Citizen Reading: 10 October 2016
10 October 2016
Novelist Gloria Naylor has died.
Amazon's latest Prime perk: free ebooks and other reading material. They call the program, imaginatively enough, "Prime Reading."
Sweet Valley High is getting a graphic-novel adaptation. Jessica and Liz Wakefield in graphic novel form! When I slept over at a friend's house in junior high, I literally got up earlier so I could plow my way through her collection of Sweet Valley Highs...good times, good times. When I think of how I wasted my brain's plasticity as a teenager...sigh.
Repurposing newspaper dispensers to become Little Free Libraries.
A lot of people cry foul (our own dear Jenny from Reading the End among them) at the naming of Elena Ferrante.
National Book Award: Finalists.
I find everything about this article gross. Really, dude, you need Google to step up and delve into more of your personal information and email conversations just so it can get better at SUGGESTING BOOKS TO YOU? For Christ's sake, why is everyone having such problems with book "discoverability"? I can't move without tripping over books I want to read. Even if I'm not going to the library or to the bookstore I still sometimes come home with books I want to read. I'm not even sure how that happens. Doesn't this guy have any friends who read that he can converse with once in a while? I am annoyed that we all think computers and algorithms can and should be picking our reading for us.
Nonfiction movie news: The Professor and the Madman closer to screen.
Novelist Arundhati Roy is publishing a new novel, twenty years after her last hit. Good for you, Arundhati Roy. I weary of people pounding out a lackluster novel every year. (Oh, and while I'm taking shots at Nicholas Sparks, let me just say, men, stop coloring your hair. It looks ridiculous.)
Hogarth publishing house's new editorial director: Sarah Jessica Parker.
NONFICTION BOOK NEWS
Oh, my God, an article by Joyce Carol Oates in which she reviews the new biography about Shirley Jackson and two of Jackson's own books. I am about to keel over with joy. Although I am actually linking to the story without having read it--I'm tired tonight and I am going to save this article for a little treat during my daylight hours, when I will hopefully be able to concentrate on it, even if I have to give the kids a video to watch while I read it. Screen time = Mommy's Special Reading about Shirley Jackson Time.
OOOoooohhh...a new biography about E.B. White!
Oooh, again, a book titled Messy, about how "imperfections can make us more creative." If only you could see my disgusting messy house right now. I must be the most creative person on earth!
Wow...Bruce Springsteen's memoir has already sold more than 100,000 copies.
Now scholars are writing books about binge-watching TV. I totally need to be a scholar.
Love author David McCullough? You can expect a new book from him...in 2019.
Trayvon Martin's parents have a book deal for nonfiction titled Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin.
There's a sequel to essay collection The Bitch In the House, and it's titled The Bitch Is Back. I must have it. (See? That's book discoverability. Not so hard.)
AND NOW, YOUR OBLIGATORY NEIL GAIMAN LINK