The Social Reading App That Turned “Anti-Woke Pundit”

Tennessee Further Restricts Book Access in Prisons

Something unusual is happening to books going to Tennessee prisons. Char Daston of WPLN News, Nashville’s NPR station, reported on the Appalachian Prison Book Project’s quiet removal from the Tennessee prison systems’ list of trusted book vendors. The APBP wasn’t alone but one of many books-to-prisons programs impacted by a policy change that extends beyond the state and makes access to books by incarcerated people even more challenging. The rules for which books could be sent to prisons were already strict, and critics say the reasoning behind the new policy (“to mitigate the introduction of contraband through mail”) doesn’t pass muster while the impact to literacy and access to reading materials is huge.

Rolling Stones’ 10 Most Anticipated Books

I love a book list from an outlet that doesn’t primarily cover books because I expect to find something a little different, and as a music enthusiast who used to read issues (in print!) of Rolling Stone, I had to check this one out. Of course, Rolling Stone covers more than just music–they have a finger to the pulse of all things arts and culture, so I was not surprised to find big names from the literary world on the list. Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor is on my own most anticipated list and Kat Dunn’s Carmilla reworking, Hungerstone, has already earned a good deal of buzz. But the list introduced me to My Documents by Kevin Nguyen, a coming of age novel centering around the U.S. detainment of Vietnamese Americans, which I now look forward to reading.