A Week in the Books: Links I Loved the Week of 2/8/19
Literary links including books aren’t dead, a VC Andrews Heaven adaptation, the best books of 2019 so far, and lessons for men writing female characters.
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I’m just going to very deliberately avoid linking to the literary dumpster-fire surrounding a certain thriller writer (you know it’s big when even I notice the chatter about it on Twitter), and instead kick off the weekend with links to a few more pleasant things.
Stop Saying Books Are Dead. They’re More Alive Than Ever – Time
This is not news to those of us deeply involved in reading and conversing about books daily–we will never believe in the “death of books.” We can’t make everyone readers, but building excitement around books is one of the most fun parts of being part of the online book community.
… we do need to better understand who reads and why and how to encourage them to read more and more joyfully. We need to figure out who has been left out of the conversation around books and welcome them into the fold with open arms.
Lifetime Movies Based On V.C. Andrews’ Casteel Family Books – Deadline
If I have any literary shame, it was my junior high devotion to reading the full trashy collection of VC Andrews novels. And now, Lifetime is bringing them all to the screen for us to cringe at again! I don’t remember the Heaven series very well, but I’m pretty sure it was one of my favorites. (Did I really just admit that?)
The Best Books of 2019 (So Far) – Glamour
Already with the best-of lists! But, there are some good ones on here that I’ve read, plus a couple others I’m looking forward to, so I guess I’ll give them a pass on the super early list. (PS–Is anyone reading The Water Cure? If so, what do you think?)
Women Are Schooling Men About How To Write Female Characters In A Hilarious Tumblr Thread – BuzzFeed
That we need this is cringeworthy in itself, but some of these are pretty funny.
On the Blog
It’s been a few weeks since I posted a “Week in the Books,” so here are the posts you might have missed:
11 Things to Know About The Great Believers: The Story of the Story
And, this was a fun moment when Rebecca Makkai saw this post and tweeted about it:
This is so cool and well-researched! The best non-interview interview I’ve ever not given. https://t.co/4Vdb1epLwv
— Rebecca Makkai (@rebeccamakkai) January 29, 2019
7 Must-Read Books About Family Dramas
Book Review of The Last Romantics
Last Year:
10 Great Books About Loners and Endearing Misfits
5 Thrilling Books that Will Keep You on the Edge of Your Seat (That Aren’t Mysteries)
9 Things That Are Saving Me Right Now
Reading Bucket List: What I’ve Read and What’s Next
Happy weekend!
Ha – what a great tweet from Rebecca Makkai! And I have no idea what’s going on with the thriller writer or who it is (maybe b/c I really actually get on Twitter?!)…fill me in!
I think it was you tagging her that brought the post to her attention, so thank you!
And I actually didn’t mean to be so vague about the drama–I think the WordPress gods deleted my parentheses telling where to find it. Here it is–I honestly didn’t even get through the whole thing, but people are up in arms! https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/11/a-suspense-novelists-trail-of-deceptions
How funny- I was just on a podcast this morning and we were talking about the dumpster fire thriller writer. Crazy.
That tweet from Rebecca Makkai is awesome. To have an author read your writing? And praise it? It doesn’t get any better than that.