For the scorekeepers among us: “The very best of the best books of 2021.? The final tally is based on 63 “votes” from “a variety of highly selective lists, award nominees, bookseller and librarian picks and more,” the editors of industry site Publishers Lunch said in a newsletter. The list:
1. “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois,” Honoree Fanonne Jeffers; and “Empire of Pain,” Patrick Radden Keefe. (Two-way tie for book of the year.)
3. “Klara and the Sun,” Kazuo Ishiguro; “Harlem Shuffle,” Colson Whitehead; and “Crying in H Mart,” Michelle Zauner. (Each was only two votes behind the No. 1 books.)
6. “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” Anthony Doerr
7. “Matrix,” Lauren Groff
8. “All That She Carried,” Tiya Miles
9. “Great Circle,” Maggie Shipstead
10. A five-way tie.
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Teachers and librarians in Iowa could be charged with a felony for providing minors material deemed obscene, if two legislators succeed in their push. (Quad Cities Gazette via Publishers Weekly)
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In Case You Missed It, 1: Manuscript con. For five years or more, authors and others have been bedeviled by someone conning them into sharing unpublished manuscripts — hundreds of them. The impersonator never sought ransom. Jan. 5, the FBI arrested a rights coordinator with Simon & Schuster UK after he landed at JFK airport in New York. As for motive, The New York Times took a stab: “Early knowledge in a rights department could be an advantage for an employee trying to prove his worth.” More: tinyurl.com/BkFraud
ICYMI, 2: A rarely seen story by Toni Morrison comes out as a book Feb. 1. “Recitatif,” written in the 1980s, follows two women from childhood to their contrasting fortunes as adults. One is Black, one is white, and Morrison doesn’t permit easy conclusions about racial identity. The story was included in “Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women” (1983), co-edited by poet-playwright Amiri Baraka and now out of print. New publisher: Knopf; introduction by Zadie Smith. (AP)
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Bookstores and others unionizing: Image Comics has become the first unionized comic book publisher in the U.S., says its bargaining unit, Comic Book Workers United. Other recent union OKs: D.C.’s Politics and Prose bookstores and four Half Price Books stores in Minnesota. The moves reflect increased labor activism because of pandemic safety issues. (Publishers Weekly, AP)
The Muse Writers Center spring class schedule runs Feb. 1 through May 1. Classes are online, via Zoom, and require a stable internet connection, webcam and microphone. the-muse.org.
In the Pipeline: From Michael Fanone, a memoir, “Hold the Line.” He’s the now-retired D.C. police officer who, in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, was pulled into the mob, beaten and tased, and suffered a heart attack and brain damage. (Publishers Lunch)
Iranian dissident poet and filmmaker Baktash Abtin, who received the 2021 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, has died of Covid-19 contracted in prison. He was 48. (Reuters)
New and recent
David Guterson, “The Final Case” (Knopf, 272 pp.). An adopted child from Ethiopia dies outside her home north of Seattle; her parents, white fundamentalist Christians who left her outside as punishment, are charged. The mother’s attorney: an octogenarian at the end of his career. The narrator: his son, who chauffeurs him. From the author of “Snow Falling on Cedars.”
Also: From bestselling author Jami Attenberg, a memoir, “I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home” … Alafair Burke, “Find Me.”
— Erica Smith, erica.smith@pilotonline.com
