Plus Ada Limón named poet laureate, the week's new releases and more.
 | | Martha Hickson, a librarian, said that when book ban attempts turned into personal attacks she became so stressed she couldn't sleep and lost 12 pounds in a week.Bryan Anselm for The New York Times |
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Here's everything you need to know in the book world. |
- As book banning efforts escalate across the country, librarians have been singled out for attacks: labeled pedophiles by neighbors, called out by politicians and reported to law enforcement. In many communities, putting books on the shelves has become a polarizing act and has "turned librarians into this political pawn," one library director said.
- In happier news: Independent bookstores are booming — and becoming more diverse.
- Ada Limón was named the new U.S. poet laureate. Poetry "has the possibility to show us rage, to connect with our fear, to celebrate joy, to make room for the whole spectrum of human emotions," she said.
- Our most recent literary travel guide explores Berlin, featuring recommendations from the writer Daniel Kehlmann. (Readers shared plenty of further suggestions for Lisbon, including work by José Maria de Eça de Queirós, Antonio Tabucchi and more.)
- Fiction out today: "Brother Alive," by Zain Khalid; "The Great Man Theory," by Teddy Wayne; "Total," by Rebecca Miller; "Gods of Want," by K-Ming Chang; "Harry Sylvester Bird," by Chinelo Okparanta; "Bad Thoughts," by Nada Alic; "The Mermaid of Black Conch," by Monique Roffey; "Big Girl," by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan; "Mothers Don't," by Katixa Agirre (translated by Katie Whittemore); "Any Other Family," by Eleanor Brown; "Winter Work," by Dan Fesperman.
- Nonfiction out today: "Thank You For Your Servitude," by Mark Leibovich; "Roll Red Roll," by Nancy Schwartzman with Nora Zelevansky; "The Crane Wife," by CJ Hauser; "Agent Josephine," by Damien Lewis; "The Man Who Could Move Clouds," by Ingrid Rojas Contreras.
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- Dwight Garner reviews "Circus of Dreams," by the literary editor John Walsh, which conjures up the bookish life in London when Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Jeanette Winterson and their generation were in the increasingly bright limelight.
- Alexandra Jacobs writes about "Hollywood Ending," Ken Auletta's cradle-to-jail biography of Harvey Weinstein.
- Jennifer Szalai says that Elamin Abdelmahmoud's memoir "Sons of Elsewhere," about the author's emigration from Sudan to Canada, is "funny and frank, delivered in such a generous spirit that almost any reader" is bound to be won over.
- And Molly Young takes up "Carnality," by Lina Wolff (translated by Frank Perry), a novel whose protagonist inspires the reader to fantasize "about the twists your own life might take if you adopted her methodology."
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That's all for now. Please stay in touch and let me know what you think — whether it's about this newsletter, our reviews, our podcast, our literary calendar, our Instagram or what you're reading. We on the Books desk read all of it, and I'll make every effort to write back. You can reach me at books@nytimes.com. |
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