LibraryThing: State of the Thing - August

LibraryThing: State of the Thing Dear {NAME}, Welcome to the August State of the Thing! In this issue we announce LibraryThing’s upcoming birthday and celebratory store sale, offer a sneak peak at our Award Page redesign, present an interview with author Joanne Elliott, and shine a spotlight on our most recent TinyCat Library of the Month. We also serve up lots and lots of book world news, all of our regular columns, and 3,250 free Early Reviewer books! You can like LibraryThing on [Facebook]( and follow [@LibraryThing]( on Twitter, [librarythingofficial]( on Instagram, and [librarythingofficial](librarythingofficial) on Threads for news and updates. LibraryThing’s Birthday Sale LibraryThing’s 18th birthday is coming up at the end of the month, and we plan to celebrate with our annual LibraryThing Store Sale! Enjoy major discounts on everything in the [LibraryThing Store]( including CueCat scanners and barcode labels for the classroom, laptop stickers, gorgeous LibraryThing and TinyCat enamel pins, and more. The Store Sale opens by 12 noon (ET) on LibraryThing’s birthday, August 29, and lasts through the month of September. Bookmark your favorites now and come back later to stock up on all of the deals: . Coming Soon: Award Page Redesign We’re excited to offer a sneak peak at LibraryThing’s newly redesigned Award Page, which will be launching soon. No longer a part of the Common Knowledge section, awards will have their own section on the book’s work page, will contain more and better information, will have a more streamlined organization, and will collect the different stages of each award—nominees, shortlists, winners—onto one page. Stay tuned for more details! Author Interview: Joanne Elliott LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with [Joanne Elliott](, an American-born author who has spent most of her adult life in Belfast, Hong Kong and on Inishbofin, a small island off the west coast of Ireland. The founder of the [Kellett School](, now the British International School in Hong Kong, she is the author of two books on childhood diabetes, as well as numerous short stories published in British, Irish and South African magazines, has written radio programs for RTE (Irish National Radio), and for seven years ran a local newspaper on Inishbofin. She has also taught at all levels, from preschool to university. Now, at the age of eighty-eight, her novel [Love in the Shadow of Mao](—the second she has written, but the first to see print—has been published by the London-based Austin Macauley Publishers. See an excerpt below, and the full interview [here](. Q. You have said elsewhere that the idea for the story in [Love in the Shadow of Mao]( came to you in 1978, while you and your husband were returning to Hong Kong after a tour of mainland China. Forty-six years later, your book is finally published. Did you work on it throughout this entire period, did you leave and return to it—what does the writing process look like, over the timespan of a few decades? What were the challenges of working on your story for this long, and did it have benefits as well? Joanne. The story was in my mind for many years after we left Hong Kong but I did not start writing it as my life was busy, crammed with other writing projects like the island newspaper, The Inishbofin Inquirer, which I started and edited for seven years. I am not an organized writer, have little discipline and tend to throw myself in projects, work frantically at them and then lay them aside for others. Visit the blog to [read the whole conversation](. List of the Month Come join LibraryThing’s List of the Month project, as we create a new thematic book list each month. Like all of our [Lists](, the List of the Month draws upon the knowledge of the LibraryThing community, while also aiming to provoke discussion around each theme. See our [wiki page]( for a complete List of the Month list, and join us over in our [Talk group](, for further discussion of the project. August List of the Month. