Book News Roundup: The most uninviting library in Seattle?

  • Meghan Walker at MyBallard reports that the Ballard branch of the Seattle Public Library has "installed metal bars" around the library to discourage homeless people from loitering. Walker quotes Kip Roberson, the library's manager, as saying the changes were made in "an effort to make the space around the library inviting to everyone.” Uh...guess homeless people don't count as "everyone" in the library's eyes?

  • Susan Fried at the South Seattle Emerald has a great report back from this year's edition of the Seattle Urban Book Expo.

  • Seattle comics publisher Fantagraphics is running a big Back to School sale, meaning you can stock up on Peanuts books at a big discount.

  • As part of their annual micro-chapbook series, Ghost City Press is offering All Spells Are Strong Here by Catherine Garbinsky, a collection of poems created out of erasures from the work of Ursula K. Le Guin.

I’d always wanted to do a space opera type story with alien life forms that have certain things in common with us and other things not. I wanted a space to explore very big questions in an epic comic book format, questions about the difference between faith and religion, about the way in which the things that we buy come to define who we are. This is very much a story that I think – even though it’s set in a galaxy far, far away – people will be able to relate to on a lot of levels, because it does tie into a lot of the things that we’re talking about right now in the wider culture.
  • The Verge is making a special "1.5 edition" of writer Sarah Jeong's 2015 book about online harassment, The Internet of Garbage, available for free. Jeong, who formerly wrote for The Verge, was recently hired as an editorial writer for the New York Times. After that announcement was made, she immediately was the target of a disingenuous backlash campaign from right-wing trolls.