The Blind Side was always bad (This week in books)

This week! Books!

The blog is going to take an end-of-summer hiatus over the next few weeks and I’ll be back here after Labor Day. Also…………….. how is summer almost over??

I have very proudly never read/watched one of the paragons of white savior narratives The Blind Side, but some extremely distressing allegations emerged around retired football player Michael Oher, who alleged that the family he believed adopted him actually tricked him into a conservatorship that gave them control over his finances and never gave him a dime from the movie while they enriched their own children.

As Dave Zirin writes, the movie was always trash. It remains appalling that Oher objected to his portrayal at the time the movie came out, refused to participate in publicity for it, and felt compelled to release his own book to set the record straight, while the media at large failed to pay attention as the movie racked up acclaim and Oscars. Among the many outrages, the movie depicted him as mentally challenged while the whole reason he met the Tuohy children in the first place is that he was sufficiently academically gifted enough to get into their fancy school.

In addition to the Tuohys, there are a ton of people involved in the book and movie who need to answer some tough questions here.

A federal judge approved the permanent injunction negotiated between publishers and the Internet Archive over the IA’s e-book piracy for their digital “lending” library. The ruling ended up being disappointingly narrow and only applies to books where publishers have a commercially available e-book edition, leaving authors who choose not to have an e-book edition of their work available in the lurch–at least for now–pending future negotiations and litigation. Meanwhile, there was all kinds of fawning coverage of the IA in newspapers that should know better this week (I want the IA’s publicist), which I’m refusing to link to but that you can seek out if you’re interested. Music labels are next in line to sue the Internet Archive.

In fighting the good fight news, the fantastic organization We Need Diverse Books announced the initial recipients of their Books Saves Lives program, which provides $5,000 to select school districts to purchase diverse titles from a list of nearly 500 frequently banned books. And Penguin Random House launched a new site dedicated to raising awareness of book bans and providing resources for anyone who wants to contest the bans.

And a group of authors wrote an open letter to the Pulitzer committee to petition them to open up the awards to non-citizens.

There has been quite a lot of chatter about why YA book sales are in decline, and agent Janet Reid adds an interesting theory to the mix: it’s because of the now-robust backlist.

Publicist Kathleen Schmidt has a helpful list of what’s working and not working in book publicity these days.

In writing advice news, Brando Skyhorse has some very good and very straightforward advice on revising, Miranda Miller writes about how Hilary Mantel inhabited her characters’ minds with a pendulum that swung from intuition to humility, Barbara Linn Probst has advice on stamping out those writerly tics of yours, and while it’s not strictly a writing advice post, I enjoyed Nir Eyal’s article on the power of short term routines.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
2. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
3. Happiness by Danielle Steel
4. None of This is True by Lisa Jewell
5. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
2. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
3. Outlive by Peter Attia with Bill Gifford
4. The Wager by David Grann
5. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Young adult hardcover:

1. Solitaire by Alice Oseman
2. Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman
3. Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
4. House of Roots and Ruin by Erin A. Craig
5. Five Survive by Holly Jackson

Middle grade hardcover:

1. The Sun and the Star by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
2. Refugee by Alan Gratz
3. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
4. Odder by Katherine Applegate
5. The Swifts by Beth Lincoln

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• The more a character puts in a bucket, the more there is to spill
• Key details are the difference between generic and unique (page critique)

Don’t forget that you can nominate your first page and query for a free critique on the blog:

• Nominate Your First Page for a Critique on the Blog
• Nominate Your Query for a Critique on the Blog

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Twitter
• Follow my page on Facebook
• Join the Facebook Group
• Check out the Bransforums

And finally, consider the bluefin tuna. (No really, please consider it).

Have a great weekend!

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Photo: The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. Follow me on Instagram!