Welcome to Bookchat! Where you can talk about anything; books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
I know Twitter/X generates grumbling among many here at Daily Kos, But I personally still find it useful even with Elon Musk’s tampering. Many complain about the rampant hate and misinformation to be found there, but the reality for me is my feed is almost completely liberal politics, news, journalism; strong support of Kamala Harris and strong attacks on Donald trump. Black Twitter remains alive and thriving, and much good info comes from there.
And the book world remains strong on the site. In my book promotion posts for my Literate Lizard Online Bookstore, I always seek out the authors, illustrators and publishers, and tag them in my posts if they are on Twitter. I would say well over half the authors I’ve featured still have an active presence there, and many interact with their fans. (**SHAMELESS PLUG: using the coupon code DAILYKOS at The Literate Lizard gets you a 15% discount on your order!**)
And many of them are strong supporters of Kamala Harris and ferocious opponents of Donald Trump. As we speed towards the election less than a week away, I thought I would feature a sampling. If you know of others, please bring them into the comments.
Let’s begin with award-winning crime novelist Don Winslow, who famously announced that after the completion of his latest novel, City in Ruins (the conclusion to his Danny Ryan trilogy, which includes City on Fire and City of Dreams), he planned to retire from writing and devote himself to the defeat of Donald Trump. City in Ruins came out last April, and Winslow has been true to his word. Always outspoken politically, he has spent this year speaking out against Trump and in favor of Biden and then Harris, and producing several videos which have garnered millions of views. Here are his two most recent:
He posts and reposts frequently every day. Here is one of his retweets from Tuesday”
Lisa See, author of many novels, including Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and her recent Lady Tan's Circle of Women, is a prolific voice for Kamala Harris and against Republicans of all strips. She frequently will have a dozen or more posts a day, most political in this election time. Yesterday, her posts ranged from news about the sentencing of Paul Pelosi’s attacker to extolling Gwen Walz’s ginger snap recipe.
She reposted this tweet:
Horror novelist Stephen King has been a stalwart voice against Trump. He disappointed many, including myself, when he came out early in favor of Joe Biden leaving the race after his debate with Trump, but he is generally good.
Sometimes the authors you find posting are surprising. Anyone still have your tofu-stained copy of The Moosewood Cookbook and its many sequels by Molly Katzen? Check out her posts:
Or how about the travel guidebook writer Rick Steves:
Anne Lamott, revered by many writers for her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, and by readers for her many other books, is a prolific reposter. Here are some of her retweets from yesterday:
‘Southern Noir’ crime fiction writer S. A Cosby, most recently of All the Sinners Bleed, leans heavily into the racism Harris faces
Margaret Atwood, of course.
(I reviewed this book in my Nonfiction Views diary last night.)
Horror writer and award-winner Tananarive Due, most recently of The Reformatory, was one of the organizers of Scare Up the Vote, the recent online fundraiser for Kamala Harris put on by by horror writers. She posts often:
Jodi Picoult has been strong in the battle against book banning, and is all in for Kamala Harris:
Erik Larson:
Tara Dublin, author of The Sound Of Settling:
Mystery writer Charles Finch posted this declaration of his intention to step back from direct involvement on Twitter back in 2022, but he has remained a prolific retweeter. Below that tweet are a couple of his recent retweets:
Bram Stoker award-winning writer Cynthia Pelayo steps up:
Ellen Hopkins author of popular YA titles like Crank, and one of the most banned authors from school libraries:
And I’ll give Ellen Hopkins the last word, because I know this is what we’re all feeling. But WE’RE GONNA GET THIS DONE!
So what are you reading? What’s on your mind?
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