Showing all posts about books

American libraries report increase in book challenges

26 April 2023

The American Library Association (ALA) has published a list of the top ten books subject to some sort of challenge, based on their content, or subject matter, in the last twelve months. While the majority of challenges related to books written by, or about, people of colour, and LGBTQIA+ community members, the ALA also noted a sharp overall increase in objections over the last year:

Libraries in every state faced another year of unprecedented attempts to ban books. In 2022, ALA tracked the highest number of censorship reports since the association began compiling data about library censorship more than 20 years ago. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 2,571 unique titles targeted for censorship, a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles targeted in 2021. Most of the targeted books were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color.

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The 2023 BookPeople Book of Year shortlist

21 April 2023

It’s been a busy several days for literary awards. Since last Friday, shortlists for The Age Book of the Year, the International Booker Prize, the Australian Book Industry Awards, and the Australian Book Design Awards, for book cover design, have been published.

And to cap off the week, the 2023 BookPeople Book of Year shortlist was announced earlier today. Six books have been selected in three categories: kids, adult non-fiction, and adult fiction. The following six titles are on the adult fiction shortlist:

The BookPeople Book of Year awards honour new Australian book releases, which have been selected by Australian Booksellers Association members as their favourite hand-sells of the last year. The winners in each category will be named on Sunday 19 June 2023.

Nice to see Willowman on the fiction list, I think everyone else has had at least one listing previously. Oh, and another accolade for Jessica Au’s Cold Enough for Snow. Incredible, hey?

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Night at the Last Bookstore, this could be a film idea also

21 April 2023

A sleepover in a bookshop, especially one that is reputed to be haunted, sounds like a fun way for bookworms to spend the night. That’s what happened recently at the Last Bookstore in Los Angeles, when the bookshop made fourteen sleepover spots available every night for two weeks, earlier this month. Julia Carmel, writing for the Los Angeles Times, described the experience:

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I signed up for one of the first ever sleepovers at California’s largest new and used bookstore. I had vague hopes of staying up until sunrise, reading and exchanging slumber party-esque gossip with strangers, all while surrounded by the highly-Instagrammed book tunnel and book sculptures that fill the former bank building.

I don’t know if this ever happens in Australia, but it’s something local bookshops ought to consider. Decent size stores, that have the book-tunnel and horror vault intrigue of the Last Bookstore would be needed. There’s surely options, but at the moment I’m thinking of the Harry Hartog bookshops.

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The rise and rise of Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au

19 April 2023

Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au, book cover

Cold Enough for Snow (Giramondo Publishing), by Melbourne based Australian author Jessica Au, is a heart-warming story of a young woman and her mother, who holiday in Japan together.

A young woman has arranged a holiday with her mother in Japan. They travel by train, visit galleries and churches chosen for their art and architecture, eat together in small cafes and restaurants and walk along the canals at night, on guard against the autumn rain and the prospect of snow. All the while, they talk, or seem to talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes and objects; about the mother’s family in Hong Kong, and the daughter’s own formative experiences. But uncertainties abound. How much is spoken between them, how much is thought but unspoken?

But Au’s debut novel has had run of success that authors — both new and established — could only dream of. Since being published in February 2022, Cold Enough for Snow has won a slew of awards. Gongs so far include the 2020 Novel Prize, of which it was the inaugural recipient, and the 2022 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction.

Au’s book also cleaned up at the 2023 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, collecting both the Fiction award, and the Victorian Prize for Literature, valued together at A$125,000. The novel has also been shortlisted in the fiction categories of the 2022 Queensland Literary Awards, and the 2023 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Cold Enough for Snow was also shortlisted for the fiction award in the 2022 Age Book of the Year.

Literary award longlist listings meanwhile include the 2022 Indie Book Awards, 2023 Dublin Literary Award, and the 2023 BookPeople Nielsen award. These are incredible achievements, and are all the more remarkable given the page count barely exceeds one hundred. Compelling stories do not need to be of epic proportions.

But Cold Enough for Snow’s winning streak may not be over just yet. Today, the title was included in the shortlist of the Small Publishers’ Adult Book of the Year category in the 2023 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs). The winners of the ABIAs will be announced in late May. We can only be left wondering: what’s next for Au’s debut work of fiction?

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2023 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) shortlists

19 April 2023

Another day, another literary award shortlist announcement, this time it’s the 2023 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) shortlists. All up, seventy-one books have been shortlisted across fourteen categories, including Audiobook of the Year, Biography Book of the Year, several Children’s and The Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year, with five titles selected in two fiction categories:

Literary Fiction Book of the Year

General Fiction Book of the Year

The ABIAs are pretty close to Australia’s equivalent of the Oscars (or Logies), but for books rather than movies. Accordingly, winners will be named at a ceremony on the evening of Thursday 25 May 2023, in Sydney.

