni’s Things I’m Seeing Without You, and Julie C. Dao’s Forest of a Thousand Lanterns.

Five (5) winners will each get a box of books called “Game-Changers!” Titles include Warcross, Jane, Unlimited, There’s Someone Inside Your House, Things I’m Seeing Without You and Forest of a Thousand Lanterns.

Go here to enter for a chance to win, or just click the image of the prize below. Good luck!

Today In Books

BLACK MIRROR Gets Booked: Today in Books

Post author By Sharifah Williams
Post date September 22, 2017

Black Mirror Gets A 3-Volume Book Series

Every time I hear Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven Is a Place on Earth, I think of Black Mirror. Every time I have a nightmare, I’m certain it’s thanks to some Black Mirror remnant floating in my subconscious. Fans, prepare for more nightmare fodder–the sort you can physically carry around with you. We’ll be seeing the first volume of a three-volume Black Mirror book series in May 2018. Show creator Charlie Brooker will edit the volume, which will feature stories by writers including Sylvain Neuvel (Sleeping Giants) and Claire North (The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August).

Hidden Figures Author Joins NASA to Honor African-American Mathematician

Margot Lee Shetterly, author of Hidden Figures, joined additional dignitaries to honor Katherine Johnson, a former NASA employee and one of the central figures in Shetterly’s book. The book highlighted the lives and work of the black women who stepped in as human computers, and whose calculations were integral during wartime in the U.S. 99-year-old Johnson cut the ribbon for the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The event aired live on NASA Television earlier this afternoon, but I bet you can dig up a video online.

It Becomes All-Time Highest-Grossing Horror Film

Whether you love the Stephen King story or want to throw a brick through the window of every person who’s posted a picture of Pennywise on social, the masses have been parking themselves in theater seats across the country, desperate to be scared out of their minds. In fact, so many people wanted to see the newest adaptation that ticket sales pushed past The Exorcist to make It the highest-grossing horror film of all time. The movie has earned $236.3 million. That’s a lot of circus tickets.

Thank you to Black Bird of the Gallows by Meg Kassel, from Entangled Teen, for sponsoring today’s newsletter.

Where harbingers of death appear, the morgues will soon be full.

Angie Dovage can tell there’s more to Reece Fernandez than just the tall, brooding athlete who has her classmates swooning, but she can’t imagine his presence signals a tragedy that will devastate her small town. She can’t know she’ll be thrown into a battle between good and evil with Reece right in the center of it—and he’s not human.

Still, she knows something most don’t. The secrets her town holds could kill them all. But falling in love with a harbinger of death could be even more dangerous.

The Kids Are All Right

The National Book Award Long List, New Releases, and More!

Post author By Karina Glaser
Post date September 22, 2017

Hey Kid Lit fans!

Today, let’s talk about the National Book Awards. The mission of the National Book Foundation and the National Book Awards is to, “to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of great writing in America.” Every September, the National Book Awards long list of ten titles are announced in the categories of Young People’s Literature, Poetry, Non-Fiction, and Fiction. This list is narrowed to five finalists, and the winner is announced at a swanky banquet in Manhattan. This year, the National Book Awards Benefit and Ceremony will be on November 15th.

Sponsored by Click’d by Tamara Ireland Stone

Allie Navarro can’t wait to show her best friends the app she built at CodeGirls summer camp. Click’d pairs users based on common interests and sends them on a fun (and occasionally rule-breaking) scavenger hunt to find each other. And it’s a hit.

Watching her app go viral is amazing. But when Allie discovers a glitch that threatens to expose everyone’s secrets, she has to figure out how to make things right, even if that means sharing the computer lab with her archenemy Nathan. Can Allie fix her app, stop it from doing any more damage, and win back the friends it hurt—all before she steps on stage to present Click’d to the judges?

For the Young People’s Literature category, books are chosen from both middle grade and young adult, in both fiction and non-fiction. For 2016, six of the ten titles in the longlist were middle grade: When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin, Ghost by Jason Reynolds, Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo, Booked by Kwame Alexander, Pax by Sara Pennypacker and illustrated by Jon Klassen, and Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story by Caren Stelson.

This year, there are two middle grade titles: Clayton Byrd Goes Underground by Rita Garcia-Williams and Orphan Island by Laurel Snyder.