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter... The Unbearable Lightness of Being... Very Far Away from Anywhere Else... Sometimes, a title just stands out. Our List of the Month this August is devoted to the most striking, most memorable book titles we have ever encountered. Head over to our [Books With the Most Memorable Titles]( list to add your top ten choices. Check out other recent Lists of the Month: - July [Smorgasbord of Culinary Fiction]( - June [Books With Our Favorite First Lines]( - May [Best Graphic Novel Nonfiction]( - April [Best Gardening Books]( - March [Favorite Epistolary Fiction]( The Talk of LibraryThing What conversations are going on in our groups? - A discussion of the [Most Disturbing Books Read](, begun back in 2007, is still ongoing amongst members of [Book Talk](. - Preparations are underway for the [September Nonfiction Classics Challenge](, in the [2023 Category Challenge]( group. - Debate, discussion and most of all, helpful action, continue to be undertaken by the members of our [Combiners](21) group, active since 2006. - Members continue to document [Where They Are in Fantasyland](, over in the [FantasyFans]( group. Speaking of Groups, if you’re new to LibraryThing, there’s a group for that: [Welcome to LibraryThing](21)! Hot on LibraryThing Here are some titles that have been particularly hot on LibraryThing in the last month: - [Tom Lake]( by [Ann Patchett]( - [None of This Is True]( by [Lisa Jewell]( - [Fourth Wing]( by [Rebecca Yarros]( - [Out of Nowhere]( by [Sandra Brown]( - [The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store]( by [James McBride]( - [Dead Fall]( by [Brad Thor]( - [Everyone Here Is Lying]( by [Shari Lapeña]( - [The Collector]( by [Daniel Silva]( - [Just Another Missing Person]( by [Gillian McAllister]( - [Vampires of El Norte]( by [Isabel Cañas]( - [Family Lore]( by [Elizabeth Acevedo]( - [Baking Yesteryear: The Best Recipes from the 1900s to the 1980s]( by [B. Dylan Hollis]( - [The Bone Hacker]( by [Kathy Reichs]( - [Crook Manifesto]( by [Colson Whitehead]( - [Gone Tonight]( by [Sarah Pekkanen]( - [Happiness Falls]( by [Angie Kim]( - [Somebody's Fool]( by [Richard Russo]( - [Obsessed]( by [James Patterson]( - [Prom Mom]( by [Laura Lippman]( - [Mister Magic]( by [Kiersten White]( Hot in Libraries Here's what's hot across [thousands of public libraries]( in the United States: - [Fourth Wing]( by [Rebecca Yarros]( - [Lessons in Chemistry]( by [Bonnie Garmus]( - [Happy Place]( by [Emily Henry]( - [The Five-Star Weekend]( by [Elin Hilderbrand]( - [The Covenant of Water]( by [Abraham Verghese]( - [The Only One Left]( by [Riley Sager]( - [Demon Copperhead]( by [Barbara Kingsolver]( - [Zero Days]( by [Ruth Ware]( - [Hello Beautiful]( by [Ann Napolitano]( - [Obsessed]( by [James Patterson]( - [It Ends With Us]( by [Colleen Hoover]( - [Remarkably Bright Creatures]( by [Shelby Van Pelt]( - [American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer]( by [Kai Bird]( - [The Summer I Turned Pretty]( by [Jenny Han]( - [The Collector]( by [Daniel Silva]( - [Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow]( by [Gabrielle Zevin]( - [The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder]( by [David Grann]( - [Verity]( by [Colleen Hoover]( - [It Starts with Us]( by [Colleen Hoover]( - [The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo]( by [Taylor Jenkins Reid]( This data was collected by Syndetics Unbound, a LibraryThing/ProQuest project to enrich the library catalog. The search data is fully anonymized the day it is collected. For more information about Syndetics Unbound, please visit [Syndetics.com](?utm_source=LT&utm_medium=sott&utm_id=main). Free Books from Early Reviewers! Our Early Reviewers program pairs publishers and authors looking for reviews and book buzz with readers looking for their next great read. This month we’re pleased to feature [A Darker Shade of Noir: New Stories of Body Horror by Women Writers](, edited by [Joyce Carol Oates](, and containing stories by [Margaret Atwood](, [Tananarive Due](, [Megan Abbott](, and others, offered by [Akashic Books](; [Hammer of the Dogs](, a new dystopian adventure from [Jarret Keene]( (stay tuned for our upcoming September interview with the author) offered by the [University of Nevada Press](; and [Lilith](, a feminist retelling of the biblical tale from [Nikki Marmery](, offered by [Alcove Press](. Explore the full list and [sign up to request books](. [A Darker Shade of Noir: New Stories of Body Horror by Women Writers]( [Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System]( [What We Remember Will Be Saved: A Story of Refugees and the Things They Carry]( [Hammer of the Dogs]( [Lilith]( [The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here]( [The Last Election]( [Sugar Birds]( [We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope]( [Of White Ashes]( [The Stone Child]( [The