There is a lot of awful news these days, but luckily there is book news out there to help us feel a smidgen better.

 

• ‘Will Translated Fiction Ever Really Break Through?’ by Chad Post via Vulture

I’ve been making an effort to read translated fiction in the past few years, and it’s been a rewarding experience. I’ve learned a lot about other parts of the world, as well as learning about the different ways that people tell stories.

And while we’re at it, here is a list of some translated works from the last five years.

 

• ‘Some Writing Advice: Don’t Take Others’ Advice’ by Guy Gavriel Kay via Literary Hub

There is an enormous amount of writing advice out there in the wilds of the internet. But whose advice is best? Is there a definitive answer about when you should write? Is there a bullet point list to rule them all to help you write the best novel in the history of ever? Guy Gavriel Kay thinks not, and as a long time writer of celebrated fantasy novels, he should know. But don’t take his word for it. Writing is an intensely personal activity. You can’t take advice from a quick list and hope it will work for you. You have to find your own best method.

 

• ‘Four books by Asian American Authors Republished as Penguin Classics‘ by Saleah Blancafor via NBC News

Because finding new classics to read is fantastic, especially when they come from perspectives that have been overlooked for far too long.

 

• ‘Can You Read… Too Much?’ by Ankita Devasia via BookRiot

We bookish people like to set reading goals for ourselves, and the ‘xx books this year’ goal is a big one. In this article, Devasia describes how she went overboard in her audiobook consumption one year and couldn’t recall a single thing about many of the books she had listened to during her commute and whatnot. She advises slowing down, which is a good idea when you’re going for quantity.

I would advise paying attention to the books you want to remember. The brain can only do one thing at a time, and if you’re scrolling through Instagram or Facebook while listening to an audiobook, chances are you aren’t paying attention to one of them. It’s usually the audiobook that loses out. So if you want to take in a lot of audiobooks, maybe don’t scroll through social media while you’re doing it. And set goals that don’t stress you out. Reading for fun is supposed to be, you know, fun. Not stressful.

• ‘Teen Fiction Twitter is Eating Its Young’ by Jesse Singal via Reason

I once thought about joining Twitter. I spent an afternoon thinking about it and decided against it. I’m so glad I decided not to because I keep hearing awful things about Book Twitter– particularly YA Twitter– from friends and in the news. Authors keep getting called out for daring to write stories about people who are a different culture/race/religion/gender/sexuality from their own, and for writing it “wrong”. This year, two high-profile YA writers felt compelled to cancel the publication of their books because a Twitter mob descended upon them because they didn’t write their stories “correctly” according to a few bloggers and Goodreads reviewers.

This is not how we should behave. Books should live or die on their own merit, not because they were “right” or “wrong” according to the diversity metrics of a few. Bad books will fade away because they’re bad books whether they are “diverse enough” or not. We don’t need a mob telling us what is good or bad to read. We need diverse voices who feel confident enough in their own skins to tell their own stories, and who are embraced by a publishing industry open to new voices, not one that’s only looking for “correct” points of view.

Authors like Amélie Wen Zhao, a woman of Chinese descent born in France and raised in Beijing had achieved a lifelong goal of securing a major publishing contract. Her book, Blood Heir, was due out in June, but Zhao canceled the publication because an early reviewer claimed that her book was racist and set a Twitter mob on Zhao because she wasn’t portraying slavery through the “correct” lens. The Twitter mob decided Zhao, a woman of Chinese descent, was racist because her depiction of slavery was not viewed through a modern American lens. But the slavery depicted in Zhao’s book was based on her research into human trafficking in Asia. Her critics neglected to look beyond the American experience when reading a book by an Asian author. Demanding that everything about an issue be viewed only through a “proper” perspective blinds us to the rest of the world, and saying that an author is only qualified to tell the stories of their own culture/race/religion will result in a drastically diminished pool of stories that will make us all poorer.

Note: After rereading her book several times, Amélie Wen Zhao decided that her critics were wrong. She decided her book was not racist, and after making some revisions she sent the new version to beta readers and experts in the field of human trafficking for their perspectives. The revised version of Blood Heir will be released in November 2019.