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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are the stories we covered ourselves this week.
Last week was the first time in a quite a while that Empyrean books were not represented in either the top five most read books on Goodreads or the top ten bestselling books—but that’s not true this week. The series still isn’t in the top bestsellers, but Onyx Storm has made its way back into the top five most read books on Goodreads. I really need to stop declaring the end of peak Empyrean.
We’re less than one month out from Pride month, and with it, the programs, book displays, and conversations about LGBTQ+ identity and history across the USA and beyond. For libraries, Pride has traditionally been a month for joyful displays of queer books, with periodic and predictable complaints. But several years into surging book bans, escalating violence, and rising fascism, it is important to prepare for the upcoming month of events to anticipate all that has, does, and might arise.
Today, I’m excited to offer this space over to Frank Strong, whose candidate guides in Texas have become indispensable tools for voters. Frank is a leader in the Texas Freedom to Read Project and he’s an educator himself. You can read his work on his Substack Anger & Clarity, where he often covers censorship legislation and policy and how it directly impacts young people.
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I had several summer reading lists I wanted to link to but thought “I can’t link to more than one of these in a day that is too much” and then I thought “but if I make today’s newsletter a collection of them then I CAN.” So that’s what we have have for you today in Today in Books. Summer reading lists. A lot of them. And I think they were all written by humans. Mostly. Pretty sure.
No real surprise at Backman and McFadden, whose titles reliably land them on bestseller lists at this point. Devney Perry may be new to this list, but not to publishing, with over 50 romance novels to her name! Her romantasy Shield of Sparrows, also in a deluxe limited edition, has comps to Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros (I see you, marketing people) and is already in development with Amazon MGM with a script from John Wick screenwriter Derek Kolstad.
The International Booker Prize is the world’s most influential literary award for translated fiction, with its £50,000 prize money that gets divided equally between authors and translators. It got its start as the Man Booker Internationl Prize in 2005, and looks at the best novels and short story collections that have been translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland.
Trump and his lawyers are seeking a stay pending the appeal in Rhode Island vs. Trump. This would allow the administration to continue doing nothing to bring back workers, services, or grants as ordered by the Judge. Although there is currently a temporary restraining ordered ordered the court in the other IMLS lawsuit, ALA vs. Sonderling, that halts further dismantling of the agency, given the history of the administration following legal precedent, seeking this stay is likely an opportunity to do more damage while the case is in court.
To say that a lot has been happening in Library Land would be a gross understatement. Between the firing of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, an IMLS lawsuit update, and South Carolina and Utah banning more books statewide, there’s a lot to unpack.