This Month in Book News (April 2022 + news from previous month)

This Month in Book News (April 2022)

Awards & honors:  The winners of the 2022 Los Angeles Times Book Prize (awarded by the newspaper since 1980) and the Edgar Awards (which honors mystery fiction, non-fiction and television) were announced this past week. The finalists for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the International Booker Prize have also been revealed. Stay tuned for the winners of these prizes and for the winners of this year’s Pulitzer Prizes, which will be awarded on May 9.

Controversies: “Unparalleled in intensity,” book bannings are continuing, unfortunately—but the Brooklyn library system has announced “a program to challenge the tide.” In early April, the American Library Association released its annual list of the top 10 most challenged books. As the Guardian reports, a book from a popular children’s has been withdrawn from sale after complaints that it is Islamophobic. And according to the New York Times, a white author’s book about Black feminism has been pulled from circulation after a social media outcry.

 Events: This past month I wasn’t able to attend The LA Times Festival of Books, but here is an overview of this fantastic free event. April is National Poetry Month, and though the month is coming to a close, it’s not too late to enjoy the festivities or carry a poem in your pocket. Today (April 30) is Independent Bookstore Day, so it’s a great day to support your local bookstore no matter where you live. As for upcoming events—if you’re in LA or NY May 11-14, check out the PEN America World Voices Festival.

 Milestones: It’s been ten years since the first 50 SHADES OF GRAY book was traditionally published, and as Forbes explains, it went on to become the bestselling book of the last decade. As PBS News Hour notes, it’s been “15 years this month since DIARY OF A WIMPY KID made author Jeff Kinney one of the world’s most popular writers.” It’s been 20 years since the first GOSSIP GIRL book was released, and the series still loom large in contemporary culture according to the Ringer. And on the 100th anniversary of THE VELVETEEN RABBIT, NPR looks at the book's influence “and the timeless question at the heart of the story: What does it mean to be real?”

Across the pond: An even bigger milestone is that it’s been 120 years since the first publication of Beatrix Potter’s THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT, and to mark this occasion, the Royal Mint is releasing a new £5 coin. Looking for a literary celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's record-breaking reign? The Big Jubilee Read is exactly this and features 70 titles, ten from each decade of the Queen's reign.

From book to stage and vice versa: Following “massive success overseas,” “The Little Prince,” based on the beloved novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, is opening as a limited tun on Broadway. The Alanis Morissette musical “Jagged Little Pill” is now a YA novel by agent Eric Smith. And 23 years after Tracy Chevalier’s GIRL WITH A PEARL EARING was first published, and subsequently adapted into a movie and then as a play, this novel is now an opera in Zurich. Amazing.

More fun links: As Literary Hub reports, there’s a manuscript bar in Tokyo that won’t let you leave until you finish your novel (perhaps this is more intimidating than fun?). You can find books set in your hometown using a new tool. And finally, couples are putting books at the center of their wedding celebrations, and the Times’ coverage of this trend will be “your most wholesomely delightful read of the day.”

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This Month in Book News (March 2022)

[Originally posted March 31, 2022]

Awards & honors: The winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced earlier this month, with Honorée Fanonne Jeffers taking the fiction prize for THE LOVE SONGS OF W.E.B. DUBOIS. The winners of the 2022 Hans Christian Andersen Award—the highest international recognition given to an author and an illustrator of children's books—were also revealed, along with the finalists for two other major international book awards, the International Booker Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

International news:  It’s tough to think about anything besides the war in Ukraine, but this article from the Guardian titled Books Against Bombs: How Ukrainians are using literature to fight back is reassuring. Fortunately, several organizations are raising money (like “Book Aid for Ukraine”) and awareness (like the New York Public Library, which has released a list of books on Ukraine’s history) to try to help with the situation. Interestingly, Chekhov had a summer home in Ukraine, and it’s under threat.

Film & TV: The Oscars were this past weekend (and will probably be best remembered for a particular controversial incident…), but let’s not forget that many of them are based on books or other stories. As First Post puts it, it’s clear that literature has emerged “as ripe source of storytelling.” Here’s Esquire’s list of book-to-movie adaptations, which includes a novel by Judy Blume, about whom a documentary is in the works.

 Controversies: Speaking of controversies, the dispute about the BETRAYAL OF ANNE FRANK has been brewing for a while now (see last month’s round-up). Although the Dutch publisher of the book has now pulled it, the Canadian publisher is continuing to stand by the publication, as is author Rosemary Sullivan. As the Globe & the Mail notes, the response to the book is worthy of a book itself. In other controversies, John Boyne’s bestselling middle grade novel THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS is getting a sequel, even though it has "may fuel dangerous Holocaust fallacies." And a GOP senator has inadvertently created a sales spike for anti-racist books.

Milestones: It’s the centenary of ON THE ROAD author Jack Kerouac, but as this piece on Oprah Daily asks, can you love Kerouac and still be a feminist? It’s been 10 years since Cheryl Strayed’s WILD changed the outdoors forever (as Outside Magazine put it), and since the movies based on the wildly popular HUNGER GAMES books released. According to Vanity Fair, “nobody ever found the next ‘Hunger Games,’ but boy did they try.” Hmm.

Famous people in book news: Vanity Fair also reported that actress Ally Sheedy has secretly been working as a book editor. (So if you hire her instead of me, I will understand!) My alma mater Little, Brown has released actor John Cho’s debut novel for middle grade readers, along with a novel co-authored by Dolly Parton and James Patterson. And “Late Night” host Seth Meyers, long considered a friend to the book world, has released a picture book, about which many children’s book agents and editors have commented.

More news: Perhaps the biggest headline to surface this past month was that Amazon is shuttering all 68 of its physical stores. As the Washington Post wrote, the tech behemoth is “killing off its physical bookstores, after killing everyone else's.” Still, many independent bookstores remain, and it’s up to us to support them. Here’s a profile in the Guardian of a bookstore here in NYC called Yu and Me Books, which it describes as “a cozy oasis that uplifts writers of color and its own customers as well.” Excellent!