Newsletter #7

Dear Bibliophile,

As we step into a year of joy and beauty, I hope you are looking forward to it all in 2023. What’s life without a little hope, and what’s hope without a little anxiety.

I’ll keep this newsletter short and sweet because frankly, most of us are probably nursing a hangover, and reading may be difficult with blurred vision.

Happy New Year, dear readers.

Your very own,

Literary Curator

5 Literary News In 50 Words

Prince Harry’s memoir Spare comes out on Jan 10  

No stranger to being written about, soon Prince Harry will be setting the record straight. On January 10, 2022 his highly anticipated memoir Spare comes out. Publisher Penguin Random House promises the “landmark publication” will contain “raw, unflinching honesty… insight, revelation, self-examination and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief”. (Sky News)

From behind bars, inmates award France’s latest book prize  

For the first edition of a new, government-sponsored literary prize ‘Goncourt des détenus’, or inmates’ Goncourt, an offshoot of France’s prestigious literary award, prisoners met over three months to discuss books and chose the winner, Sarah Jollien-Fardel for Sa Préférée, or His Favorite, about a woman struggling to cope with the legacy of her father’s physical and psychological abuse. (NY Times)

TikTok to sell books directly to users via marketplace  

To capitalise on the popularity of #BookTok, the social media giant will let users purchase titles through partnerships with publishers and retailers, including with the Hay festival and publisher Penguin Random House (PRH). #BookTok is one of the social media platform’s most popular hashtags, reaching more than 90bn views to date. (The Guardian)

Dolly Parton publishing new children’s book

Billy the Kid Makes it Big is Dolly Parton’s new picture book about her god-dog, Billy the Kid, to be published by Penguin Workshop on April 25. Co-penned by Erica S. Perl with illustrations by MacKenzie Haley, Billy the Kid loves barking to the beat of country music and sets out to make it big but soon encounters bullies. (The Music Universe)

Iceland’s Christmas book flood Is a force of nature

In a curious tradition, the nation’s seasonal publishing and gifting tradition nourishes its unique literary culture. During Jólabókaflóð, Iceland’s “Christmas book flood” publishers release new titles in time for the holidays, and if not all, most citizens of the remote, ultra-literary nation then gifts and receives books. Read more.

Things To Read:

• 5 of the best apps to track your reading and discover new books. Read here.
• If your New Year’s resolution is to read more books this year, this is why you shouldn’t. Read here.
• ‘Our mission is crucial’: meet the warrior librarians of Ukraine. Read here.