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Sales of paper books surge in the United Kingdom in 2022

18 April 2023

Paper, or physical, books are by no means relics of a bygone era, if sales thereof in the UK last year are anything to go by. Six hundred and sixty nine million books were purchased in 2022. Against a population of sixty seven million people, that equates to about ten books per person.

A Year in Publishing, a look at the state of the book market by trade body the Publishers Association, found that sales were up 4% from 2021 in 2022, 669m physical books were sold in the UK, the highest overall level ever recorded.

UK book exports also increased by eight percent, with Heartstopper, by Alice Oseman, topping the list of books sent out of the country. To date, there are now five books in the Heartstopper series — which has spawned a Netflix TV show — with a sixth, and final, title on the way.

Meanwhile in Australia, nearly seventy one millions books were purchased in 2022, an increase of about eight percent on 2021, according to Nielsen BookData figures. I’m not sure what quantity of books sold were physical, but it seems bookshops had a good year, so I’m guessing a lot were paper.

It’s to be hoped bookshops in Australia (and elsewhere, of course) are doing well again, after a difficult few years. While it’s purely anecdotal, I saw that Dymocks, a large Australian bookseller, is opening a brand new store in the Sydney suburb of Bondi Junction in June. Saying re-opening a bookshop is probably more accurate, as the company did have a shop there, which closed several years ago. While opening one bookshop does not a trend make, the move can only be a good sign.

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The Age Book of the Year awards 2023 shortlists

14 April 2023

The Age Book of the Year awards 2023 shortlists were announced this afternoon. The awards are split into two sections, one for fiction, and the other for non-fiction.

The shortlisted titles for the fiction award are:

The shortlisted titles for the non-fiction award are:

The winners of each category — who will be announced on Thursday 4 May 2023, at the opening of the Melbourne Writers Festival — will receive a prize of ten thousand dollars.

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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo tops 2023 Dymocks Top 101 book poll

11 April 2023

The Dictionary of Lost Words, by Pip Williams, book cover

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by American author Taylor Jenkins Reid, has taken out the number one spot in the 2023 Dymocks Top 101 book poll.

Another title I’ve also read, The Dictionary of Lost Words, by South Australian based writer Pip Williams, was voted into the number two slot.

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Book Depository to close for orders on 26 April 2023

8 April 2023

Online bookseller Book Depository says it will shut up shop in late April 2023. Established in the United Kingdom in 2004 by Stuart Felton, and Andrew Crawford — a former Amazon employee — the company went on to be bought by Amazon in 2011.

The news comes as a blow to book buyers across the world:

Thousands of Book Depository customers, including bestselling authors, reacted with sadness over the announcement. “Sad to hear the news. A huge loss for all of us,” New Zealand-based author and poet Lang Leav tweeted. “My heart breaks,” another Twitter user said.

Not everyone is upset by the announcement however, according to Dan Slevin of New Zealand bookshop association Booksellers NZ. He says local sellers struggled to compete with Book Depository, who didn’t levy GST — a consumption tax — on sales, as they were not based in New Zealand, and also offered free delivery on purchases.

Dan Slevin, chief executive of Booksellers NZ, said there were “metaphorical champagne corks popping in bookshops all over New Zealand”.

I detected similar sentiments in Australia being expressed on Twitter. Book buyers are unhappy, but local booksellers not so much. Possibly some delivery services in Australia may also be rejoicing, if some of the tweets I saw are anything to go by.

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BookTok, the best friend of authors and booksellers

25 March 2023

Constance Grady, writing for Vox, on the impact BookTok — the book lovers’ community within video-sharing platform TikTok — has had on book sales in recent years. In terms of the American book market at least, BookTok is almost unrivalled when it comes to selling books. That could come down to the (unrivalled) sincerity of BookTokers, when they talk about their favourite novels:

The main reason BookTok sells so many books, according to most of the BookTokers I talked to, is because it feels authentic and personal. TikTok’s native format of short, punchy videos and culture of casual chattiness combine to create an atmosphere of intense intimacy between content creators and their audience. In the book world, that kind of intimacy and emotional connection is rare. All the caps-locked blog posts in the world can’t match the visceral force of a camera on a real person’s tearstained face as they sob over their favorite books — books that could easily become your favorites, too, if you want to buy them.

Grady also explores the matter of remuneration. Some BookTokers are making a living from their channels, but many are wary about accepting payments from book publishers. Others of course do, but usually declare which of their posts are sponsored, and which are not.

I’m not sure it’s territory I’d like to venture into. As regular readers know, I frequently feature new and recently published books, that are usually Australian. But they are outlines, and seldom reviews, and are written at my own volition, and not at the request of anyone else.

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