Twenty Things I've Read And Watched #2

As mentioned in week 1, there are some sites which could quite conceivably fill this list between them EVERY WEEK as they constantly produce amazing posts - and I find it way too hard to single them out! So instead, I will just list them at the start of each post. If you're not reading the following, you are REALLY missing out.

Safe Space
Media Diversified
LGBTQ Reads
The Pool
Teen Vogue 

Addition: Given the current political climate, I would strongly suggest also reading EVERYTHING Celeste Pewter tweets; she is incredibly insightful and her tweets on US politics have helped me figure out which things going on are reasonably worrying and which are absolutely terrifying.

Starting off with an ending - and it's a sad one, but with the promise of great things to come. The Good Assistant has been one of the most brilliant blogs I can recall reading. This last entry is excellent - and while I'll miss the blog, it's FABULOUS news that TGA is working on a book and just announced that she's signed with wonderful agent Alice Sutherland-Hawes. Congrats both!

The always-wonderful Nivea Serrao has a great recommendations list of 15 books with LGBTQIA characters to check out.

Children's Books Ireland take a look at the amazing crop of wonderful Irish YA writers around at the moment.

And Jacaranda has a fabulous list of 10 female British-Asian writers to watch out for.

Clio Chang's piece on the racism of Urban Dictionary is moving and horrifying.


I found Simon Curtis's Twitter threads - here and here - on the lack of gay men writing their own experiences and making it really big in YA to be very thought-provoking.

There's an outstanding Tamsin Rosewell post on the Kenilworth Books site about the problems with the massive discounts some shops give on hardbacks.

Slight break from convention - this is an ongoing thing throughout today rather than something I've read; Zoe has blog posts going up on the hour all day to celebrate her 24 hour readathon raising money for STARS! Check out the posts on her fab No Safer Place site. And of course, if you're able to, please give generously on the fundraising page!

I loved Grace's post for #IBW2017; there's some gorgeous pictures here!


The YALC schedule is finally here! I'm super-excited and have been planning out what to do.

Also if you're going to YALC, don't miss these great tips from Libri Et Libertas.

Kendra Fortmeyer - author of Hole in the Middle, which I'm reading at the moment and really enjoying - and librarian Gretchen Alice teamed up for this brilliant recommendations list, What To Read When You Are A Girl In This Garbage Fire World.

Great piece here by Dahlia Adler about anthologies she can't wait to read. I've already read Because You Love To Hate Me and there are some wonderful stories in there!

The Book Voyagers has a fantastic list of books by Latinx authors.




Videos:

Really interesting video from Erika Chung on how you can still be critical of a book even if you love it.

For Spine Magazine, Holly Dunn interviewed Suzanne Dean, Vintage Books' Creative Director - this was fascinating!

On Julia's channel, she has an awesome book swap with Christy Ku! Some fabulous graphic novels here. (And it reminded me I really should read Giant Days at some point...)

And on Christy's own channel, I loved her Free Comic Book Day video spotlighting some of London's amazing comic book shops!

And an older one (but I did mention last week I've been REALLY bad with YouTube so far in my life, I think...) which is awesome - That Girl With The Curl explains aromanticism.