Here is some book-related news from the past few weeks:
- Bookshop.org announced the inaugural Indie Champions Awards and gave one of my favorite book podcasts, Backlisted, an award in the podcast category. Bookshop.org works to connect readers with independent booksellers all over the world. It first launched in the U.S. in 2020. The podcast category is judged for consistency in creating Bookshop.org lists featuring the books mentioned in their episodes, using Bookshop.org links on their website and social media and mentioning Bookshop.org on air.
- As a way to combat inflation in the book world, Egyptians can now buy books on the installment plan. Customers can take up to 9 months to buy a book, paying 1.5% interest.
- Salman Rushdie has a new book out. He is still recovering from the attack on him in 2022.
- I missed this last month, but 9 year old Kayden Hern became the poet laureate at the inaugural ceremonies of the governor of New York. Not sure that is an official post but it is still pretty cool.
- The Brooklyn Public Library has a program called Books Unbanned for teens living in banned book communities. Young adults ages 13 to 21 can apply for a free eCard from BPL, giving them access half a million eBooks and audiobooks. It was actually launched in 2022 but there has been a lot of publicity in the last few weeks.
- If you are a fan of biographies, you may want to check out the 2023 Plutarch Award longlist announced by Biographers International. I'm interested in the biography of Constance Baker Motley. But maybe you prefer to read about John Singer Sargent or George Balanchine.
- Interested in astronomy? Here are the top 10 astronomy books of all time acording to Astronomy.com.
- The National Book Critics Circle has announced the longlist for its awards. I've never had much luck with the winners of these prizes, but others might be interested.