First of all, I have to say that I loved both of these books. In Clayton Byrd Goes Underground, Clayton and his grandfather Cool Papa Byrd love playing the blues. Clayton cannot wait to join the Bluesmen, which his grandfather says he can do once he has a blues song of his own. But when his grandfather dies, Clayton finds that his mother’s anger over Cool Papa Byrd’s abandonment when she was a child lies very deep. She starts selling off all of his jazz possessions, instruments and memorabilia that Clayton wanted to keep for himself. Clayton decides to run away from home, hoping he can find the Bluesmen and join them on the road. This book was beautiful, filled with very honest, relatable emotions. It made me think about how past family hurts run deep, and the difficulties of growing up and desiring independence in a world where your parents call the shots. Check out Meg Medina’s New York Times review of this book; it’s worth reading.

Now onto Orphan Island – this book has gotten so much buzz, and I’m not surprised because it’s definitely not like anything I’ve ever read. On the island, everything is perfect. It is beautiful and predictable, and part of the predictability comes with an annual tradition: a boat arrives with a new child for the island, and the oldest child must leave. The nine children on the island are the only inhabitants, and the island provides all they need. The story begins with the annual Changing: a boat arrives with a little girl named Ess, and Jinny’s best friend Deen leaves. Now the oldest, Jinny is in charge of Ess and spends the year teaching her about the island while also thinking about her own Changing day and what lies ahead. There are so many interpretations of this book, and readers have had so many questions! After reading it, I suggest you check out this interview with Laurel Snyder on the Books Between podcast. Laurel talks about her writing process and answers some of the questions you might have had.

The finalists will be announced on October 4th, and I’ll be rooting for both of these books to make it! Want to know more about these awards? Read this.

New Releases!

SO MANY GOOD ONES!!! Two of the biggest, buzziest books of the fall season are coming out this Tuesday!

Wishtree (Feiwel & Friends), by Newbery Award winning author Katherine Applegate, is written from a very unique perspective: Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. He is the neighborhood “wish tree” where every year people gather to write their wishes on pieces of fabric and tie them to his branches. When a new family moves into the neighborhood, not everyone is so pleased. This is a story of love and compassion, empathy and forgiveness. It’s a book that reminds of the important role we all have in making this world a better place for everyone. For more about this book, read this gorgeous post by Katherine Applegate on the Nerdy Book Club website.

The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine (Random House Children’s Books), written by Mark Twain and Philip Stead and illustrated by Erin Stead, is a brilliant piece of art. Here is the synopsis: “In a hotel in Paris one evening in the 1880s, Mark Twain sat with his young daughters, who begged their father for a story. Choosing a picture from a magazine to get started, Twain began telling them the tale of Johnny, a poor boy in possession of some magical seeds, who finds himself on a quest to rescue a stolen prince. Later, Twain jotted down some rough notes about the story, but the tale was left unfinished…until now… Philip and Erin Stead have completed the text and illustrated the book, framing the narrative as a story ‘told to me by my friend, Mr. Mark Twain.'” What I loved most about this book was the leisurely way it was laid out. At 160 pages, the Steads had the luxury of white space, to do spreads with only one small chicken in the lower right hand corner, to draw portraits and create gorgeous lettering. This book is a treasure, a perfect gift to give all the kids in your life.

Other releases I loved are coming out this Tuesday…

The Dam Keeper by Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi (First Second)

Skeleton Tree by Kim Ventrella (Scholastic)

Frazzled #2: Ordinary Mishaps and Inevitable Catastrophes by Booki Vivat (HarperCollins)

The Wonderling by Mira Bartók (Candlewick)

I’m Just No Good At Rhyming and Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups by Chris Harris, illustrated by Lane Smith (Little, Brown)

Ebook Deals!

Greenglass House by Kate Milford is $2.99 (The sequel, Ghosts of Greenglass House, will be out on October 3rd!)

Storybound by Marissa Burt is $1.99

Before I leave you, I wanted to let you know about a new Book Riot Podcast called Recommended, in which authors talk about books that matter to them. The second episode has authors Celeste Ng and Tara Clancy pitching their favorite book (which would make an excellent book club pick)! Go find out what it is.

This week I’m reading Whichwood by Tahereh Mafi (Dutton Books for Young Readers, November 14), The Perfect Score by Rob Buyea (Delacorte Books for Young Readers, October 3), and Finding Perfect by Elly Schwartz. I’d love to know what you are reading this week! Find me on Twitter at @KarinaYanGlaser, on Instagram at @KarinaIsReadingAndWriting, or email me at karina@bookriot.com.

