ABA CEO Warns of New Challenges Post-Election
In a letter to American Booksellers Association membership accompanying the publication of Wednesday’s Bookselling This Week newsletter, ABA CEO Allison Hill provided cautious words of encouragement following Tuesday’s election results. Acknowledging that the ABA does not know how its members voted in the election, Hill wrote that the results of the presidential election are nonetheless likely to affect some ABA initiatives. . . . Hill also sees the “hate and disinformation” that fueled the election creating “fertile ground for new unconstitutional legislation and book bans. And the divisiveness evident in the election results make bipartisan support of small business needs more challenging.”
EveryLibrary Warns That U.S. Election Results Mean More Uncertainty for Libraries
The last few years have been difficult for libraries and librarians, amid a surge in politically motivated book bans and legislative attacks on libraries and library workers. And with last night’s [November 5, 2024] election results, the future for libraries just got a lot murkier, according to the customary election night wrap-up from nonpartisan library political action committee EveryLibrary.
In Tumultuous Times, Readers Turn to ‘Healing Fiction’
“Cozy, whimsical novels — often featuring magical cats — that have long been popular in Japan and Korea are taking off globally. Fans say they offer comfort during a chaotic time.”
Alexandra Alter describes “a booming genre called ‘healing fiction’ — cozy, feel-good novels.” These books, which originated in Japan and Korea, are now beginning to take off, in translation, in both England and the United States.
Fans of the genre say the heartwarming, whimsical stories offer comfort at a time when the world seems off-kilter and chaotic, and feel like an escape from distressing news about wars, political animosity and environmental disasters.
‘It will renew your faith in humanity’: books to bring comfort in dark times
“The best literary comfort reads rebuild our strength so we can face reality, argues novelist Francesca Segal. She picks her ultimate reading list – with help from Nick Hornby, Sathnam Sanghera and Naomi Alderman”
Francesca Segal discusses what she calls “the literary comfort novel: elegant and beautifully written stories that renew our faith in humanity, that leave us better than they found us, that work – and thus expand – the muscle of the heart. Lately, I’ve come to realise that I want to read one story: despite everything, it is going to be OK.”
Her recommendations include Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny, Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin, Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson, and Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. See the article for the complete list.
10 Spy Movies Recommended By Real CIA Agents
Or maybe you just need some good spy novels to help you through the chaos. Philip Etemesi consulted “a few real-world CIA agents” about movies that “capture the espionage experience much more accurately” than the James Bond world of endless globetrotting and expensive cars.
I was pleased to find my favorite movie of all time, North by Northwest, on the list.
The death of the internet: why the future is terrifying, and how we fix it
Freelance tech journalist Zak Storey writes, “The internet is in a precarious place. It’s assaulted from all sides – not by technological problems, but by social ones. Misinformation is rife, marketing and advertising covers every facet of the web, and armies of politicized and automated bots roam the wilds of its social media landscape.”
Nevertheless, he says, “there’s still hope.” He calls for “[l]earning new critical skills as a global society” that will allow us to use the internet critically and intelligently.
Compassion amid chaos − how one of America’s greatest poets became a lifeline for wounded soldiers
Richard Gunderman, Chancellor’s Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy at Indiana University, looks at American poet Walt Whitman as a source of inspiration for offering support and comfort for victims of war.
Double, Double: On the Unsettling Power of Doppelganger Stories
“Padma Viswanathan Imagines Radically Different Paths Her Life Could Have Taken”
A novelist looks at one of the most fascinating, to me, aspects of Life Stories in Literature:
Sometimes, a shock or realization can make us step outside our lives to question our choices, or what we thought were our choices, or what we thought was not our choice at all, make us think back to the times we saw a fork in the road and took one, because
© 2024 by Mary Daniels Brown
