RIP Dolly Parton, storyteller and literacy champion (This week in books)

This week! Books!

Dolly Parton, Superstar Whose Songs Spoke to Millions, Dies at 80 (gift link) – Bill Friskics-Warren, New York Times – Dolly Parton’s greatness was just about the only thing this country could agree upon, and it was particularly devastating to lose her during such a fractured time. Of course she looms largest as a singer, songwriter, actress, and all-around personality, but she had an outsized impact on the book world and as a storyteller as well…

Dolly Parton’s contributions to literacy will outlive the star, just like she planned – Emily St. Martin, Los Angeles Times – Dolly Parton, who grew up in a house without electricity and an illiterate father, launched her Imagination Library program in 1995, which has given away over 330 million books to children around the world. The mission will continue after her death.

Loving Dolly Was Easy. Understanding Her Was Hard. (gift link) – Tressie McMillan Cottom, New York Times – Author Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote a moving appreciation of Dolly Parton as, foremost, a writer and storyteller, whose greatest story was her own.

Dolly Parton, Rights Holder, Dead at 80 – Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo – And it’s admittedly much lower down the list of Parton’s many achievements, but she was innovative as an intellectual property rights holder as well. After starting her own music publishing company at age 20 (unusual at the time), Parton famously resisted a deal for Elvis Presley to cover “I Will Always Love You” in exchange for half of the publishing rights. Her refusal paved the way to immense profits from Whitney Houston’s popular cover in the 1990s.

Inside the Warehouse Where Amazon Scans and Destroys Books for AI Training – Emanuel Maiberg, The 404 – The upstart news site The 404 has an interview with an employee at the Las Vegas warehouse where Amazon is scanning and destroying mountains of books from all over the world to train AI.

The AI ‘Ghosts’ Contaminating Academic Publishing – Emanuel Maiberg, The 404 – Meet Elena Vasquez and Marcus Chen, the entirely fictitious “experts” AI chatbots repeatedly make up to refer to papers that don’t exist.

Get a Tech Job, Babies! – Elise Broach, The New Yorker – A look at the curious rise of books translating hard-core STEM concepts, such as general relativity and quarks, for very young children.

A New (Shorter) Chapter for Middle Grade – Joanne O’Sullivan, Publishers Weekly – Amid lagging middle grade book sales, publishers are turning to shorter books with more illustrations. From my vantage point, publishers always over-learn “lessons” about what readers supposedly want, and all it will take is one blockbuster long middle grade novel to change the conventional wisdom.

‘I was scared I was going mad’: Meg Mason speaks to fellow authors about the parasocial relationships that begin on the page – Meg Mason, The Guardian – A deep dive into the intense relationships readers develop with their favorite authors.

Survey Results Detail Publishers’ Failure to Register Authors’ Copyrights – The Authors Guild – Much to many authors’ chagrin, many publishers failed to register copyright in a timely way for many of their books, even when they were contractually obligated to do so, which left authors ineligible for funds from the Anthropic settlement. The Authors Guild surveyed its members about the problem, and while the results should be taken with a grain of salt due to response bias for those adversely affected, the problem appears widespread.

The Best Literary Detective You’ve Never Heard Of, and the Man Who Made Him (gift link) – Sarah Lyall, New York Times – Peter Grainger is the latest self-published septuagenarian author to ride a wave of interest to traditional publication and Hollywood interest.

The rise of ‘biogossip’: Rachel Cusk’s Natalie Portman novel is the latest in a delicious literary lineage – Greta Rainbow, The Guardian – The rumors that Natalie Portman is not-so-secretly the subject of Rachel Cusk’s new novel The Life of M is the latest in a long history of teasing who novels are really about, a canon she calls “biogossip.”

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. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
2. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
3. Delusional by James Patterson and James O. Born
4. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
5. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. This is Me by Hayden Panettiere
2. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
3. The Nerd Reich by Gil Durán
4. Strangers by Belle Burden
5. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Young adult hardcover:

1. Barbie: Dreamscape by Alex Aster
2. Wings of Reverie by Anna Bright
3. Rootbound by Margaret Owen
4. Ruinous Ends by I.V. Marie
5. Thornbird by E. Kennedy

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. Refugee by Alan Gratz
3. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate
4. Growing Home by Beth Ferry
5. Pocket Bear by Katherine Applegate

This week on the blog

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

• All about prologues

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And finally:

Yayoi Kusama, Pop Artist Who Expanded and Endured, Dies at 97 (gift link) – Holland Cotter, New York Times – Dolly Parton wasn’t the only luminary we lost this week. Artist and sculptor Yayoi Kusama, whose wide-ranging work spanned the iconic pumpkin in Naoshima to polka dots to infinity rooms, passed away at 97.

Have a great weekend!

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