Citizen Reading: 19 December 2016
19 December 2016
A weekly selection of reading and book news, sometimes with completely inappropriate commentary.
Croatia, here I come. You gotta love a country that finds a way to offer free books to its residents and visitors.
There's just nothing like browsing in a bookstore for sheer serendipity. But we all knew that already, right?
This really has nothing to do with reading or books, but I want to read this article later, and my Internet bookmarks are a total mess, so this is where I'm saving this link to a story about Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg, and whistleblowers.
NPR book recommendations, tailored for gift-giving purposes.
Have you seen LitHub's new book review aggregator. Yeah, me either, but I want to go check it out. Although, weirdly, I keep realizing anew how few of my reading choices are made using books reviews.
What did this woman learn after she read 52 books in one year? Well, nothing all that earth-shattering. But I did like this paragraph: "This may come as a surprise to you all, but I’m not a sporty girl. I can’t sit through a football game, but after reading The Blind Side I can walk you through the evolution of the left tackle position. I cheered with the rest of the country when the Chicago Cubs won the World Series, but their win meant so much more because Moneyball taught me the game Theo Epstein was playing. On a separate note, I did actually read authors other than Michael Lewis this year."
Merry Christmas, Amazon style. (And you must read Melville Press's take on Amazon's delivery drones.)
Oprah's new book imprint has a wildly creative name.
Author Shirley Hazzard has died.
Dan Clowes's graphic novel Patience will be made into a movie.
Maria Semple's Today Will Be Different to be adapted as a film.
Fictional character Bridget Jones makes the Woman's Hour Power List. I don't even know what that is but I think it's awesome. Bridget Jones forever.
Libraries are just the best.
Tournament of Books (which doesn't start until March): has published its longlist of possibilities.
Screen Actors Guild Awards: Nominations.
NONFICTION BOOK NEWS
The "Trump Bump"--in a weird sort of way. A nonfiction book about ExxonMobil and its CEO (Rex Tillerson, tapped by Trump to become Secretary of State), is selling well.
New York Times: Emmett Till wasn't the only unfortunate member of his family; new essay collections; another new essay collection by Siri Hustvedt, titled A Woman Looks at Men Looking at Women; a history of 19th-century Europe.
BOOK LISTS
Don't forget: Largehearted Boy is once again collecting ALL the best of 2016 books lists
Flavorwire: Best books of 2016
Forbes: Top ten business books of the year
The biggest (literally) YA novels of the year
2016 books you should read "if you know what's good for you"
New York Magazine: 5 great science books of the year
Publishers' Weekly: Staff picks
Washington Post: best economics books of 2016
15 nonfiction books to "bolster the resistance"
the New Yorker: books we loved in 2016
25 days of Christmas romances
MY READING NOTES FROM LAST WEEK
I had a good reading week, so now I have a pile of books sitting here waiting to be reviewed. However, one that didn't et me on fire was Colson Whitehead's sports/memoir The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death. Whitehead gets a lot of attention as a novelist (this year, for his book The Underground Railroad), but I've never been able to make my way through his fiction. A 234-page investigative/memoir about playing in the World Series of Poker? That, I thought might be interesting. It was just okay; Colson doesn't throw in quite enough personal information to make this a great memoir (for me) or enough behind-the-scenes insight into the WSOP. Mr. CR liked the book better than me, and it was only 234 pages, so no harm, no foul.
AND NOW, YOUR OBLIGATORY NEIL GAIMAN LINK
Here he is, being reviewed in the School Library Journal.