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The Fight Against Book Banning

A new survey report from the Knight Foundation supports the idea that book bans are being pursued by a vocal, politically motivated minority, with only 1 percent of respondents actively seeking to restrict access to books and 2 percent of respondents getting involved on the side of maintaining access to books. Publishers Weekly has the details.

The Independent Book Publishers Association and EveryLibrary Institute are launching (on September 9) We Are Stronger Than Censorship, a program to supply diverse books to young readers and counteract book banning efforts, Publishers Weekly reports.

The American Booksellers Association will publish Philomena Polefrone’s The ABA Right To Read Handbook: Fighting Book Bans and Why It Matters, due out September 16. Publishers Weekly has the announcement.

Page to Screen

August 23

The Crow, based on the comic book series by James O’Barr. Lionsgate. Reviews | Trailer

The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat, based on the novel by Edward Kelsey Moore. Searchlight. Reviews | Trailer

Reviews

NYT reviews Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Farrar): “Unconventional in structure as well as tone, Survival Is a Promise features brief chapters arranged by topic—Lorde’s fondness for bees; locks of her hair now preserved at Spelman College; her photographs of St. Croix after Hurricane Hugo—along with Gumbs’s ecological, geological, and cosmic reflections.”

The Guardian reviews Munichs by David Peace (Norton): “What elevates Munichs above a recitation of an event so repeatedly discussed and memorialised that it has acquired a near-mythological status is Peace’s dogged devotion to particularity”; and How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations Survive by Marcel Dirsus (John Murray: Hachette): “How Tyrants Fall arguably belongs to the genre known as ‘mirrors for princes’—manuals for monarchs—whose exponents include Al-Ghazali and Machiavelli. Dirsus is a worthy heir to that tradition. He wears his research lightly and ranges widely, lathering his dark material with a bright impasto of playful irony.”

LitHub gathers the best-reviewed books of the week.

Briefly Noted

Electric Lit interviews Danez Smith, author of Bluff: Poems (Graywolf; LJ starred review).

Journalist Sheinelle Jones will publish Through Mom’s Eyes: Simple Wisdom from Mothers Who Raised Extraordinary Humans, due out from Putnam in April 2025, Kirkus announces.

Kirkus rounds up the personal essay collections and celebrity memoirs that feature among this fall’s nonfiction releases.

NYT has “6 New Books We Recommend This Week.”

Electric Lit recommends “7 Novels That Shine a Light on Overlooked Women in History.”

Francesca Segal, author of Welcome to Glorious Tuga (Ecco), shares “The Books of My Life” with The Guardian.

Authors on Air

Today, NPR’s Science Friday will interview Cady Coleman, author of Sharing Space: An Astronaut’s Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change (Penguin Life).

The New York Times Book Review Podcast talks about Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend.

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