Citizen Reading: 7 August 2017.
07 August 2017
A weekly selection of reading and book news, sometimes with completely inappropriate commentary.
Buzz Books Monthly for September (from Publishers' Lunch) now available.
Trend watch: Have you heard of "up lit"?
Looking to develop your maker spaces? Tips for makers on a budget.
Penn State Libraries: now dispensing short stories!
This was my favorite surreal article of the week. USA Today makes suggestions for what President Trump should read on vacation. Anybody else here remember when USA Today was called "McPaper" and was derided for being news lite? And now it's suggesting books for Trump? Very odd books. I'm crying. I'm laughing. I'm cry-laughing. Craughing. Is that a thing?
Now THIS is why tech moguls keep buying media outlets.
Stop letting your children play with apps.
A new literary journal gives all story writers the same first line to work with.
This is not a nice trend: Game of Thrones fans are buying (and abandoning) a lot of husky dogs.
5 reasons audiobook sales are booming.
Sales are up for the Cambridge University Press.
Not the Booker Prize 2017: Here's the very long, long, longlist.
Women's fiction author Isabelle Broom has signed a contract for two new books with Michael Joseph.
There's a new novel out based on the Lizzie Borden story.
E.B. White's farm, where he wrote Charlotte's Web, is up for sale.
Sam Shepard, author and playwright, has died at the age of 73. I'll always like him for his role in the movie "Baby Boom," although I've never read or seen any of his plays.
The editor who saved Anne Frank's diary from the rejection pile, and also gave the world Julia Child's cookbooks, has died.
Author Ariel Levy on feeling guilt over her miscarriage.
A new PBS program will explore Americans' favorite books.
The film adaptation of "The Dark Tower" is not getting good reviews.
"Game of Thrones": Episode leaks.
More and more books are being adapted for TV and film.
Arab American Book Awards: Winners.
Winner of the 2017 Diagram Prize for Oddest Title: Winner.
The Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize 2017: shortlist.
NONFICTION BOOK NEWS
Senator Jeff Flake (R-Arizona, and also known at one time as the least-liked Senator in America) has a new book out.
James Comey has gotten his book deal.
A new memoir by a woman who cut herself off from her abusive parents: Estranged: Leaving Family, and Finding Home.
Bustle: 13 best nonfiction books of August.
New York Times: A collection of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg's lectures on his contemporaries; a new biography of poet John Ashbery; a book on how poetry works.
BOOK LISTS
IndieBound: Bestselling books the week of August 3.
Amazon: Best Books of August.
Bustle.com: The best 10 fiction titles of August.
Vulture: 8 books you need to read this August. This is like the third or fourth list I've seen Tom Perrotta's novel Mrs. Fletcher on. Fine. I am no Perrotta fan, but I will give it a try.
School Library Journal: 44 terrific titles for August.
Publishers' Weekly: The most anticipated books for fall.
Booklist: Spotlight on SF/Fantasy and Horror.
Ten "highbrow books for the beach."
Inc.com: 26 favorite books of high achievers.
"In Search of Lost Words": Novels on dementia.
MY READING NOTES
I really wanted to spend a lot of time with Gardens of the High Line: Elevating the Nature of Modern Landscapes, by Piet Oudolf and Rick Darke, about New York's High Line park, but I have been too busy actually going outside with the CRjrs. I will get this one back in the winter.
I've had David Sedaris's new book Theft by Finding, Diaries: 1977-2002, for the full four weeks my library allows, and I have to take it back now. I've never been a yuuge Sedaris fan, although I have enjoyed some of his writings, but I am enthralled by the idea of diaries and thought I would take a look. I read the first hundred pages, largely because I was just dumbfounded by the events in his life, and then I skimmed the next 200 pages, and then I stopped. This is just TOO MUCH David Sedaris. Still, if you're a fan, you might find this an interesting look "behind the curtain." It is interesting to see how certain events in his life eventually ended up in the stories and essays of his you know...
AND NOW, HERE IS YOUR OBLIGATORY NEIL GAIMAN LINK
Neil Gaiman is starting a book yoga challenge for his readers.