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If you ever wondered about the power of a little encouragement, whether it really can make a difference, read on!
October is National Reading Group Month, and the Women's National Book Association (the group behind the event) are celebrating the fifth annual event with a focus on 20 titles ripe for book clubs. Just click below to explore each of these titles on BookBrowse.
Writing a novel about Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th century visionary abbess and polymath, was a daunting process. I felt intimidated to be writing about such a religious figure. The last thing I wanted to do was churn out preachy inspirational fiction which would be both unconvincing and hypocritical coming from me, a lapsed Catholic who falls under the "spiritual but not religious" umbrella. How could I make Hildegard's story seem fresh and relevant to a modern secular audience?
Tuesday October 2nd is one of the biggest publishing days of the year, if not the biggest, with hundreds of new titles hitting the shelves. None of us have time to read all of them, not even to read about them; so here, for your reading pleasure are half a dozen of the most notable, plus another half dozen publishing later in October. These are selected from more than 100 previewed October titles that members can view in full here.
Oops! Just realized that one of the dozen below is nonfiction - The End of Your Life Book Club. That's what comes of writing blog posts late at night! In fact, we're currently discussing this very book in BookBrowse's book club - please do join the discussion!
Enjoy!
Davina, BookBrowse editor
Banned Books Week (Sept 30-Oct 6) is celebrating, for want of a better term, its 30th year!
Banning books has a long and ignoble history going back into the mists of time. Possibly the oldest known ban was against 5th century BC Greek philosopher Anazagoras who made the mistake of suggesting that the sun is "white hot stone and that the moon reflected the sun's rays" - which caused him to be exiled from Athens and all his writings burned.
Of course, through much of history it wasn't just the writings that got burned but the writers themselves. Indeed, it wasn't even necessary to put pen to paper to find oneself atop a bonfire, or other equally nasty fate - a word, a deed, or even the mere suspicion of a thought could have been enough. So, I suppose we should be grateful that in the USA today we've evolved from burning people to merely attempting to ban their books.
For the past seven years The National Book Foundation has honored five young fiction writers with its "5 Under 35" award. The recognition of the authors as rising stars in the world of books far outreaches the nominal $1000 monetary award. This year's five honorees have just been announced - each of them nominated by a previous National Book Award winner or finalist. Here are this year's 5 Under 5 honorees, with links to more about them and their books:
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