Devil's Mountain]( [The Bodies Keep Coming: Dispatches from a Black Trauma Surgeon on Racism, Violence, and How We Heal]( [American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church]( [Lovesick Blossoms]( [Need Blind Ambition]( [Break up with What Broke You: How God Redeems and Rewrites Your Story]( [The Ones They Took]( [But Still They Sing]( [All In! The Atlantic Standup Paddle Crossing — 83 Days Alone At Sea](21-The-Atlantic-Standup-Paddle-Crossing-%E2%80%94-83-Days-Alone-At-Sea) Our August batch of Early Reviewers has 3,250 copies of 166 books. The deadline to request a book is August 25th, 6pm Eastern time. Did you win a book recently? When you receive your book, make sure you head over to your [Books You've Won]( page to mark it received. After you've read your book, add your review to LibraryThing. First, add the book to your LibraryThing catalog. Then click the pencil-shaped "edit" icon next to the book, or click "edit book" from the work page. Type your review into the Review box, and click "submit" to save it. Reviewing your books gives you a greater chance of winning books in the future, while neglecting to review lowers your odds. For more information, visit the [Early Reviewers Help Page](. Book World News: In Memoriam Celebrated German novelist and playwright [Martin Walser](, considered one of his country’s most prominent post-World-War-II authors, [has died at 96](. Beginning his career as a journalist, Walser’s first book, [Ehen in Philippsburg]( (“The Gadarene Club”) was published in 1957, and was an immediate success. The first of many works that cast a satirical eye on middle class life in post-war West Germany, it was followed by close to a book per year, during the more prolific periods of the author’s long career. Walser was a member of Group 47—an immensely influential community of West German authors who participated in writers’ meetings from 1947 through 1967, helping to launch many notable literary careers—and he received numerous awards for his work, including the 1981 [Georg-Büchner-Preis]( (Georg Büchner Prize) and the 1998 [Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels]( (Peace Prize of the German Book Trade). When accepting the latter, the author stirred some considerable controversy with his remarks addressing Germany’s conduct during World War II, and the role of guilt and shame in public discourse. Prolific Japanese novelist [Seiichi Morimura](, whose approximately three hundred books are mostly mystery novels, but who is particularly remembered for his non-fiction work exposing the atrocities committed by the Japanese during World War II, in their infamous Unit 731 program, [has died at 90](. It was in the course of writing one of his novels that Morimura came into contact with one of the workers from Unit 731, leading him to research the subject, and eventually publish [The Devil’s Gluttony]( in 1981. A 246-page exposé of the Unit 731 biological warfare research program, in which some 3,000 men, women and children—mostly Chinese, but also Korean, Russian and Mongolian—were experimented upon and murdered in various gruesome ways, the book sold more than 1.1 million copies in the first seven months after its publication, and was regarded as the most accurate work on the subject available at the time. Other recent losses in the book world: - [George Alagiah](, British newsreader, journalist and author, [has died at 67](. - [Janice Young Brooks](, American mystery writer, [has died at 80](. - [Christopher Carduff](, American newspaper and book editor, [has died at 66](. - [James Hayman](, American adman and author of thrillers, [has died at 82](. - [Alice Kahn Ladas](, American psychologist and author, [has died at 102](. - [Felicia Law](, British children’s author, editor and publisher, [has died at 80](. - [Diana Marcum](, American journalist and memoirist, [has died at 60](. - [Michela Murgia](, Italian novelist, playwright and activist, [has died at 51](. - [Alan Roland](, American psychoanalyst and author, [has died at 93](. - [Martha Saxton](, American historian and biographer, [has died at 77](. - [Marlena Spieler](, UK-based American cookbook author, [has died at 74](. - [Keith Waldrop](, American poet and university professor, [has died at 90](. - [Elizabeth Webby](, Australian literary critic, editor and scholar, [has died at 81](. - [Jean Fagan Yellin](, American historian and university professor, [has died at 92](. Book World News: Freedom of