Book Banning Attempts Hit All-Time High

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Book Banning Attempts Reach All-Time High

The American Library Association reported a document variety of makes an attempt to take away books from libraries final yr, and never by a small margin. 4,240 particular person titles had been focused in 2023, up nearly 65% from the two,571 titles that had been challenged in 2022. Nearly half of the challenged titles deal with LGBTQ+ identities and/or problems with race and racism, making it crystal clear that this isn’t—and wasn’t ever—nearly books. Despite the truth that most mother and father belief librarians and agree that banning books is a waste of time, I count on the 2024 numbers will present one other enhance, particularly as conservative anti-free speech activists and politicians dig in on this shedding technique in a presidential election yr.

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Is That Canon? 

In an admirable try and seize a very powerful novels of the final 100 years, the oldsters at The Atlantic have created a brand new American canon. Comprised of 136 titles, the record goals “to single out those classics that stand the test of time, but also to make the case for the unexpected, the unfairly forgotten, and the recently published works that already feel indelible.” Like any record on the web, it’s removed from complete, and so they in all probability left off just a few of your faves, however it’s numerous in lots of senses of the phrase and captures the constantly-changing vibes of American fiction. A reasonably good swing at an unattainable activity. My condolences to their social media managers when this one hits Facebook. 

Creator of The Bear Goes Bookish

Christopher Storer is having a great yr, however Amor Towles could also be having a greater one. The limited-series adaptation of Towles’s novel A Gentleman in Moscow, starring Ewan MacGregor and a very spectacular mustache, will hit Paramount+ later this month, and now Storer, who created The Bear, has signed as much as write and direct a big-screen adaptation of The Lincoln Highway. A Fifties roadtrip film about two brothers who set off on a cross-country journey to seek out their mom after the dying of their father? Yes, please. If that is performed properly—and Storer’s potential to seize advanced and entertaining household dynamics offers me lots of confidence that will probably be—it has the potential to be an enormous good-for-the-whole-family hit. And what a chance for 2 younger actors! Do we expect Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers) can nonetheless go for 18?

Speaking of Adaptations

Coming off of Cord Jefferson’s Oscar win for Best Adapted Screenplay for American Fiction, Jeff O’Neal and I focus on the film and its supply materials, together with what Hollywood will get unsuitable and proper in regards to the world of publishing.

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