This Week In Books
Saturday October 21, Edition
This Week In Books: Publishing insider news with a healthy side of snark (like carbs, only you’ll still fit in your jeans).
Image by Dariusz Sankowski from Pixabay
Before diving into the TWIB, we want to take a moment and acknowledge the unspeakable tragedy of the October 7 terror attack on Israel by Hamas. The reality of that day and its aftermath have broken our hearts. We simply don’t have the words. Our friend and author JT Ellison summed it up beautifully in her post When The Ones Who Are Supposed To Have Words… Don’t. What is happening in Israel, Ukraine, and Gaza desperately matters. It is no exaggeration to say that the world will never be the same. WE will never be the same for having witnessed the wanton evil perpetrated against Israeli civilians. So we took a break from posting to grapple with the horrible news flooding our feeds. We knew that you would still be here and that the world of books could wait. Turns out, the publishing world is also reeling from recent events. Let’s jump in, shall we?
Frankfurt Book Fair, which began Wednesday, is drawing controversy for postponing an award ceremony and canceling a public discussion with Palestinian author, Adanai Shibli, in the wake of the October 7 attacks on Israel. Her novel, Minor Detail, revolves around the rape and murder of a Palestinian girl by Israeli soldiers during the 1948 Israeli-Arab war. Hundreds of artists, authors, publishers and literary agents have signed an open letter to the book fair condemning the act stating, "The Frankfurt Book Fair has a responsibility, as a major international book fair, to be creating spaces for Palestinian writers to share their thoughts, feelings, reflections on literature through these terrible, cruel times, not shutting them down." Several Arab publishing organizations have withdrawn from the event in protest. However, the fair’s director Juergen Boos gave an unequivocal statement of support for Israel, saying "We strongly condemn Hamas’s barbaric terror war against Israel. And we are horrified. Our thoughts are with the victims, their families and all the people suffering in Israel and Palestine because of this war. The terror war against Israel contradicts all the values that Frankfurter Buchmesse stands for. Frankfurter Buchmesse has always been about humanity, its focus has always been on peaceful and democratic discourse. This humanity has been shattered once again by the attack on Israel by Hamas’s terrorists... Terror, however, can never be allowed to win, which is why we want to make Jewish and Israeli voices especially visible at the book fair." There is heartbreak no matter which direction you look in this situation.
The ongoing events in Israel and Gaza, leave many authors wondering how to release books in the midst of such a tragedy. Since publication dates can be set months or years in advance, breaking news does not delay them. It does, however, put authors in the terrible position of trying to be respectful of current events while also celebrating their own hard-earned success. So hats off to author Rochelle Weinstein who handled her new book release in such a classy way. Go give it a watch and go check out her book What You Do To Me.
LeVar Burton is replacing Drew Barrymore as the host of National Book Awards after Barrymore was removed when she announced the return of filming for her talk show during the WGA strike. Burton also recently waded into the book ban controversy in support of reading banned books. Regardless of where you stand on the battle lines, I think we can all agree that LeVar is looking foxy with his silver face-mullet, which is a pretty confusing takeaway for these Reading Rainbow fans.
Author Eric Carle gets a very hungry, (very hairy, very jumpy) SPIDER named after him. A new species of jumping spider was recently discovered with an uncanny resemblance to a caterpillar, so of course the Uroballus Carlei is now a thing. The Very Hungry Caterpillar has been a childhood classic for the last 50 years. Way to go Eric Carle for writing something so iconic that a never before discovered species that sorta looks like something you wrote, now carries your name forever. Life goals.
All Hail our Robot Overlords: The newest book in Peter Brown’s The Wild Robot series is a bestseller. While the adults fight over the use of AI, let’s teach the kids early that the robot overlords are here to protect us. We jest of course, we are all about fostering the love of reading in the next generation and celebrate any way kids put their nose in a book. Craig Fehrman reviewed the trilogy for The New York Times, and we have to say it might go on our Christmas list for the kids in our lives.
Are you already working on your Christmas list? Our friends at Modern Mrs. Darcy have put together a gift guide for book lovers. We spy some great gifts for your book club Christmas party gift exchange? Is that a thing? Let’s make it a thing.