Expression In the face of rising levels of book challenges across the United States, the [Digital Public Library of America]( (DPLA) [recently announced]( the launch of their [Banned Book Club](, a new program which makes e-book editions of banned books available to check out, nationwide, from the Palace e-reader app. The app uses GPS-based “geo-targeting” to show users the books which have been banned in their area, and then allows them to check them out. In a similar vein, in April of this year the [Brooklyn Public Library]( introduced their [Books Unbanned]( program, which offers free virtual library cards to teens nationwide, allowing them to access challenged and banned books. The [Seattle Public Library]( has also recently [implemented this program](. Publishing giant Penguin Random House, in the meantime, has launched its own [Banned Books Resource Site](, which offers resources for authors, parents, librarians, teachers, students, and booksellers interested in combating book bans. In Texas, a group of booksellers and book advocacy organizations have [filed a federal lawsuit]( against a new state law requiring, amongst other things, that booksellers, publishers and other “library material vendors” rate the books they sell based on sexual content. The suit, which argues that the law would impose vague and unconstitutional restrictions on readers, and would unduly burden booksellers, is being brought by the Austin-based [BookPeople]( bookshop and the Houston-based [Blue Willow Bookshop,]( together with the [American Booksellers Association](, the [Association of American Publishers](, the [Authors Guild,]( and the [Comic Book Legal Defense Fund](. A federal judge in Arkansas has [temporarily blocked two provisions of Act 372](, a state law signed into effect by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders earlier in the year, that would make librarians and booksellers criminally responsible for giving minors access to “harmful” books. The judge opined that the portions of the law to be blocked were "too vague to be understood and implemented effectively" and that, if enacted, would "permit, if not encourage, library committees and local governmental bodies to make censorship decisions based on content or viewpoint, which would violate the First Amendment." The decision came in response to a suit filed in early June by eighteen plaintiffs, including the [Central Arkansas Library System]( and an array of library, publishing, author, bookseller, and advocacy groups, including the [Freedom to Read Foundation](, the [Association of American Publishers](, the [American Booksellers Association](, the [Authors Guild,]( the [Comic Book Legal Defense Fund](, and [Democracy Forward.]( In other news, [PEN America]( recently released their [Booklash Report](, which examines growing levels of censorial activity from within the publishing industry itself. The report [warns against a culture of cancellation](, in which response to public outrage is “imposing new moral litmus tests on books and authors; chilling literary expression; and fueling a dangerous trend of self-censorship that’s shrinking writers’ creative freedom and imagination.” Book World News: Awards Awards and Prizes. The winners of the 2023 [Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards](Award) have [been announced](, with [Kate Beaton]( and [Sana Takeda]( both taking home trophies in two categories. Beaton won in the Best Graphic Memoir and Best Writer/Artist categories for her [Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands](, while Takeda won the Best Painter/Multimedia Artist trophy, and shared the Best Graphic Album trophy with author [Marjorie M. Liu]( for [The Night Eaters: She Eats the Night](. [Zoe Thorogood]( won the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award for the memoir [It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth](, while the biggest winner of the night was [DC Comics](, which took home eight awards. For a complete list of winners, see [this announcement](. In Australia, [Shankari Chandran]( has been [announced as the winner]( of the 2023 [Miles Franklin Literary Award](20Franklin%20Literary%20Award) for her [Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens](. The award recognizes a novel of great literary merit, one which depicts “​​Australian life in any of its phases.” In their joint statement, the judges said that Chandran’s book “treads carefully on contested historical