Month: October 2019

As the saying among those in the know goes: It’s Friday, bitches. In case you’re not up for heavy reading, I’ve included this piece on 10 authors who had their books adapted to the screen and which ones hated/loved the movies.

She’s coming back to TV, but is this a good thing? A fun personal essay on the history, impact, and future of everyone’s favourite unpaid detective.

Nancy drove a sporty blue car. She courted danger. She got knocked down, and she got up again. (Literally: A lot of the books have Nancy losing consciousness at a vital moment, like one of those fainting goats.) She solved the mystery. Her bravery was applauded. Along the way, she interacted with her boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, who made passive-aggressive comments about the way his girlfriend was always doggedly pursuing clues instead of him, and hung out with her best friends, George and Bess. Of all the characters, George is the most futuristically out of place in the original books: She is inevitably described as boyish and handsome with short hair and a taste for athletic competitions. I’m not alleging that the series’ pseudonymous author, Carolyn Keene, planted a crypto-lesbian in her detective tales, but I’m not alleging she didn’t.

Graphic novel superstar Mariko Tamaki is launching a new GN imprint aimed at the LGBT+ community.

Slated to launch in 2021, Surely Books has a lineup of four comics so far — two biographies and one work of fiction — by artists Grace Ellis, Josh Trujillo, Levi Hastings, Terry Blas and Claudia Aguirre.

PEN America with the Handke outrage. (Further reporting and context from Michael at Literary Saloon, as usual.)

“PEN America does not generally comment on other institutions’ literary awards. We recognize that these decisions are subjective and that the criteria are not uniform. However, today’s announcement of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature to Peter Handke must be an exception. We are dumbfounded by the selection of a writer who has used his public voice to undercut historical truth and offer public succor to perpetrators of genocide, like former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.”

Hell, imagine even trying to sleep at night. I think Joe Hill has done well, considering.

Most sons fall into one of two groups.

There’s the boy who looks upon his father and thinks, I hate that son of a bitch, and I swear to God I’m never going to be anything like him. Then there’s the boy who aspires to be like his father: to be as free, and as kind, and as comfortable in his own skin. A kid like that isn’t afraid he’s going to resemble his dad in word and action. He’s afraid he won’t measure up.

Two Nobels in Literature handed out today. Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke. Thoughts? Live feed below.

Back in 2009, Annie Proulx told the Paris review that she was so disappointed with how we as a culture have taken Brokeback Mountain that she wished she’d never written it. I feel like I’d remember if I’d posted this one back then. (From LGBTQNation)

Did you all know this exists? Because I didn’t. I just post flowers.

This is a level of Bookstagram that only the bravest — and the most bored — typically enter. I call it “Deep Bookstagram.” In many ways it’s the exact opposite of traditional Bookstagram, which usually comes with a cheery, gratingly cozy demeanor. Deep Bookstagram loves to make fun of the sunny nostalgia of traditional Bookstagram. Deep Bookstagram isn’t afraid to be weird.

Sure, these accounts often have fewer followers than the traditional ones, but that doesn’t make them any less beloved or necessary. Deep Bookstagram doesn’t give a f*ck about popularity.

Great press. Giller and Booker listings and whatnot. Such a keen eye there.

When Dan Wells read Lucy Ellmann’s latest novel — a 1,000-page stream of consciousness epic about an unnamed middle-aged Ohio woman living in Donald Trump’s America — he knew “this might be one of the most important things we’re ever associated with as a publisher.”

“History is not proprietorial,” Richardson said. But “the disturbing similarities found in Moyes’ book are too many and too specific and quite puzzling,” she added in an email. “None of the similarities found in Moyes’ novel can be chalked up to the realities of history, nor can be found in any historical records, archives or photographs of the packhorse librarian project initiative that I meticulously studied. These fictional devices/ plot points were ones I invented.”

A spokesperson for Moyes’ publisher Pamela Dorman Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, told BuzzFeed News in an email, “The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes is a wholly original work. It is a deeply researched piece of historical fiction based on the true story of the Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky. We have absolute confidence in the integrity of Jojo Moyes and her work. Neither the author nor anyone at Pamela Dorman Books has ever read The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.” Moyes was not available for comment; the representative cited her “packed schedule.”