Book bans, The National Book Awards, and a lost Poem Fragment: This Week in Book News

Happy Friday, writers! I hope everyone has had an excellent week. We here at KWL are doing our best to keep up with NaNoWriMo. How is everyone feeling with ten days left in November?

Along with NaNo, we’ve had some exciting things happening here at KWL. We launched our annual cover contest for the best indie cover of 2021! You can learn more about the contest and submit your cover here; submissions close Sunday, November 21^st at 11:59pm!

We also announced our next live event with Kathleen Sweeney from BookBrush. You can find all of the details here and tune in at 12pm EST on November 30th for the Q&A.

Now let’s jump into the publishing news for this week!

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Lawmakers have expanded their ongoing inquiry into the library eBook market.

Lawmakers Expand Inquiry into Library E-book Market

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and U.S. Representative Anna Eshoo (D-California) this week expanded their ongoing inquiry into the library e-book market, this time issuing a set of questions to nine major distributors. The lawmakers have asked for responses by December 9, 2021.

The Library of Congress will no longer use the term “aliens” or “illegal aliens” in their cataloguing.

The Library of Congress will no longer use “aliens” and “illegal aliens” as categories.

Some good Monday news: as Publishers Weekly has reported, at a regular meeting of their Policy and Standards Division, the Library of Congress confirmed it will replace the cataloging subject headings “Aliens” and “Illegal aliens” with the more accurate, less dehumanizing terms “Noncitizens” and “Illegal immigration.”

Librarians around America are bracing for a battle against book banning.

Librarians Grapple With Conservatives’ Latest Efforts to Ban Books

Only a few months into the school year, librarians say efforts to ban books are on the rise, marking a new chapter in the history of censorship

Nobel winning author Orhan Pamuk is under investigation for “insulting Turkishness”.

Nobel winner Orhan Pamuk is under investigation for insulting modern Turkey’s founder-in a novel.

Nobel-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk is being investigated by the government for “insulting Turkishness”-again. Earlier this year, Pamuk was investigated on criminal charges of insulting the Turkish flag and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, in his latest book.

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The winners of the 2021 National Book Awards have been announced.

Here are the winners of the 2021 National Book Awards.

Tonight, in a digital ceremony hosted by Phoebe Robinson, the National Book Foundation announced the winners of its 2021 National Book Awards in Young People’s Literature, Translated Literature, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Fiction. The winners in each category will receive $10,000 and a bronze medal and statue; finalists will receive $1,000 and a bronze medal.

Tainna: The Unseen Ones has won the 2021 Governor General’s Literary Award.

Norma Dunning wins 2021 Governor General’s Literary Award for English-language fiction | CBC Books

The 2021 Governor General’s Literary Award winners have been announced, with Edmonton writer Norma Dunning taking home the English-language fiction prize for her short story collection Tainna: The Unseen Ones. The Governor General’s Literary Awards are among Canada’s oldest and most prestigious prizes for literature.

The longlist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize has been announced.

Canadians Omar El Akkad, Myriam J. A. Chancy & Linda Rui Feng longlisted for $43K contemporary fiction prize | CBC Books

Canadian writers Omar El Akkad, Myriam J. A. Chancy and Linda Rui Feng have made the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize longlist. The $35,000 U.S. ($43,900 Cdn) award annually honours an influential work of fiction that demonstrates an important contemporary issue and the transformative power of literature on our culture.

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Anne of Green Gables is officially Canada’s most translated book.

L.M. Montgomery’s classic Anne of Green Gables named most translated Canadian book | CBC Books

Great stories aren’t bound by time or space – they transcend borders and languages. A recent report on the most translated book in the world shows that good books travel far. The map created by Preply showcases the most translated books in each country and continent.

As a fan of Patricia Highsmith’s work, I am very excited about this never-before-published draft of The Price of Salt.

The Bloomingdale Story: Read the Never-Before Published Patricia Highsmith Draft That Would Become Carol (The Price of Salt)

This draft of “The Bloomingdale Story” was written by Patricia Highsmith in 1948. It would later be expanded and significantly reworked before being published as the novel The Price of Salt, later titled Carol. The draft is included in the newly released book, Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks, 1941 – 1995, published by Liveright Publishing, which has made it available here.

A fragment of a poem from the 12^th Century was found in another book’s binding.

Fragment of lost 12th-century epic poem found in another book’s binding

A fragment from a 12th-century French poem previously believed to have been lost forever has been found by an academic in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. Dr Tamara Atkin from Queen Mary University of London was researching the reuse of books during the 16th century when she came across the fragment from the hitherto lost Siège d’Orange in the binding of a book published in 1528.

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The original cast of the Harry Potter films will reunite in an HBO special.

Harry Potter ‘Return to Hogwarts’ Special to Reunite Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint for HBO Max

The original Hogwarts wizarding trio are reuniting to recount their adventures from two decades ago. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson will join filmmaker Chris Columbus and other cast members from all eight ” Harry Potter” films for the first time in an HBO Max retrospective special to celebrate the anniversary of the franchise’s first film, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” which premiered 20 years ago today.

And last but not least, as someone who scares embarrassingly easy and thus avoided spooky books as a kid, I have to wonder if this article in support of horror books for children has a point.

Why Should Children Read Dark Books?

Nightfire Scary books made to give readers the chills may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of “children’s literature.” Horror, whether it be books, shows, or movies, is often thought of as a more adult genre, especially when it depicts violent situations of terrifying outcomes.