claims, reminding us that horrors forgotten are horrors bound to be repeated, and that the reclamation and retelling of history cannot be undertaken without listening to the story-tellers amongst us.” In further news from down under, [Ann-Marie Priest]( has [been announced as the winner]( of Australia’s 2023 [National Biography Award](20Biography%20Award) for her [My Tongue Is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood](. The judges praised her “scholarship and analysis,” “perceptive understanding of an elusive subject” and “creative approach,” with [Suzanne Falkiner]( stating that “Ann-Marie Priest has captured completely the sprite-like nature of one of Australia’s finest poets… Through these pages, the great poet feels so alive.” In Germany, [Masha Gessen]( has [been named as the winner]( of the 2023 [Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thinking](, named in honor of philosopher [Hannah Arendt](, whose work explored issues such as power and evil, and addressed totalitarian political systems. The award is given out to authors whose writing “brings Arendtian questions to the present,” and “ultimately contribute to strengthening the political agency of citizens.” Gessen was praised by the judges for her “reports on power games and totalitarian tendencies as well as civil disobedience and the love of freedom. Masha Gessen writes about the arduous everyday life, cultural conflicts and the struggle for democratic self-determination.” The [Booker Prize Longlist](Prize+Longlist) for 2023 [has been revealed](, with thirteen books in the running for the UK’s most prestigious literary award. They include: [A Spell of Good Things]( by [Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀](, [Old God’s Time]( by [Sebastian Barry](, [Study for Obedience]( by [Sarah Bernstein](, [If I Survive You]( by [Jonathan Escoffery](, [How to Build a Boat]( by [Elaine Feeney](, [This Other Eden]( by [Paul Harding](, [Pearl]( by [Siân Hughes](, [All the Little Bird-Hearts]( by [Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow](, [Prophet Song]( by [Paul Lynch](, [In Ascension]( by [Martin MacInnes](, [Western Lane]( by [Chetna Maroo](, [The Bee Sting]( by [Paul Murray]( and [The House of Doors]( by [Tan Twan Eng](. The winners of this year’s [James Tait Black Memorial Prize](Tait+Black+Memorial+Prize), awarded annually by the University of Edinburgh, [have been announced](. In the Fiction category [Barbara Kingsolver]( has won for her [Demon Copperhead](, which was described by judge [Benjamin Bateman]( as “a captivating piece of realist literature which is exceptional across all of the dimensions we look for.” [Darryl Pinckney]( has won in the Biography category for his [Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-seventh Street, Manhattan](, described by judge Simon Cooke as “thoroughly absorbing: a vivid, nuanced, and moving tribute to Elizabeth Hardwick, a fascinating portrait of a place, time, and milieu, and a profound meditation on memory, friendship, and the literary life." [Toya Wolfe]( has been [named as the winner]( of the 2023 Pattis Family Foundation’s [Chicago Book Award](Book+Award) for her debut novel, [Last Summer on State Street](, which was praised by jury member Daniel Greene as “an endearing, memorable, and page-turning work with broad appeal and deep Chicago heart,” that offers “a compelling story of friendship, community, and home.” The 2023 [Arthur C. Clarke Award](C.+Clarke+Award), presented annually to the best UK science fiction novel of the year, [has been given]( to British author [Ned Beauman]( for his novel, [Venomous Lumpsucker](. Judges chair [Andrew M. Butler]( described Beauman’s novel as a “biting satire, twisted, dark and radical, but remarkably accessible, endlessly inventive and hilarious.” The winner of the 2023 [Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award](20Old%20Peculier%20Prize) has [been announced](~:text=M.W.