The calendar is but a construct. It’s fall in our hearts, and that means it’s time for spooky season reading and a Practical Magic rewatch before the sequel lands this Friday. Put the lime in the coconut and have yourself a cozy time.
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THE HEADLINELast call for the legendary Book Riot hoodieWe’re gearing up—literally—for our 15th anniversary with a limited run of original Book Riot hoodies, made in partnership with Out of Print.
- Available in black and gray, these hoodies are incredibly soft and even more durable. Many of us on staff are still wearing the ones we got a decade ago!
Today is the last day to preorder and have it in your clutches in time for our anniversary on October 1 and the arrival of cozy reading season. Save yourself the FOMO and snag yours now.
NEW RELEASESThey’re baaaaaackThree big names making highly-anticipated returns lead off this week’s new releases.
- Emma Cline takes a turn to the existential with a Booker-longlisted story about an aging man traveling to Zurich to take the last, biggest trip of his life.
- R.F. Kuang, who just might be the busiest woman in the business, takes a break from genre with a coming-of-age story about a college student asking one of life’s biggest questions: can you ever really go home again?
- Alice Hoffman introduces a new series with witchy, dark academia vibes just in time for Practical Magic 2‘s arrival in theaters.
Also hitting shelves:
- A guide for better, more productive arguments from a communication expert
- A popular young comedian explores all the things she’s changed her mind about
- A playbook for winning voters and dumping MAGA from a former Republican operative
- A historical adventure about a woman pirate, based on Irish folklore
- An acclaimed artist and Instagram star recounts her childhood in ’90s Los Angeles
Check out more of this week’s new releases.
KIDS LIT100 Years of PoohI can’t remember a time before I knew of Winnie the Pooh. The children’s story is one of Disney’s most enduring and high-earning franchises ever. Its merch is perennially popular, and its titular character has even been voted as everyone’s favorite kids book character.
In August 1926, A.A. Milne gave his son, Christopher Robin, a run-of-the-mill stuffed bear, which the child named “Edward Bear” before renaming it “Winnie-the-Pooh.” Later, Milne would collaborate with illustrator EH Shepard to create the story Winnie-the-Pooh, which was published October 14, 1926.
Now that the story is 100, people from all over are celebrating the franchise’s centennial, some in unexpected ways:
- Disney: Let’s start with the official keepers of the Pooh. The entertainment juggernaut decided to go the bougie route by collaborating with the L.A. fashion brand Re/Done for some $160 T-shirts and $500 cashmere sweaters.
- If those prices make you sweat, the main Disney website also has some discounted merch for us mere plebes.
- Fortnum & Mason: The more than 300-year-old UK department store had a 27-foot beehive installation in tribute to the Pooh centennial from July 14th to September 2nd. The display explored the intersection of Winnie the Pooh’s love of honey, bees, and conservation.
- The New York Public Library: The second-largest public library in the U.S. is really leaning in when it comes to Winnie and friends. They’re giving 3,000 copies of the book away at various branches, inviting children to write birthday cards to Pooh, and showcasing rare Pooh items (like the original toys that inspired the story).
- Winnie-the-Pooh: 100th Anniversary Edition: And of course, there’s a revamped 100-year edition of the original book that comes with two stories (Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner). —EE
Part book club, part English class, our Zero to Well-Read podcast is turning one this week, and it’s having quite a run!
- Hosted by Book Riot CEO Jeff O’Neal and Chief of Staff Rebecca Schinsky, each episode tells you everything you need to know about an important book.
Covering everything from classics to cult faves, prize winners to pop culture phenomena, the show has become a hit with listeners, garnering more than 1.1 million downloads in its first year out.
Here are a few of the most popular episodes to get you started:
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
- The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Marquez: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
- Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Guest experts like New York Times canon editor Gilbert Cruz, Toni Morrison scholar Namwali Serpell, political content creator Amanda Nelson, and “60 Songs That Explain the ’90s” host Rob Harvilla also come by for deep dives on timely topics.
Find Zero to Well-Read wherever you listen to podcasts, and join the guided read-along of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.
AUDIOBOOKSLibro.fm’s bestselling audiobooks of AugustSummer is wrapped up, so time to check in with Libro.fm’s best-selling audiobooks of August. Here are the three fiction titles and three nonfiction titles that indie bookstore shoppers bought the most this month:
Nonfiction
- The Reverse Centaur’s Guide by Cory Doctorow, narrated by Cory Doctorow
- This Is Me by Hayden Panettiere, narrated by Hayden Panettiere
- The Nerd Reich by Gil Duran, narrated by Gil Duran
Fiction
- Yesteryear by Claire Caro Burke, narrated by Rebecca Lowman
- The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett, narrated by Jenna Lamia & January Lavoy
- Whistler by Ann Patchett, narrated by Ann Patchett —JO
photo credit: Fabian Guerrero
Guadalupe Rosales is the author of East of the River: A Memoir of Los Angeles Girlhood, out today from One World. She is also the artist behind the archival projects “Veteranas and Rucas” and “Map Pointz,” about Latinx history in L.A. Below, she discusses her approach to documenting Latinx communities.
When I started writing East of the River, I found myself returning to the same kinds of things I had been collecting and thinking about for years: photographs, love letters, party flyers, handwritten notes, and all the objects we hold onto without necessarily thinking of them as history.
I left Los Angeles for New York in 2000 and lived there for more than a decade before moving back home in 2016. Being away made me cherish everything connected to LA, from the stories we shared to the little material things we managed to hold onto. I began to see photographs and letters as more than documents. They could carry a place, a person, a whole memory.
In the years before I moved back, I started visiting L.A. more often and noticed that my mother had kept boxes filled with photographs, letters from teenage crushes and boyfriends, and other things from my younger years. Like so many Latina mothers, she saved everything.
In New York, I didn’t have those boxes with me. What I did have was a small stack of wallet-size Starshot portraits that friends had given me. I carried them around for years because they connected me to home. They felt almost like the little prayer cards you get at church, something small and precious you keep close.
When I launched Veteranas and Rucas in 2015, and later Map Pointz in 2016, I wasn’t thinking, I’m going to build an archive. I was homesick and searching for photographs of women and girls who looked like me and the people I grew up around. I wanted the hairstyles, the makeup, the bedrooms, the cars, the backyard parties, but I also wanted the stories behind them.
Then people started sending me their own photographs and memories. I began to see how much of our history was sitting inside photo albums, shoeboxes, drawers, and garages.
Writing East of the River meant turning that same attention toward myself and back toward my community. After years of asking other people to open their boxes, I had to open mine too.
HAPPY BIRTHDAYAnn Beattie (September 8th)Did you know? The New Yorker rejected the first 17 stories Beattie submitted.
CRITICAL LINKINGYou are now free to roam about the internetPsychologist Adam Grant recommends 12 new books to keep you sharp this fall.
The longlist for the Baillie Gifford Prize, which celebrates excellence in nonfiction
Here’s what booksellers think about the so-called end of reading.
The latest data on parent-child reading is pretty encouraging.
Find your new favorite poem among the best new collections.
END NOTESWritten by Rebecca Schinsky, Erica Ezeifedi, Jeff O’Neal, and Danika Ellis. Thanks to Vanessa Diaz for copy editing.
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