Friday Folio: February 17, 2023
Hello from Jekyll Island, Ga. (photo from my pre-dawn run)! I’m getting ready to pack things up and head back North, but the news never stops.
The podcast Maintenance Phase (which I LOVE) did an episode on Elizabeth Taylor’s diet book. That book is…not great. She was a complicated lady, which is why if you want to know more about her (good and bad, including how relentless people were about her weight), I suggest checking out Book 3 of 2023, Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon by Kate Anderson Brower.
I cited some stats about diversity on thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail in reviewing Book 7 of 2023, The Unlikely Thru-Hiker by Derick Lugo (it’s bad). So I want to say congrats to Crystal Gail Welcome, who became the first known Black woman to thru-hike the 1,500-mile Florida Trail.
The HarperCollins strike is over. Vox has an explainer.
A theater company in St. Petersburg, Fla. has opened a banned book library.
Happy late Valentine’s Day: Paste has an interesting piece Katee Roobert, who writes erotica (and the piece is also about erotica as a genre within romance in general).
I missed he first bit of Faleena Hopkins story, where the romance novelist trademarked “cocky.” But the newer news: she’s on the run, one that includes a 24-hour police chase, and possible sightings in Hawaii? Cripes.
Publisher’s Weekly looks at the potential sale of Simon & Schuster.
But some good news from PW as well: book sales were up 6.2% in 2022 (subscription required).
And an old story: When I told someone on my way down here that I was going to finish my trip in Jekyll Island, he insisted that I read The Creature from Jekyll Island. I was looking for a new audiobook for the drive, so I looked it up: 24 hours long. No thanks. Turns out that it’s a big bundle of conspiracy theories, as the Daily Beast covered in 2015. Again: no thank you!
