Eva Kelly Hall | Book Editor @AtxEva

@AlexAndBooks_

I’ll definitely be reading this one!

Cory Doctorow NO LONGER ON TWIT TER @doctorow

6 days ago

My next book is *The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI*, out next month. Pre-order it now, including as a DRM-free audiobook or ebook, at my Kickstarter, and help me continue to prove that DRM-free isn't just the *right* way to reach an audience, it's also the *best* way

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Someone’s stealing souls & the answers are buried in a book. Can a reluctant teen, a linguist & a town stand between dark and dawn? If you like YA supernatural mysteries, check out this new release by my award-winning client! #pageturner #murmurs RT if you’d fight for yr ppl.

Common Sense Media gave Grok an unacceptable rating for kids. From nonconsensual deepfakes to dangerous mental health advice, the risks are too high. Sign the petition urging X to implement safeguards to protect kids immediately: commonsense.quorum.us/campaign/16022…

Coming soon! She lost family and found a gift that might cost her everything. This is a story about grief, courage, and listening when no one else will. #supernatural #quietpower #murmurs

This is so important! Authors, make sure your copyright is REGISTERED! It’s not really enforceable otherwise. Anthropic Settlement: Did Your Publisher Fail to Register Your Copyright? - authorsguild.org/anthropic-sett…

A red velveteen box, a journal older than the Crusades & whispers that reveal the truth. On June 2, meet Tallulah, the girl who hears souls, in the latest book from award-winning author @shellie_f_richards. Share if you love eerie discoveries. #murmurs #SouthernGothic #mustread

I barely survived “telling writers they have to read is gatekeeping,” I don’t think I can live through “telling writers they have to write is gatekeeping”

Josh Daws @JoshDaws

4 weeks ago

💯A lot of AI hate is thinly veiled gatekeeping.

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While I will admit that I’ve never been a fun-in-the-sun girl, this one surprised me. Are we really playing mahjong in the pool now? Floating Mahjong Table for Pool, Double-Sided Waterproof Float Game Tray a.co/d/0c2n5yK2

I vividly remember feeling, as a toddler, that this book was written just for me, the year I was born. I’m not yet 90, but I am still a fan. The Story of Ferdinand Exhibition Opens at the Carle Museum shelf-awareness.com/theshelf/2026-…

Driving a horse to the vet this morning (the kind of work that can’t be carried out with AI), I serendipitously caught an interview with Cal Newport, author of Deep Work. I’ll put his link below. He was absolutely brilliant about why sitting down and reading works to keep us human. Reading isn’t a thing that we evolved as a survival strategy. It’s a learned behavior that links together parts of our brain that otherwise wouldn’t connect with each other. When we read for twenty or thirty minutes per day, we’re exercising and strengthening those connections. If we don’t read, those connections wither away. I read all the time for work—whenever I’m sitting down to write, I’m constantly referring to histories, biographies, monographs, and other works of scholarship. But I’ve been increasingly aware, over the past year, that this sort of pragmatic, goal-focused reading (which tends to be in shorter chunks) isn’t the same as sitting down and reading. Which is something that keeps falling off the to-do list. It isn’t, after all So for the past month, I’ve been putting “Read in the Library” on my to-do list. We recently moved all of the books from my parents’ offices into an upstairs room that now has two chairs, a table, a good light, and a cat that insists on sleeping there (that’s the library, pic for your reference). When I get to “Read in the Library” on the daily schedule, I go into the Library, sit in the chair that the cat’s not occupying, pull a blanket over me (the blanket seems to be important), and spend at least half an hour reading something that has nothing at all to do with anything I’m working on. I’ll list a few titles next week, if you’re interested. It’s been a sabbath of sorts, a recapturing of a joy that I remember from childhood (sinking into a book without having to USE it for anything), and an oasis in the middle of a work afternoon. I guess I’m just letting you know that even those of us who do word-work for a living have to continually re-start the deep work of reading. calnewport.com/deep-work-rule…

Umberto Eco, who owned 50,000 books, had this to say about home libraries: “It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones. “There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion. “If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the ‘medicine closet’ and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That’s why you should always have a nutrition choice! “Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity.”

Pew Research Center reports statistics & trends in reading and book sales. In their latest, they report that while ebooks & audiobooks have grown in popularity, Americans still read more print books than digital formats. Let’s face it: your Kindle doesn’t smell as nice as a book.

Good News: After 20 years of declining numbers, indie booksellers have come "roaring back." There are about 70% more bookstores now than there were in 2020. The American Booksellers Association membership has grown from 1,900 to 3,200.

HT, James Grissom. “I once told my wife I was going out to buy an envelope: ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘well, you’re not a poor man…why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?’ And so I pretended not to hear her and went out to get an envelope because I have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is…we’re here on Earth to fart around. Of course, the computers will do us out of that. But what the computer people don’t realise, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”—Kurt Vonnegut

ATX folks, if you’d rather support an independent bookstore in person (and who could blame you?), please support my friend at Lioness Books in Leander. Sarah is good people, and I know her store will be a tremendous boon to the Leander community.

Support Indie Bookstores and Indie Authors 📚 To keep the good Indie Bookstore Day vibes going, there’s free shipping all weekend. Bookshop.org/shop/atxeva By supporting me and my indie authors, you’re choosing a bright, human future and more great reads.

This is so true!

Independent Bookstore Day is April 25! If you love the allure of indie bookstores as much as I do, then Indie Bookstore Day is for you. By shopping my store on Bookshop.org, you help me keep helping indie authors tell their stories. bookshop.org/shop/atxeva

Shakespeare mind cloud created by Allysa Gray.