N ational Book Awards 2018

The National Book Foundation has announced the long list of 10 books for the 2018 National Book Award for fiction. Finalists will be revealed on Oct. 10.

Fiction

Jamel Brinkley, “A Lucky Man” (Graywolf Press)

Jennifer Clement, “Gun Love” (Hogarth)

Lauren Groff, “Florida” (Riverhead)

Daniel Gumbiner, “The Boatbuilder” (McSweeney’s)

Brandon Hobson, “Where the Dead Sit Talking” (Soho Press)

Tayari Jones, “An American Marriage” (Algonquin)

Rebecca Makkai, “The Great Believers” (Viking)

Sigrid Nunez, “The Friend” (Riverhead)

Tommy Orange, “There There” (Knopf)

Nafissa Thompson-Spires, “Heads of the Colored People” (Atria)

Winners will be announced Nov. 14 at a ceremony in New York City.

 

Non Fiction

Carol Anderson, “One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy” (Bloomsbury)

Colin G. Calloway, “The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation” (Oxford University Press)

Steve Coll, “Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan” (Penguin Press)

Marwan Hisham and Molly Crabapple, “Brothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War” (One World)

Victoria Johnson, “American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic” (Liveright)

David Quammen, “The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life” (Simon & Schuster)

Sarah Smarsh, “Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth” (Scribner)

Rebecca Solnit, “Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises (and Essays)” (Haymarket)

Jeffrey C. Stewart, “The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke” (Oxford)

Adam Winkler, “We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights” (Liveright)

 

Bookstagram

Bookstagram

A community — comprised of proud readers, book stores, libraries, publishing houses, and more — has become an online safe haven for bibliophiles. The content has been considered beautiful and engaging, but the photos and captions work to inspire others to pick up a book in an increasingly digital era.

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Trevino

Political Page Turners Tell All

New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt has a Mueller-oriented project in the works.  Schmidt has blown the lid off some of the most consequential stories about the Russia investigation, and he now has a deal with Random House—brokered by Gail Ross of the Ross Yoon Agency. James Stewart is writing a book about the relationship between the White House, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department. Stewart, whose longtime agent is Amanda Urban at I.C.M., is working with Ann Godoff at Penguin on the as-yet-untitled work, which he said is tentatively slated for a fall 2019 release. It appears that the big political books of the Trump era have been minting big bucks. Jeremy Peters’s Insurgency: The Inside Story of the Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party, sold at auction in the high six figures. Earlier this year, Michael Wolff saw nearly 2 million copies of Fire and Fury fly off shelves in a matter of three weeks.

Libraries

Klosterbibliothek Metten, Metten, Germany. Image by Massimo Listri / TASCHEN 

Real Gabinete Português de Leitura, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Image by Massimo Listri / TASCHEN 

Biblioteca do Convento de Mafra, Mafra, Portugal. Image by Massimo Listri / TASCHEN 

Stiftsbibliothek Admont, Admont, Austria. Image by Massimo Listri / TASCHEN

El Escorial Library in Madrid

Secret Libraries

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John Hay Library, Rhode Island, USA

Books bound in human skin are rare. But the John Hay Library holds three of them. One is De humani corporis fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius, one of the most famous textbooks on anatomy. The book was one of the inspirations for Desecration and also features in American Demon Hunters: Sacrifice.

The John Hay Library also has two copies of Hans Holbein the Younger’s Dance of Death, rebound in human skin in 1898.

Szabo Ervin Library, Hungary

It was originally a palace built in the 19th century, and the library hides within the modern library surrounding it.

The Literary and Philosophical Society, Newcastle, UK

Academics discovered a mistranslation of an Egyptian mummy’s name thanks to forgotten documents hidden on the Lit and Phil’s shelves. You can see Bakt-en-Hor in all her glory at the nearby Great Museum North.

Vatican Secret Archives, Vatican City, Italy

the archives opened to selected groups in 2010. Previously, only approved academics could gain access.

You can find the archives in a wing of the Vatican behind St Peter’s Basilica. There are more than 52 miles of shelving below ground, and the oldest document dates to the 8th century.

The archives also hold letters about King Henry VIII’s annulment from Catherine of Aragon, trial records for the Knights Templar in the early 14th century, and correspondence between the Vatican and figures like Michelangelo and even Hitler. The archives also feature in my ARKANE thriller, Destroyer of Worlds.

The Vatican like to claim the archives are private, rather than secret. But there is still a section inaccessible to academics. What hidden treasures might lie within?

Librarian With Mobile App Habit Gets 30 Days & Some More

Read about Here

Over A Century Ago Being A Victorian Librarian Was Dangerous

Agnes C. Hall at a card catalogue, Boston Public Library

via Flickr/Boston Public Library

Melvil Dewey predicted they would suffer ill health, strain, and breakdowns.

Read Here