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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
The 2024 Booker Prize Shortlist
Steady the Jenga towers you call your TBR stacks because you have six books to add! The shortlisted books for “the best sustained work of fiction written in English and published in the UK and Ireland” are: James by Percival Everett, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner, Held by Anne Michaels, The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. As you might have noticed, women dominate this list! As you also might have noticed, there’s only one author who isn’t white… I can’t even begin to predict who will win the Booker, but I’d love to see your guesses in the comments on the site!
Plagiarism Complaint Against WHITE FRAGILITY Author Dismissed
I can’t keep the allegations of plagiarism in academia straight, there have been so many. But the plagiarism complaint against Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility, crossed the threshold of big publishing news. The instances cited in the complaint were not against her book, which hit bestseller lists at the height of the Black Lives Matter and George Floyd protests, but against her 2004 doctoral thesis, titled “Whiteness in Racial Dialogue: A Discourse Analysis.” The University of Washington reviewed the complaint and determined the evidence didn’t meet the threshold for plagiarism under the institution’s definition. It isn’t lost on anyone, DiAngelo included, that the recent spate of plagiarism complaints in academia have been largely lodged against Black academics or those connected to DEI work.
How Booksellers Are Taking On Book Banners
Publishers Weekly recently highlighted efforts by some indie booksellers to combat local book bans and get banned books into people’s hands. Big ups to Charley Rejsek of Austin’s BookPeople and Valerie Koehler of Houston’s Blue Willow Bookshop for challenging HB 900 as unconstitutional and winning “a landmark preliminary injunction” in federal court, which was later affirmed by an appeals court. Also, a familiar name in here—Lauren Groff, author of Florida and owner of The Lynx in Gainesville set up shop to promote books that have been challenged or banned in Florida. A round of applause for all mentioned—check out the bookstores featured and consider paying them a visit when you’re in town.
Power-Ranking the Books of 2004
Jeff and Rebecca turn the time-machine dial to “2004” to pick the 10 books from that year that mattered the most.