Time Magazine wrote an article about everyone’s favorite literary crush: John Grisham. His new book, The Exchange, released this week. The Exchange is a sequel to his original hit The Firm. Grisham has faithfully released a new book every year for the last 37 years and they always shoot straight to the top of the bestseller list. While Hollywood stopped making movies out of his books for a while, his stories are enjoying a renaissance with several adaptations currently in the works. With America’s current obsession with all things 90’s, Grisham is ripe for a reboot if that’s what you could call someone who never really fell out of fashion to begin with. All we can say is that it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. And, also, he’s very handsome. Which we don’t hate.
The New York Times reviewed Larry McMurtry: A Life by Tracy Daughtery. This biography traces the life and career of the Pulitzer-Prize winning author, screenwriter, and bookseller. “He matters because of how closely he observed declining ways of life, and he intimately charted the national migration from rural to urban existence.” We think he matters because he wrote damn good novels. McMurty’s own words on writing: “For me the novel is character creation. Style is nice, plot is nice, structure is OK, social significance is OK, symbolism worms its way in, timeliness is OK too, but unless the characters convince and live the book’s got no chance.” Well, Larry, We’d say your work has passed the test.
Congrats to Jessica Knoll who sold Bright Young Women to TV adaptation. We continue to rave about her smart, instant bestseller for its ingenious ability to talk about one of the most famous serial killers in US history without ever naming or glorifying him. Instead she shines the spotlight on his victims, just where it should be.
More books go from the page to the screen:
Bonnie Garmus’ runaway hit Lessons In Chemistry was adapted by AppleTv+ and the first episodes released last week. Did you love the book? What about Brie Larson as Elizabeth Zott? We are so interested to see whether the adaptation lives up to the book which is in its 75th week on The New York Times Bestseller list.
Netflix released the trailer for All The Light We Cannot See based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name by Anthony Doerr. Our fascination with all stories from WWII continues and we are here for it.
AppleTv+ released a trailer for their new show The Buccaneers based on the 1938 unfinished novel by Edith Wharton. Wharton wrote about three-fifths of the book before her death which was then finished by Wharton-scholar and author Marion Mainwaring, who followed Wharton’s original outline, and published it in 1993. While we will never know exactly what Wharton herself would have done with the book, this new adaptation to the small screen at least looks to be an entertaining, Bridgerton-esque, take on the Gilded Age novel.
American Fiction, a film based on the Percival Everett novel Erasure, will release in December. It is a satire on the publishing world’s relationship with Black authors. His next novel, James (a retelling of Huck Finn from Jim’s point of view) releases in April of next year.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the book is always better than the movie/show, but we always love to see our favorites on the screen. Are there any adaptations you are looking forward to?
Spotify debuted a subscription service for audiobooks. Spotify owns a substantial corner of the market for music streaming and podcasts and is now branching into the audiobook territory. “Spotify premium paid subscribers will now have access to 15 hours a month to more than 150,000 audiobooks, including titles from all the major publishers. Listeners can use those hours as they please—whether sampling across many titles or listening to entire books.” This program has launched in the UK and Australia with a US release slated for this winter. Spotify has had its fair share of controversy with music streaming (here,here, here and here) and has yet to turn a profit. One can’t help but wonder how they will safeguard authors in this new and ever changing world? Is it too naive to hope that they actually want to put real books, written by real authors, directly in the ears of real people that want to listen to them? Are you an audiobook listener? How do you feel about this new service? Is Spotify the devil that just wants another subscription linked directly to your credit card?
Kate DiCamillo’s new book The Puppets of Spellhorst released this month. DiCamillo is the absolute master of taking seemingly disparate elements and weaving them into heart wrenchingly beautiful stories. The Tale of Despereaux and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane will forever hold a special place in our hearts. Shelf Awareness interviewed her about the book and she and Ann Patchet talked books at the Library of Congress this week. She is brilliant and we will leave you with this quote from her:
“I love words. And as a kid, I learned so many words through reading stories. Every time a writer trusted me enough to give me a word I didn't know, I felt seen. I like giving that gift to readers.”
Catch Up with Ariel over at I’m So Glad You Asked
See what Marybeth is up to at I Will Tell You This.