Until next time,
Karina

Did you know there will be a sequel to Tru and Nelle? Izzy is very excited about it! Tru and Nelle: A Christmas Tale comes out on October 24th!

*If this e-mail was forwarded to you, follow this link to subscribe to “The Kids Are All Right” newsletter and other fabulous Book Riot newsletters for your own customized e-mail delivery. Thank you!*

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Book Radar

Tom Hanks To Star in a Man Called Ove, and More

Post author By Liberty Hardy
Post date September 22, 2017

It’s Monday! Time for another round of “Eeeeeee, I can’t wait for that!” I have a few cool book-related bits to share. Hope you’re reading something marvelous! Enjoy your week, and be excellent to each other. – xoxo, Liberty

P.S. – Have you checked out our newest podcast, Recommended? Each episode features two really interesting people talking about a book that they love! Check out Samantha Irby and Robin Sloan in Episode 1. Because who doesn’t need more book recommendations???

THE HOBBIT One-Ups Stephen King: Today in Books

Post author By Sharifah Williams
Post date September 21, 2017

The Hobbit Turns 80

Look, Stephen King, we know you turned 70 today–we see you. But guess what? The Hobbit has you beat by a whole decade, so step aside for a moment. It seems contrary to wish a book a good one by dredging up its old reviews, but that’s what we’re doing I guess. It’s not so bad. C.S. Lewis called J.R.R. Tolkien’s tale a classic-in-the-making. Okay, Stephen King. You can have a slice of cake too. Here’s what your local paper and neighbors had to say about you on your birthday.

Tom Hanks To Star In And Produce A Man Called Ove

That’s right. Uncle Hanks is all in on the adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s international best-seller. The book, originally written in Swedish, is about a solitary curmudgeon whose life is changed by the young family that moves in down the block. But is Hanks too lovable to play Carl Fredricksen–er, Ove? I intend to find out. Rita Wilson (Hank’s wife) and Fredrik Wikstrom Nicastro, who produced the Swedish adaptation, are also on board to produce.

Jessica Williams Will Play A Sci-Fi Writer In Her Comedy Series

Jessica Williams, you’re so fun and hilarious, and I cannot wait to watch this show. Williams will write and star in a new Showtime comedy series where she plays an aspiring science fiction writer in Brooklyn. I wonder if she’s getting the inside scoop from N.K. Jemisin. Or if sci-fi writers will cameo on the show! If we can’t enjoy ourselves at the intersection where comedy and geekery meet, I don’t need to know you.

Thank you to Rakuten Kobo Inc. for sponsoring today’s newsletter.

True Story

National Book Awards, WHAT HAPPENED Sets Records, and New Nonfiction

Post author By Kim Ukura
Post date September 21, 2017

Last week, the National Book Foundation announced the longlisted titles for the National Book Awards in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people’s literature. I have to admit, I had mixed feelings about the nonfiction list, which you can see in the photo below and the link to the NBA site.

The Book of Separation by Tova Mirvis published in hardcover and ebook from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Born and raised in a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish family, Tova Mirvis committed herself to observing the rules and rituals prescribed by this way of life. She married a man from within the fold and began a family. But at age forty, Tova decides to leave her husband and her faith. This is a memoir about what it means to free the part of yourself that has been suppressed, even if it means walking away from the only life you’ve ever known. Honest and courageous, Tova shows us how she learns to silence her fears on her own path to happiness.

Intellectually, I can see that it’s a list that makes a strong statement about our current political climate. There are several books on the history of race relations in the United States, two on the rise of the evangelical wing of the Republican Party, and three others on issues that have been in the news lately (totalitarianism in Russia, fake news, and progressive activism). I appreciate that the judges for the long list made a statement about what the world is like right now.

Emotionally, it left me a little disappointed. There’s room in great nonfiction to read for fun, or to read about the strange and quirky things that make up the world around us. This list doesn’t have any memoirs or books on science, for example, which are two areas where I know there’s great writing. I can’t help wishing we had space in our awards lists for some of that.

As a different example of an awards list, last week Kirkus Reviews also announced their finalists for the Kirkus Prize. That list has almost no political books on it, and instead includes some natural history, science history, and memoirs. I don’t know if a list that leans away from our current climate is better or worse, it’s just different.