%20Craven%20has%20been%20announced,Washington%20Poe.) as [M.W. Craven](, who won for [The Botanist](, the fifth entry in the [Washington Poe]( series. The 2023 winners of the [New Zealand Awards for Children & Young Adults](20Zealand%20Post%20Children's%20Book%20Awards) have [recently been announced]( in multiple categories. The winner of the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year was [Te Wehenga: The Separation of Ranginui and Papatūānuku](, written and illustrated by [Mat Tait](. Tait’s book also won the Elsie Locke Award for Non-Fiction. The winner of the Picture Book Award was [Duck Goes Meow](, written by [Juliette MacIver]( and illustrated by [Carla Martell](, while the winner of the Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction was [Below](, by [David Hill](. The winner of the Young Adult Fiction Award was [Iris and Me]( by [Philippa Werry](, while the winner of the Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award for Te Roa Māori was [Kua WhetÅ«rangitia a Koro](, written by [Brianne Te Paa](, illustrated by[Story Hemi-Morehouse](. The winner of the Russell Clark Award for illustration was [A Portrait of Leonardo]( by [Donovan Bixley](, while the winner of the NZSA Best First Book Award was [The Lighthouse Princess](, by [Susan Wardell](, illustrated by [Rose Northey](. Additional Award News This Month: Winners. [The Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellows]( | [The Cheshire Novel Prize]( | [The Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction]( | [The Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize]( | [The Furphy Literary Award]( | [The Michael Gifkins Prize]( | [The RNA Joan Hessayon Award for New Writers]( | [The RWA Ruby Awards]( | [The TikTok Book Awards UK & Ireland]( | [The Ukrainian Literature in Translation Prize]( | [The White Review Poet’s Prize]( Shortlists / Finalists. [The Alice Award]( | [The British Fantasy Awards]( | [The BücherFrauen-Literaturpreis (Book Women Prize)]( | [The Davitt Awards]( | [The Forward Prizes for Poetry]( | [The Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award]( | [The James Cropper Wainwright Prize]( | [The Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction]( | [The Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award]( | [The Ngaio Marsh Awards]( | [The Ned Kelly Awards]( | [The NSW Premier’s History Awards]( | [The Nota Bene Prize]( | [The PANZ Book Design Awards]( | [The Queensland Literary Awards]( Longlists. [The Business Book of the Year]( | [The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize]( | [The Crooks Corner Book Prize]( | [The Cundill History Prize]( | [The Laurel Prize]( | [The Nib Literary Award]( | [The Petrona Award]( | [The Polari Prize]( | [The Toronto Book Awards]( Other Book World News Bookselling and Publishing The copyright case brought by four major publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House) in 2020 against the [Internet Archive]( in response to their program to lend out digital copies of paper books in their collection—previously reported on in the [September 2022]( [March 2023]( and [April 2023]( issues of State of the Thing—has reached a resolution of sorts, as the Internet Archive and the publishers [have negotiated an agreement](, submitted to Judge John G. Koeltl last week, and quickly approved. The agreement includes a permanent injunction that would prevent the Internet Archive from lending out unauthorized scans of in-copyright, commercially available works. In a surprise twist however, Judge Koeltl [limited the scope of the injunction]( to those titles which were commercially available in digital editions, as all of the books presented in the case fell into that category. In his four-page order, the judge noted that this factor—the availability of digital editions from the publisher— “was relevant to the court's conclusion that Internet Archive was liable for copyright infringement. In particular, the court's fourth-factor analysis emphasized the ‘thriving e-book licensing market for libraries’ and concluded that Internet Archive ‘supplants the publishers' place in this market’ by ‘bring[ing] to the marketplace a competing substitute for library e-book editions of the works in suit’.” The decision marks the conclusion of this phase of the case, but [recent statements from the Internet Archive]( indicate that they plan to appeal. Another big story in the book world—the question of who would eventually be allowed to purchase publisher [Simon & Schuster](—has also come to a conclusion recently. As reported in our [August 2022]( [September 2022]( and [November 2022]( issues of State of the Thing, the initial proposed purchase of S&S by [Penguin Random House]( was successfully blocked by the US Department of Justice, in an antitrust case. It has now emerged that private equity firm [KKR will be purchasing S&S]( from Paramount Global for $1.62 billion. Library and Literary News The [Lunar Codex](, a collection of 30,000 works of art, literature, film