#BookBingoNW2023: Debut Essays or Short Stories

I’ll be honest, I’m quite distractible. And I’m a book piler. I go back and forth between novels, poetry, comics, and so on. So, what could be better than reading deeply personal or timely topical essays, or short fiction that affords the fulfilling seeds of an unfulfilled story plot or character formation? How about an author’s first (published) effort at an essay or short story collection? If you need a break from other squares on your 2023 Adult Book Bingo card, or maybe this is one of the last squares you need for a Bingo or a Blackout, try one of these collections:

Debut Essays:

Amplified Heart: An Emotional Discography by Bryn Heather Gribben

Much like a curated Spotify playlist of music essays, Seattleite Bryn Heather Gribben charts her life through a mnemonic soundtrack of moments and anecdotes.

Dyscalculia: a Love Story of Epic Miscalculation by Camonghne Felix

Opening with the discovery that her boyfriend is cheating on her, this book-length essay of heartbreak applies dyscalculia’s meaning literally as well as metaphorically in order to better understand a pattern of relationship outcomes.

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

In this hybrid memoir and study of the ocean’s depths, queer, mixed race writer Sabrina Imbler explores alternative ways of living through imaginative profiles of ten deep sea creatures.

Making Love With the Land: Essays by Joshua Whitehead

Poet, novelist, and professor of international Indigenous studies at the University of Calgary, Joshua Whitehead, examines the relationship between language, the body, and land to interrogate the conflict, “Am I queer enough to be queer? Perhaps the answer is no. But also, perhaps the answer is yes.”

#BookBingoNW2023: Manga or Graphic Novel

Here at the library, we have so many great manga and graphic novel titles that it can be hard to decide what to read next! Here are some suggestions for your Summer Book Bingo reading:

Those Who Helped Us by Seattle-born Ken Mochizuki (author) and Kiku Hughes (illustrator, Displacement), blends a fiction and nonfiction Japanese American story about the internment of World War II. Eleven-year-old Sumiko Tanaka’s world is turned upside down when her family is incarcerated in Minidoka. Together with her seventeen-year-old sister, Yuri, they struggle to adapt to their new lives imprisoned in the desert.

 

In Kat Leyh’s Thirsty Mermaids, three drunk mermaids cast a spell on themselves to become humans, but they can’t remember how to change themselves back. Stuck in their land-dwelling forms, they begin to live as humans with the help of a local bartender, tackling mundane challenges like finding jobs and paying rent.

 

In Satoko and Nada by Yupechika, a Japanese student named Satoko and a Saudi Arabian woman named Nadaare become roommates in the United States. Told mostly from Satoko’s point of view, the manga details Satoko’s learning about Nada’s culture through episodic yonkoma (four panel strip) format.

On Your Bookmark: Summer Book Bingo Starts Today

Grab a stack of books, a friend and start reading — Seattle’s favorite summer reading contest is on! The Seattle Public Library and Seattle Arts & Lectures just launched this year’s Summer Book Bingo, which encourages people to read for pleasure and to talk about books with friends, coworkers and neighbors.

Need a refresher? Book Bingo encourages you to read (or listen to) books from a wide variety of categories and to keep track of what you’ve read on your Book Bingo card. Read five books to complete a row on your card for bingo or read 25 books to complete all the squares for blackout.

Get started by downloading your Book Bingo card, designed by artist Monyee Chau, at www.spl.org/BookBingo or www.lectures.org/book-bingo; This year, we are excited to share that we also have a “Loteria de Lectura” card in Spanish. Based on the classic Mexican game Loteria, this card was designed by artist Esmeralda Vasquez. You can download the card and find books lists at www.spl.org/Loteria. (Find out more about the artists on this page.)

Book Bingo and Lotería cards are also available at any Library location.

Each square on the Book Bingo card presents a reading challenge in a certain category, including “Chosen by the Cover,” “BIPOC or LGBTQIA+ Horror,” and “Joyful.” New categories this year include “Hip Hop” (to honor the 50th anniversary of the music genre), “Includes a Recipe,” “Workers’ Rights” and “Read with a Friend.”

Remember: Any type of reading counts, including audiobooks and young adult books.

Going for #BookBingoNW2022 Blackout? Shoot the moon with these tips

It’s almost mid-August, and maybe you’ve had an especially good summer for reading. Perhaps you’ve been playing Summer Book Bingo (or Bingo de Libros) and you’ve filled in enough squares that the once impossible-seeming goal of Blackout seems actually … attainable.

One of many Blackouts from last year’s Summer Book Bingo.

Except that you’ve left the most challenging squares for last, and you’re not really sure if certain books “count,” and you want to make you’re on the up-and-up (after all, what’s lower than cheating at honor system Book Bingo?), but you also want the satisfaction of seeing all 25 squares filled in.

That’s my situation. Although as a Library staff member, I can’t officially enter Summer Book Bingo (cards due Sept. 6 by the way), I can enter the staff version of the contest. And on my second year of Book Bingo, I’m as obsessed as any Bookstagrammer. So I turned to a few Library experts for their tips on honorably going for blackout. In the process, they answered a few other pressing questions that come up from bingo players.

Yes, audiobooks count — and you will need them: Most of you probably know that audiobooks are, well, books. It’s just a different format. So fill in those squares with as many audiobooks as you complete (matching the category, of course). My personal tip for using this to your bingo advantage: Ditch your podcast habit for the summer and listen to audiobooks. Through the magical Libby app, you can borrow, listen and fill in squares while walking the dog, running errands and doing housework.

Recent and upcoming Book-to-Screen Adaptations

It’s easy to wonder sometimes if there are any new ideas in Hollywood, as so many movies and TV series are adapted from books, plays, comics, etc. But the best adaptations make the original content feel fresh and new, drawing audiences back to the source material. Continuing our tradition of books-to-screen posts, here are some of the latest options for this year’s Book Bingo book-to-screen category.

Several classics have been adapted (again) recently from Jane Austen’s Emma, to Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, to Shakespeare’s Macbeth (in a film directed by none other than Joel Cohen). In July, Austen’s Persuasion receives a similar treatment as Autumn de Wilde’s 2020 film Emma, a fresh, cheeky, pastel-infused take on one of Austen’s most problematic heroines starring Anya Taylor-Joy. The latest of many adaptations, Carrie Cracknell’s Persuasion premieres on Netflix on July 15^th, and features Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis, and Henry Golding in yet another rich, dashing romantic lead. Also worth watching/reading in the classics/historical category is Gentleman Jack, an HBO series adapted from the memoir The Secret Diaries of Anne Lister, or ParkChan-Wook’s 2016 film The Handmaiden, adapted from Sarah Waters’ 2002 novel Fingersmith. 

Paul Gallico’s charming 1957 novel Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, about a London charwoman who falls in love with a client’s Dior dress and decides she simply must have one of her own, is getting a big-screen movie release