I’m curious what you all think on this issue, and what we might see as the rest of the major awards for the year get announced. I wrote about this a bit more about the NBA list specifically over at Book Riot, if you care to think about it further, and if you’re into videos, Rincey talked a little about her book award list wishes on the site this week too.

What Happened Breaks Sales Records

Speaking of political books… Simon and Schuster, the publisher of Hillary Clinton’s memoir What Happened, told the Associated Press that the book has sold more than 300,000 copies in the first week of sales. According to BookScan, the hardcover sales of 168,000 copies is the highest opening for a nonfiction book since Mark Owen’s 2012 memoir, No Easy Day, which sold 250,000 copies. Sales of the ebook and audiobook editions have also been record-setting for the publisher. Looks like people cared what she had to say, after all.

Book Riot Launches Recommended!

In case you haven’t heard, Book Riot recently launched a new podcast, Recommended. In each episode, interesting people talk about books that matter to them. The first three episodes have each featured a writer of nonfiction – Samantha Irby (author of the essay collection We Are Never Meeting in Real Life), Tara Clancy (author of the memoir The Clancy’s of Queens), and Annalee Newitz (a tech and science writer who wrote about extinction in Scatter, Adapt, and Remember). You can find out more about Recommended and subscribe at this link.

New Releases on My Radar

Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand – My history reading leans toward the very specific. I’m not likely to pick up a book on the broad history of south and central Asia, but I’m all in for an account of “greed, conquest, murder, torture, colonialism, and appropriation” told through the history of a diamond.

Backlist Bump: I’ve heard excellent things about Anand’s 2015 book on Sophia Duleep Singh, titled Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary.

Thanks, Obama by David Litt – The buzz on the Book Riot backchannel for this book, a “hopey, changey” look at the Obama White House, has been universally good. I’m saving it for when I really need a shot of optimistic nostalgia.

Bonus Read: Litt had a funny excerpt in Politico Magazine about how he managed to upset the entire country of Kenya in a speech.

Reset by Ellen Pao – In 2015, Ellen Pao sued a Silicon Valley venture capital firm for workplace discrimination and retaliation. Although Pao eventually lost the suit, it helped open up a conversation about discrimination and sexism in the tech industry, and her fight for change as CEO of reddit and through the nonprofit Project Include.

Bonus Read: I liked this take on the book from Wired, suggesting Reset is the next logical read in business books after Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In.

And that’s it for this week. Let me know what you look for in your book awards lists, along with any other comments or feedback on Twitter and Instagram at @kimthedork or via email at kim@riotnewmedia.com. Happy reading!

Giveaways Uncategorized

Win a Stack of 12 Great Books to Fill Your Nightstand!

Post author By Jeff O'Neal
Post date September 21, 2017

The last episode of Season 1 of Book Riot’s podcast series, Annotated, was released last week. We’ve been pitching it as a sort of This American Life…but for books–it’s a scripted audio-documentary series about book related topics ranging from The World’s Most Glamorous Librarian to Why Do So Many People Care About The Oxford Comma? Basically, if you like either books or podcasts, you’re going to like it.

You can subscribe to Annotated in Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or in your podcast player of choice.

Hachette was our amazing sponsor for Season 1, and they are giving away three stack of 12 great books to commemorate the season.

You can go here for a chance to win, or just click the image below that shows what books are included in the giveaway. Good luck!

Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships Sept 22

Post author By Jenn Northington
Post date September 21, 2017

Happy Friday, astronauts and alchemists! This week’s reviews include Null States and Jane, Unlimited, and we’ve got some noteworthy SF/F YA, mind control, music, and more.

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Retrograde by Peter Cawdron.

The international team at the Mars Endeavour colony is prepared for every eventuality except one—what happens when disaster strikes Earth?

Mankind has long dreamed of reaching out to live on other planets, and with the establishment of the Mars Endeavour colony, that dream has become reality. The fledgling colony consists of 120 scientists, astronauts, medical staff, and engineers. Buried deep underground, they’re protected from the harsh radiation that sterilizes the surface of the planet. The colony is prepared for every eventuality except one—what happens when disaster strikes Earth?

You might have heard us gushing on SFF Yeah about Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death getting an HBO adaptation, and there’s now a writer attached to the project: Selwyn Seyfu Hinds. He doesn’t have a lot of writing credits screen-wise, but he’s worked in comics and authored and co-authored a couple books (including one called Gunshots In My Cook-Up: Bits and Bites from a Hip-Hop Caribbean Life, which I now need to get my hands on).

