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Publishing Industry News: Dec. 27, 2019

Curious about what’s happening in the world of books and publishing? Catch up on the biggest acquisitions, news, adaptations and more here!

• New Door County resident Jordan Spencer released his first book Dec. 7. We have a lot to talk about … It’s cancer chronicles Spencer’s wife’s fight with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer.

• Goodreads announced the winners of its Goodreads Choice Awards on Dec. 10: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood earned the honor for Best Fiction; Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid for Best Historical Fiction; The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides for Best Mystery and Thriller; Recursion by Blake Crouch for Best Science Fiction; Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott, with Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis, for Best Young Adult Fiction; The Institute by Stephen King for Best Horror; Dear Girls by Ali Wong for Best Humor; Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? by Caitlin Doughty for Best Science and Technology; Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis for Best Nonfiction; Over the Top by Jonathan Van Ness for Best Memoir and Autobiography; The Five by Hallie Rubenhold for Best History and Biography; Antoni in the Kitchen by Antoni Porowski for Best Food and Cookbook; Pumpkin Heads by Rainbow Rowell for Best Graphic Novel and Comic; Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson for Best Poetry; Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston for Best Debut Novel; The Wicked King by Holly Black for Best Young Adult Fantasy; The Trials of Apollo by Rick Riordan for Best Middle Grade and Children’s; and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: The Poetry of Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers, with illustrations by Luke Flowers, for Best Picture Book.

• The new tariffs that were to go into effect Dec. 15 have been suspended. Children’s book publishers were fighting this action, so the suspension is good news for them. Most children’s books are manufactured in China because of the country’s printing capabilities.

• Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are adapting Hans Rodionoff’s graphic novel Lovecraft into a film. Lovecraft explores the twisted mind of the horror writer H.P. Lovecraft throughout his life and ponders what would happen if the monsters he created weren’t fictional. 

Although Lovecraft has had a huge influence on the pop-culture world, he was also terribly racist: His white-supremecist views stated that God created black people as a semi-human species. In most of his literary work, these views are at the forefront and not even subtext. Benioff and Weiss are receiving some pushback for their adaptation because many are unconvinced that they will properly discuss this darker side of the famed horror writer.

• The first draft of J.M. Barrie’s novel Peter Pan has been published – under the names Peter Pan and Wendy. Its editors are noting the differences between Barrie’s original depiction of Peter – as more egotistical, mean and dark – and what ended up being printed. 

• Evil Eye Concepts, the parent company of 1,001 Dark Nights Press, has established the new Blue Box Press imprint to focus on producing full-length fiction.