I think I speak for everyone when I say this week has been A Lot. Living in the era of the never-ending news cycle can be overwhelming at the best of times, and this, my friends, sure doesn’t feel like the best of times. So, I tried my best to keep the bad news short and sweet and right off the top of our roundup this week, and made sure to outweigh any negative news with some good and inspiring stuff.
COVID-19 continues to cause event cancellations around the world. The Bologna Children’s Book Fair, which had originally been postponed a few months, has now officially been cancelled for 2020.
Due to the spread of the new coronavirus in Italy, the organizers of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair have opted to cancel the fair for this year. In addition, the Bologna Licensing Trade Fair has been canceled as well.
Big events and conventions aren’t the only ones being hit with the effects of COVID-19. As people start to self-quarantine and practice social distancing, indie bookstores are seeing a dramatic decline in business.
The growing impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the publishing industry came into view for the this week as some independent bookstores reported slowing sales and the number of book festival and author tour cancellations rose. At Books, Inc. locations in the Bay Area, sales began to decline last week.
It’s not all bad news though! Booksellers in Beijing have teamed up with a food delivery service app to bring books to those who can’t, or don’t want to leave their house.
Bookstores in Beijing, struggling to survive amid the coronavirus epidemic, are teaming up with a popular food delivery app to help get books into the hands of readers. The initiative, co-launched by food delivery company Meituan Dianping and the municipal government of Beijing, will feature a first batch of 72 bookstores.
More good news, especially for those of us in the digital publishing world, the 20% tax on eBooks and digital newspapers and journals in the UK will be scrapped this year.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced the 20% tax on e-books and online newspapers, magazines and journals will be abolished on 1 December. But the BBC has learned that it will not apply to audiobooks, something that the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) said was “disappointing”.
After canvassing her readers for ideas, author Sybil Wettasinghe was awarded the Guinness World Record for most alternate endings in a book with 1250!
March 6 (UPI) — A Sri Lankan author was awarded a Guinness World Record after enlisting the help of the country’s children to write a book with 1,250 alternative endings. Sybil Wettasinghe, 90, author and illustrator of popular children’s books including The Umbrella Thief, enlisted the help of students from all across the country to contribute writings, drawings and poetry to complete the story in her book, Wonder Crystal.
Lady Gaga’s organization will be publishing an anthology of stories about kindness and I have to say, the timing on this could not be better.
Boy do we need it. Lady Gaga and her organization, the Born This Way Foundation, have announced that they’ll be publishing an anthology later this year called Channel Kindness: Stories of Kindness and Community.
If you’re looking to be inspired, Juliana Narváez Gutierrez (14) and Leonardo Mete (15) have won the First Page student writing challenge. You can read their entries in the article and spoiler alert: they’re very good.
Books · The First Page Greenfield Park’s Juliana Narváez Gutierrez, 14, and Kamloops’ Leonardo Mete, 15, have won CBC’s national writing competition for Grades 7 to 12 students. Greenfield Park, Que.’s Juliana Narváez Gutierrez, 14, and Kamloops, B.C.’s Leonardo Mete, 15, have won The 2019 First Page student writing challenge, a national speculative fiction writing competition for Grades 7 to 12 students in Canada.
Speaking of prizes, the National Book Critics Circle have announced their 2020 winners.
The National Book Critics Circle has announced the recipients of its annual book awards, honoring works published in 2019. Due to an outbreak in New York City of Covid-19, the ceremony originally planned for this evening at the New School in New York City was canceled, and the winners were announced remotely.
After the walkout at Hachette Book Group convinced the publisher to drop Woody Allen’s memoir, some are hopeful that this is the beginning of a positive change in publishing.
The book publishing industry last week learned the potency of pushback – that bad business decisions have consequences and that lower-level employees have more power than for which they’d previously been given credit. On Friday afternoon Michael Pietsch, the chief executive of the publisher Hachette, announced that it would cancel filmmaker’s Woody Allen’s memoir, Apropos of Nothing, mere days after announcing the deal.
Another inspiring article, this one about a mobile library that serves refugee camps in Greece which I found to be incredibly moving.
‘The Anne Frank came back to us recently from a man living in a tent in Malakasa,” Keira Dignan says. We’re on board the Echo mobile library, a donated minivan lined with DIY bookshelves, as it motors between refugee camps in Greece. The 24-year-old librarian is telling me about the most popular books held on its wooden shelves.
And finally, my favourite piece of the week: Roxanne Gay’s love letter to her Kitchenaid Stand Mixer. Have a great weekend everyone.
I am trying to master baking croissants. I am failing spectacularly. No matter what I do, the croissants come out too thick and chewy. The butter leaks while I am laminating the dough on my kitchen counter. The butter leaks while the croissants are baking.
Staff Reads and Recommendations: Laura Granger, Author Engagement Specialist
Read “Wild at Heart” by K.A. Tucker available from Rakuten Kobo. From the internationally best-selling author of The Simple Wild comes the continuation of a woman’s journey to Alaska an…
“This sequel was one of my favorite romance reads of 2020 so far! Canadian author KA Tucker returns to the world of Calla and Jonah with the follow up to The Simple Wild. Set in Alaska, Wild at Heart follows Torontonian Calla as she tries to adapt to her new world of cold weather and wildlife. Tucker is a great writer, and I loved hearing about Calla’s journey as she forged her own path in her new home, along with a new cast of entertaining side characters (plus Zeke, a fainting goat!) And to be honest, I can never get enough of Jonah. 5/5 Yetis”
One Response to “More Coronavirus Cancellations, Inspiring Teen Writers, and a Love Letter to an Appliance: This Week in Book News”
thanks for the article on woody allen 🙂