and music, is currently being digitized on memory cards and NanoFiche, and [will soon be headed to the moon](. Spearheaded by Canadian physicist and art collector Samuel Paralta, the codex will consist of four capsules, and will contain works from 158 countries. In a [story posted on the project’s website](, Paralta writes “Some have called the Lunar Codex a "time machine to the future." Others have called it the "ultimate anthology," and referred to it as a "museum on the Moon." At its essence, the Lunar Codex is a set of time capsules, a message-in-a-bottle to future generations.” The [Brooklyn Public Library]( saw more than a [1000% increase in library card registrations]( in the final two weeks of July, following a [retrospective exhibit]( on the work of rapper [Jay-Z](, and the creation of [thirteen limited-edition library cards]( featuring artwork from his albums. Fans of the artist have been rushing, not just to register at the library for the first time, but to amass all thirteen cards. In less positive library news, the superintendent of the Houston Independent School District—the largest school district in the state of Texas—[has come under fire recently]( for his plan to eliminate librarians and library specialists in at least 28 schools, and convert school libraries into multi-use spaces where, among other things, student disciplinary issues can be addressed. Former US President [Barack Obama]( released his much-anticipated summer reading list on [Twitter]( and [Instagram]( in late July, highlighting titles he has enjoyed, including [Poverty, by America]( by [Matthew Desmond](, [Small Mercies]( by [Dennis Lehane](, [King: A Life]( by [Jonathan Eig](, [Hello Beautiful]( by[Ann Napolitano](, [All the Sinners Bleed]( by [S.A. Cosby](, [Birnam Wood]( by [Eleanor Catton](, [What Napoleon Could Not Do]( by [DK Nnuro](, [The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder]( by [David Grann](, and [Blue Hour]( by [Tiffany Clarke Harrison](. TinyCat [TinyCat]( is the online catalog for small libraries, created by LibraryThing. It turns your existing LibraryThing account into a simple, professional, web-based catalog. Follow [@TinyCat_Lib]( on Twitter and [tinycat_lib](tinycat_lib) on Threads for the latest TinyCat news, and be sure to check out [LibraryThing’s Youtube channel]( for a range of TinyCat tutorials. of the Month. TinyCat’s featured library this past month was the[Soualibra Library](, run by the wonderful non-profit,[Les Fruits de Mer](, which is focused on educating the public about all things St. Martin. (St. Martin being the northern French side of the Caribbean island shared with its southern Dutch counterpart, Sint Maarten). The association's co-founder and volunteer, Mark, sat down with Kristi this past month to answer her questions about the organization and [their library](. Q. Who are you, and what is your mission—your “raison d’être”?: Les Fruits de Mer is a non-profit association based on the island of St. Martin. Our mission is to provide education on local nature, heritage and culture. We have a free museum, [Amuseum Naturalis](. We also publish books about local subjects. One of our goals is to give a book to every student on the island every year they are in school. To do this, we’ve been developing books for all ages on a range of local subjects. Last year we gave away over 7,500 books. All our books are also available as free downloads. You can find the [full interview on our blog](. TinyCat Webinars. To learn more about TinyCat, join Kristi for a live demo Wednesdays at 1pm Eastern. Webinars are now on Zoom, so make sure to use our new [link to attend](. You can also check out our playlists of Tiny Tutorials on [LibraryThing's YouTube channel](, where Kristi walks you through various features of TinyCat in 30 seconds or less. If you'd like to schedule a webinar at another time or if you have other questions about TinyCat, you can reach Kristi at tinycat@librarything.com. Wait, That's It? That's all I have for the Thing this month! If you have any suggestions, or ideas for improving State of the Thing, please reach out to me at abigailadams@librarything.com. Past issues of State of the Thing are available in our [SOTT Archive](. Happy reading, Abigail PS: If you'd rather receive a plain-text version, [edit your email preferences](. You can also read it [online](. This message was sent to {NAME}. Click to [edit your email preferences]( or [unsubscribe from future emails](.