by Damla
Happy September! It’s back to school – or work – season, which means it’s the perfect time to wrap up any lingering summer vibes and get into the cozy fall feeling. This month, we celebrate banned books, as well as some fresh new releases that have been long anticipated. Let’s dive right into the noteworthy book news of the month.
– Talking of banned books (as everyone should!), Dua Lipa has opened a bookshop located in the new extension of the gorgeous historic bookshop Livraria Lello in Porto, dedicated solely to banned books. The curation boasts 100 titles that have been banned, restricted, or challenged for their content.
– Awards! Science fiction and fantasy lovers rejoice! For the year’s most awaited Hugo Awards have been announced. Among the winners are Alix E. Harrow’s The Everlasting (best novel), Amal El-Mohtar’s The River Has Roots (best novella), John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War (best series), and the graphic novel adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, adapted by Fred Fordham.
If you need more sci-fi excellence, there is also the winner of this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award: When There Are Wolves Again by E.J. Swift.
– Big titles! We have some big fans of R.F. Kuang among our ranks here at the ABC, so her latest fiction book Taipei Story, a coming-of-age story about battling with grief and culture shock, has been received with much enthusiasm. (You can see Damla’s review for a sneak peak.)
Romantasy lovers might not have their fourth book in the Empyrean series just yet, but the short story collection featuring characters in the same world, Threshing Day, is set to be released at the end of this month.
And finally, John Green has a new book after a 9 year hiatus: Hollywood, Ending, hitting the shelves in a couple of weeks.
– The trailer for East of Eden is finally here! The Steinbeck classic has been a bestseller (and an ABC Favorite) since the announcement of the Netflix limited series, and it is of course still available in all our stores if you want to read the book before watching the movie (as Steinbeck intended).
– While legislation is still trying to keep up with the head-spinning speed of technology, and the use of AI in particular, the EU has recently passed a transparency law, making it obligatory for AI companies to “add machine-readable marks to enable the detection of AI-generated or manipulated content.” This of course applies to books as well, hoping to rebuild trust and transparency in the industry.
– Talking of AI, Google’s Anthropic was found to be obtaining physical books to train their AI assistant Claude, and destroying them in the process in an effort to bypass the copyright restrictions of digital copies. This, on the heels of their billion dollar court settlement for using pirated sources, has been met with major backlash from the literary community.
– Here is something that is also dark and alarming, but this time in an entertaining way: fairy tales (how is that for a segue!) There is something so dark and cozy about fairy tales that makes them perfect reading for the fall season. Reactor Magazine has rounded up eight fairy tales with twists to keep you guessing.
– Are you finding it difficult to just sit and read that book you’ve been meaning to since forever? You are certainly not alone. If you are struggling to find the time – and the motivation – to dive into your unread book stack, take a look at this article from The Cut, interviewing 18 well-read people (authors, critics, actors, and public servants among them) about how they manage to read as much as they do.
And if you are looking for more opportunities to commit a bit more of your time to your reading while keeping it relaxing and cozy, don’t miss out on our monthly Quiet Reading Hour events at our Hague store!
