Last Week In Books: You Think You Can Stop Me, Mr. Zuckerberg? Think Again!

Been a long time, fellow readers. Facebook’s little BSOD moment has reminded me not to put all my eggs into one platform’s basket. So, in order to keep bringing you diverse book and diverse author news even in the case of a social media apocalypse, let’s try bringing this back on a biweekly basis, for now.

Without further ado…

• Y’all know I have a deep and abiding love for all things TJ Young. This interview with author Antoine Bandele offers great insights on the hard work it took to get TJ and friends onto the published page and into all of our hands. [A Healthy Dose of Fran]
• Speaking of love, romance writer Jasmine Guillory has revealed the cover and premise of her upcoming new novel, By The Book. Apparently it’s a retelling of Beauty and the Beast with a Black woman as the lead. Be still, my pre-teen romance reading heart. [Collider]
• And speaking of pre-teens, there’s a lot to love about Book Riot’s take on re-assessing the children’s book canon, including their call for broader diversity in the books and their authors. I, too, would love to see titles like The Birchbark House, Julian at the Wedding, and Bodies are Cool suggested to all English-speaking little readers, everywhere. [Book Riot]
• I ran out of cutesy lead-ins for this so–nope, wait, got one. Speaking of diversity(whew), the #ownvoices movement is coming under a lot of scrutiny lately and its creators are doing their best to retire it. Why? “Same old, same old: privileged folks tried to take power away from the marginalized. Writing, of course, is a business. #OwnVoices was created to market, promote, and sell the works of marginalized authors. But eventually the marginalized authors and readers who empowered that term were no longer dictating its parameters.” [Quill and Quire]
• Last one for this week, lovelies–legendary Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka gave a rare interview to the NY Times to promote his latest novel and–y’all. Go read it. Enjoy it. This man has lived a LIFE. [New York Times]

That’s it for this week, fellow readers. If you want to support the blog and see more frequent news, reviews, and booklists, consider heading to the Equal Opportunity Bookshop and adding to your #tbr–we have an affiliate relationship with them and earn a commission from your purchases. But purchase or no purchase, as always–go read something good!

Peace!