Citizen Reading: 2 January 2018
02 January 2018
A weekly selection of reading and book news, sometimes with completely inappropriate commentary.
First things first: Happy New Year! And also, so sorry today's list is rather lackluster. Is it a bad sign that I'm starting the new year already feeling lackluster? Probably. Anyway. Onward!
Think you know what your kids are doing online? Think again.
I'm always happy when book reviewers get a little love. Here Library Journal names their "Reviewers of the Year."
How one school library doubled their circulation.
How to encourage reluctant readers.
Call for murder stories set in libraries!
Book news from my state: the bookstore chain Book World is closing. There isn't a Book World in my town, but there was one in my husband's home town, and I was always glad to see it when we visited. This story has depressed me beyond all reason.
"Looking at U.S. history through a different lens."
Mystery author Sue Grafton has died, at age 77. Once when I worked at a library supervising students, I was working a shift with a lovely young woman and an equally lovely, although sometimes a bit superior-acting, young man. The young man saw the young woman was reading a Grafton mystery and said: "Sue Grafton. H is for Hack." To her credit, the young woman looked up at him, didn't bat an eyelash, then looked back down, and simply turned the page and continued to read. It was a hilarious moment all around. Good old Sue Grafton.
2018 will bring a new Zora Neale Hurston book.
Clifford Irving, hoaxster: Obituary.
Liberal author Marcus Ruskin: Obituary.
NONFICTION BOOK NEWS
Well, you didn't have to read the Milo Yiannopoulos book (he self-published it in July, but here's hoping you didn't have to read it), but perhaps you'd like to see the notes the editor made on it?
I don't know anything about the artist Renoir, but still. This new biography of him looks interesting.
A new history of World War II. I wonder if the World War II publishing juggernaut will ever slow down.
I've actually never read any fiction by Ursula Le Guin, but I want to see this new book of blog posts/essays by her.
Here's a review of Fahrenheit 451 that does it justice.
New York Times: Simon Schama's Belonging: 1492-1900; on the quest for immortality; some guy built his own coffin and got a book deal out of it; scouring biblical history for clues about faith; on earthquakes; on woolly mammoths; best business books; have "waves of destruction" struck Japan?; three books on diseases, drugs, and the world they made; really, we're not destroying the natural world; this memoir about Maude Julien's childhood lived under the control of her cruel father might be more than I can handle.
true crime https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/books/review/crime-christmas.html
BOOK LISTS
The Atlantic: Best books we missed in 2017.
LitHub: 40 booksellers on their best books of 2017.
IndieReader: Best nonfiction of 2017.
National Review: The year in books.
CNBC: 8 books to help you become wealthier in 2018. I'll bet you I could read all 8 and somehow wind up poorer. It's a special skill I have.
Just saying the word "bitcoin" makes me bored, but here are six books to help you understand it.
Here come the 2018 book lists!
NPR: Books to look forward to in 2018.
EW.com: 50 most anticipated books of 2018.
AND NOW, YOUR OBLIGATORY NEIL GAIMAN LINNK
Neil Gaiman tells you, in a podcast, how he feels about the Rudyard Kipling story "the Gardener."