Lots of interesting bookish news was released last week. Here’s a round up:
Harper Lee’s new novel
Early last week it was announced that Harper Lee, author of the classic best seller, To Kill a Mockingbird, will release a sequel, Go Set a Watchman. The new novel is slated to be published on July 14 in both the U.S. and the U.K., but it’s already a best seller on Amazon.
The novel features an adult Scout who returns to Maycomb from New York City to visit her father, Atticus. There, she is “forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand both her father’s attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood.” Apparently the novel was thought lost until it was discovered by Tonja Carter, Lee’s lawyer and friend, in 2014.
According to Lee, she completed the novel in the mid-1950s but set it aside since her editor was more interested in the flashbacks of Scout’s childhood. Her editor convinced her to write a novel from the point of view of young Scout, which became To Kill a Mockingbird.
Despite the suspicions surrounding this announcement (here’s another on Jezebel), I do look forward to reading it. The suspicions, though, make me think back to the controversy surrounding the release of Harper Lee’s biography last year.
Related articles:
Harper Lee’s Editor on the New Book, Which He Only Learned About ‘Yesterday’
On Harper Lee’s recent biography:
Mockingbird Next Door: A Handbook for Befriending Reclusive Writers
Harper Lee says claim that new memoir has her blessing is ‘a falsehood’
How Unauthorized Is the New Book About Harper Lee?
On J.K. Rowling
The debut date of the miniseries adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy has been released. HBO will air the show in a two-night block starting on April 29. It will premier in the U.K. on BBC One on February 15.
I hope to catch this somehow (I don’t have HBO). I think I’ll watch the series before reading the book. I still have the last Harry Potter book to reread before starting on The Casual Vacancy.
Speaking of Rowling, The Telegraph did this cool round up of her life after Harry Potter. And if that’s not enough to prove how awesome she is, here’s a BuzzFeed post featuring five questions from Tumblr fans that she answered. Apparently her favorite brand of tea is Lancashire tea. (I prefer Mighty Leaf.)
TV adaptation of Queen Sugar
The Oprah Winfrey Network and Ava DuVernay, director of the historical drama ‘Selma,’ will collaborate to produce a drama series based on Natalie Baszile’s novel Queen Sugar. “The story is about a woman living in Los Angeles who moves to her father’s 800-acre sugar cane farm in Louisiana after his death.” (NPR)
I recently added Queen Sugar to my TBR pile so I’m quite excited about this news.
Stats on books published per capita in Europe
This is pretty interesting. Czech author Jakub Marian has created a map showing the number of books published per year per capita by country in Europe. Marian states that he wasn’t able to find a good source featuring this information so he made one himself. He has a large collection of statistical maps on his website, including the average cigarette consumption per capita by country in Europe and the number of McDonald’s outlets per capita by country in Europe.
Haruki Murakami takes questions from fans
For those of you who are fans of Haruki Murakami, author of 1Q84, NPR has reported that the author has been answering questions from fans and dishing out advice on a website called Mr. Murakami’s Place. According to NPR, this has been going on for the past two weeks. Though Murakami isn’t taking any more questions, he will continue to post new entries for a few more weeks.
Madame Bovary new trailer
And last, another book adaptation—Madame Bovary. A new trailer of the movie adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s classic was recently released. It shows Mia Wasikowska, who played Alice in Tim Burton’s 2010 film ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ in the titular role. (Digital Spy)
More bookish news
- Outlander Season 1 – Volume 1 Coming to DVD March 3rd (mainstreampassionista.com)
- Great Bookish News (1/24) (bookishtemptations.com)
- The “Game of Thrones” Season 5 Trailer Arrived in 2015 (bibliomantics.com)
- Release Day Blitz! Within My Grasp by Jocelyn Stover (theliterarymeltingpot.com)
Zezee with Books 
I know there’s some controversy surrounding it but I’m still excited about the new Harper Lee book.
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Same here. I really hope the controversy isn’t as bad as it sounds.
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