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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are the most popular stories from the past week.
Tennessee High School Closes Library to Comply with Book Banning Law
Green Hill High School in Wilson County, Tennessee, has closed its library in preparation for the new school year so staff can check the entire collection to make sure they are in compliance with a new law that went into effect July 1. (These laws are onerous on purpose, folks.) H.B. 843 “requires schools to maintain and post lists of the materials in their libraries and to evaluate challenged materials to determine whether or not they are ‘age-appropriate.’” The law focuses specifically on materials that contain “nudity, or descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence, or sadomasochistic abuse,” all of which educators and librarians must evaluate at their own discretion. Along with the books by and about people of color and LGBTQ+ people that book banning bills specifically target, H.B. 843 captures many classics and even the Bible. Throwing out the baby with the bath water is a feature here, not a bug. In fact, it’s the entire point. May their efforts fail, and may we send them a loud-and-clear message at the ballot box this November.
Barack Obama’s Summer Reading List
Former President and reader-in-chief Barack Obama’s summer reading list has come a bit later than usual, but, ya know, the guy’s been busy. The 14-title list features many of the hallmarks of an Obama book list, including a critically acclaimed literary novel (James by Percival Everett, which anyone who pays attention to these lists knew would be number one with a bullet), a Swiss Army fiction pick (the undisputed book of the summer, Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods), and several big nonfiction reads about sociopolitical issues (Everyone Who is Gone Here, The Wide Wide Sea, Of Boys and Men, When the Clock Broke). Obama’s lists usually showcase a debut or two, and my money has been on Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar all year. Nailed it. Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel also gets a nod.
Obama also spotlights Reading Genesis by his friend and sometimes-mentor Marilynne Robinson and There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraquib, a memoir and meditation on Black communities, basketball, family, and the meaning of home that is maybe the most Barack-Obama-wheelhouse book of the last decade. Notably absent are Knife by Salman Rushdie and The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson (doesn’t get any more Dad than that), but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them make the year-end list. Obama’s lists have often been criticized for being heavy on dudes and light on genre, and it looks like he’s been paying attention. Six of the 14 titles are by women, and he’s branched into some light SFF with Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time.
We Saw It Ends With Us So You Don’t Have To
When most of the press coverage of a shiny new movie is about the alleged drama among the cast, it’s a pretty good sign that the movie falls into “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” territory. At least as far as critics are concerned, that’s the case for the adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us, which currently has a 59% score on the Tomatometer (it’s rotten) but 94% audience approval. This disparity makes sense to me: if you liked the book, you’re probably going to like the movie. If you didn’t like the book or you’ve never read it, Book Riot’s managing editor Vanessa Diaz and I went to see it so you don’t have to, and we broke the whole thing down in a special episode of the Book Riot Podcast.
The Funniest SF/F Books
Need a good laugh in these strange times? Find joy and hilarity in these funny science fiction and fantasy books. I’m a big fan of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu and The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells myself.
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