For your Fall TBR, Unbound Worlds has a list of 12 SFF YA titles to watch out for, several of which are on the stack next to my desk. So much to read!

The ultimate bad hair day is when your hair is SUPERNATURAL AND MAYBE ALSO EVIL. Which is what these books all have in common. Note to self, stop complaining about fly-aways.

Mind control: not so sci-fi anymore. (Although note to this guy: “making phonetic sounds” with your hands is called sign language.)

Genre up your Friday playlist: here are 13 songs that reference sf/f! Now you know: Iron Maiden are Dune fans, and Chance the Rapper loves Harry Potter.

For our reviews this week, we’ve got policy-punk sci-fi and a multi-verse adventure that otherwise refuses to be categorized.

Null States (Centenal Cycle #2) by Malka Older

I didn’t know what to expect out of this sequel for Infomocracy, so it was easy to be surprised. In this case, the surprise was a good one!

It’s been almost two years since the election debacle, and Information mostly has things settled. But what should be a simple assignment in shepherding a government into micro-democracy puts one of our characters, Roz, squarely in the middle of an assassination and strange local tensions, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Mishima is back (#TeamMishima!), and she’s just as kick-ass as ever. With major governments threatening to secede from the system, she has to go undercover to find out how serious these threats are. There are several other POV characters as well and they’re great, but Roz and Mishima absolutely steal the show.

Older has pulled off an excellent Book Two. Not only does it build on the events of the first, but it adds nuance and asks further questions about the world in which our characters live, questions that readers might already have been asking themselves. What does it look like when a country doesn’t participate in micro-democracy? How does war work? But it never feels like a thought exercise or an infodump; the dangers, consequences, and emotions surrounding these questions are present, real, and compelling. It also really showcases Older’s own knowledge; she worked in Darfur in humanitarian aid, and that experience alongside her research into multi-government disaster response is put to good use. All that being said, I would highly discourage picking this up without having read Infomocracy first — the grounding is essential, and you won’t have half as much fun following the characters. On the other hand, I hope this recap sells you on the series. For my money, the Centenal Cycle is one of the smartest and most interesting new sci-fi series on the scene.

Jane, Unlimited by Kristen Cashore

Ask three readers about this novel, and you’ll get five different answers as to what kind of a book it is and what it’s about. (I speak from actual experience on this, and it was one of the most entertaining and surprising book-related group-texts of my life.) But perhaps that’s not a surprise, given that it’s a genre-jumping, multi-verse exploring work.

Our titular heroine Jane is a college drop-out grieving the recent death of her aunt, adrift in life, until she runs into her former tutor Kiran. Kiran’s family is rich, has their own island mansion, and is planning a gala, and Jane is invited along. Since she has pretty much nothing else going for her, she heads to the island — and that’s where the hijinks ensue.

It starts out feeling like a Gothic novel — unpleasant servants, careless and oddball rich people, an orphan making her way through high society, things and people going bump in the night. And then you get about 100 pages in and things take a very sharp turn, and continue taking them for the rest of the book. Some chapters double down on the horror; others are more light-hearted; some are decidedly more fantasy; still others call to mind spy thrillers and Bond movies. There is a lot going on, is what I’m saying.

I’m a huge fan of Cashore’s Graceling series, and this is nothing like those. Not in style, not in structure, not in content. If what you’re looking for is more of that, I suggest you recalibrate your expectations. I also highly recommend you pick this up. This is a book that truly feels as though it has something for every reader in it, and is a TON of fun to talk about — once the other people have read it. Until then, I will continue waving my hands around and yelling, “Read this!”

And that’s a wrap! If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda.

Never give up, never surrender,
Jenn

The Stack

092117-ParkBench-The-Stack

Post author By Devin Service
Post date September 21, 2017

Today’s The Stack is sponsored by Gallery 13.

With his masterful illustration style, bestselling French creator-storyteller Chabouté (Alone, Moby-Dick) explores community through a common, often ignored object: the park bench. Chabouté’s mastery of the visual medium turns this simple object into a thought-provoking and gorgeously wrought meditation on time, desire, and the life of communities all across the planet. This could be a bench in my hometown or yours—the people in this little drama are very much those we already recognize.