This Week In Books
January 21, 2024 Edition
On this four-hundred-and-eleventy-eighth day of January we would officially like to announce that Winter Is A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, season. We hatesss it Preciousss, we hatesss it. Winter is giving us a bad attitude, frizzy hair, and dry skin. Boycott winter! Needless to say, we’re heading into this week’s bookish news with less sass than usual. May our personalities return with the sun! Let’s get to it:
Cruisin’ For Content: Publishing insider
called it and then Publisher’s Weekly ran with it: In a bold publicity stunt, Atria Books sent a TikTok influencer on a cruise to promote Will Dean’s 2020 novel, The Last One. The influencer, Marc Sebastian, is not a reader and neither are his 1.6 million followers, but he has promised to create mayhem for content. The 9-month-long cruise is full of influencers from across social media platforms getting “shipfaced.” While many are left puzzled by the missing book connection to Sebastian, it does seem to be an effective stunt garnering lots of views for the book and Atria (they even released this little promo video). I am just hoping Sebastian actually reads the book. The Last One is about a woman on a cruise who wakes to find herself the only person on board. Being alone with no one to give you attention sounds like an influencer’s worst nightmare. But being on a cruise full of attention seekers sounds like mine. Book Tide friends, how about we all go on a cruise and read quietly together–a floating Silent Book Club? Let’s take this chill party to the high seas! Who’s with me?Illustrated Hunger Games: Scholastic Press and Suzanne Collins have announced their plan to release an illustrated version of The Hunger Games later this year. There is a whole generation of kids whose preferred book format is graphic novels who can now experience The Hunger Games through the artwork of Nico Delort. Taking a look at his work, he was definitely the right choice of illustrator to capture the unique dystopia of Panem. I know more than a few adults who would love to experience Katniss Everdeen’s journey in a new and fresh way. I volunteer as tribute!
An Audible Pink Slip: In the continuing trend of big tech tightening the purse strings, Audible, the Amazon-owned audiobook and podcast company, announced a 5% cut to its staff, amounting to about 100 employees. Listen, I always hate to see people getting laid off. And I know the book world has a love-hate relationship with Amazon, but we need someone out there competing with Spotify on audiobooks. What I’d really like to see is Spotify and Audible fight for who is going to compensate authors more–but I’ll settle for an audiobook dominance cage match. But only if neither party can tap out and Libro.fm gets to be the referee.
Another Bestselling Royal: Denmark got a new monarch when its Queen abdicated on New Year’s Day and her son, Frederik X, was crowned king. Three days after assuming the throne, he released a surprise book which is already set to become a bestseller. The King’s Word sold 25 copies per minute in the hours after its release. So the secret ingredient for an instant bestseller is one thing: blue blood. Just ask Prince Harry whose memoir Spare sold 1.4 million copies in the first day.
Literary Champion: Prolific, bestselling author David Baldacci is set to receive the 2024 Pen/Faulkner Literary Champion Award for his work promoting literacy and the love of reading. Nobody could say it better than Baldacci himself: “Books take us out of our comfort zones, and encourage us to see the world from other perspectives. Reading increases empathy—perhaps the finest of all human qualities—and the ability to read is a powerful tool against homelessness, hunger, and poverty. Thus, when someone tells you that books are magical, believe them.” In championing literature, in charm, and in eloquence Baldacci is clearly The Winner–coincidentally the name of one of his bestselling books.
Library Printing Press: The LA Public Library joins an exclusive group of libraries that have their own publisher with the acquisition of Angel City Press. Dedicated to preserving LA’s rich and storied history through print, Angel City Press now finds a perfect home within the library’s umbrella. However, the LAPL goes on to say they won’t be selling these books at the library because the “free and easy access” to literature remains a core belief. Our take? What a waste of absolute power! When The Book Tide acquires our own small press, it will be all Book Tide books all the time. We will foist them upon you. You get a book! And you get a book! And you get a book! For a reasonable price, of course–this here establishment ain’t no library.
The Expatriates: Bestselling author Janice Y.K. Lee’s book The Expatriates has been adapted to TV for Amazon. Produced by and starring Nicole Kidman, Expats releases January 25th. Following the smashing success of book to tv hit Big Little Lies, Kidman has taken a huge interest in bringing women’s books to the screen and has personally championed this novel through her production company Blossom Films. Lee spoke with The New York Times in an interview where they discussed motherhood, reading, and being able to write an episode of Expats. No jokes here. This is all the things we like to see: women championing other women and bringing great books to new audiences.
The Whalebone Theatre: Hera Pictures has acquired rights to The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn. The bestselling novel follows unwanted orphan Cristabel Seagrave as she falls in love with the theater and becomes a spy for the Allies during WWII–the most dangerous act of all. The Whalebone Theatre was a Read With Jenna Book Club pick and international bestseller. We can’t wait to see how the coming of age story with a backdrop of a whale’s rib cage plays out on screen. I’m sure there’s a (Moby) Dick joke in here somewhere but we keep things classy around here. And by “classy” we of course mean our preferred use of “pizzle.”
YouTube of the Week: This woman deconstructs 100 year old books to restore them. We can’t look away.
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Need January to go away! Need to read these books.
Also in for the Silent Book Club cruise 🙋🏻♀️