Citizen Reader

A weekly selection of reading and book news, sometimes with completely inappropriate commentary.

A new Winnie the Pooh book is planned, introducing...a penguin?

Novelist D. Keith Mano: Obituary.

"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" has been a long time coming to the big screen.

Love pop culture? Love providing readers' advisory help? Then this free webinar is for you!

Kirkus Prizes: Shortlists.

Here are the writers who won this year's MacArthur "genius" fellowships.

One of the original greats of reporting on the workplace: Studs Terkel.

Poldark's back on PBS! And here's a list of Winston Graham read-alikes, too.

James Patterson's new BookShot, titled The Murder of Stephen King, has been pulled. Here's a couple of takeaways from the article: 1. can you believe James Patterson made $95 million dollars last year? and 2. James Patterson, please stop coloring your hair. You are old. We all know it.

Infographic: Ten influential poets.

Publishing remains: "extremely white."

George R. R. Martin, maybe you should just finish the series you have going, rather than hinting at a prequel.

On Jane Jacobs's street smarts. (Related: The New York Times calls this new biography of her "flawed.")

October is National Reading Group Month! They provide kind of an interesting list of books there, to consider for your book group. Anybody read any of them? The only one I've ever even heard of is The Tsar of Love and Techno.

"Author Robert A. Caro will receive the 2016 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book foundation."

Top cities for reading. Lots of Midwestern cities on this list. Yay, the Midwest!

Andrew Carnegie Medals longlists announced. Huh. Actually a surprising interesting list. (I am not usually a fan of anything the ALA sponsors, and this is an ALA award.) I'm rather pulling for Matthew Desmond's Evicted.

I agree with the last line in this article--perhaps the sheen has just worn off of the Bridget Jones sequels--but I liked the movie. I was so meant to be born British.

Ten standard books for high school. How great are they?

Google continues to try and put librarians out of work: now their Google Play Books service has a feature to aid "book discoverability." Google will not be happy until all of us never talk to another human being again.

NONFICTION BOOK NEWS

Nonfiction news from the New York Times: What we can learn from women who break the rules; Why do people who need help from the government hate it?

An Anglophile book I must have: The Face of Britain, by Simon Schama.

David Cameron to write his "memoirs" based on his audio diary.

How lucrative was The Great British Bake-Off for...booksellers?

Ralph Lauren to write his autobiography.

EarlyWord would like to bring your attention to the book Ten Restaurants that Changed America.

AND NOW, YOUR OBLIGATORY NEIL GAIMAN POST

Sorry, there isn't one (!) this week. Gaiman must be slowing down.