This Week in Publishing: Subway Reads and the Nommo Awards

This week in science fiction/fantasy (and related subjects) publishing news… Subway Reads times ebooks to your commute; Google Doodle helps us see a childhood classic in a new way; Zachary Quinto + John Scalzi forever; and Ursula K. Le Guin makes a surprising choice about which of her books she would like a rare honor bestowed upon.

• With Subway Reads, Penguin Random House is making the morning commute a bit more bearable for New Yorkers: delivering free ebook novellas, short stories, and excerpts timed to how much time between your home and work—about page a minute, delays not included. But if you want to get on this train, you’ve got only eight weeks.
• The African Speculative Fiction Society has released more information about the inaugural Nommo Awards, highlighting the best in African speculative fiction.

• John Scalzi has a new novella coming out through Audible: The Dispatcher, a sci-fi thriller set in a future where people who get murdered come back to life, and kidnapping could lead to a fate worse than death. Bonus: Zachary Quinto is narrating the audiobook.
• In an effort to provide the world with more science fiction stories based in Islamic cultures, Islam and Science Fiction has released Islamicates: Volume I, an anthology containing twelve stories about fate, algorithms, time travel, calligraphy, and divine inspiration.

• Ursula K. Le Guin will receive the rare honor of being inducted into the Library of America during her lifetime. At Le Guin’s request, her lesser-known work The Complete Orsinia (rather than the Earthsea series or The Left Hand of Darkness) will be published September 6 as Library of America Vol. 281.
• Disney is in discussions to develop a live-action adaptation of Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach, with Nick Hornby adapting the screenplay and Sam Mendes directing.
• Here’s an interesting new storytelling format: the graphic novella! It’s fitting that an early example of this form is Image Comics’ One Week in the Library, about seven days trapped in a magical library, expressed through comics, infographics, and more.

• Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi got authors to share their dream SFF adaptations: Cassandra Rose Clarke wants to see Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to  Small, Angry Planet as a multimedia book/TV/RPG empire; Foz Meadows envisions N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance trilogy as an anime; and more.
• Jeff VanderMeer, author of the Southern Reach trilogy, has been appointed the 2016-17 Trias Writer-in-Residence for Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Take a peek at the extensive reading list for his themed modules, which will help writers figure out if their strengths lie more in, say, Mimicry or Secrets.

• Today’s Google Doodle got literary! To celebrate the 37th anniversary of The Neverending Story‘s publication, Google commissioned five illustrations from artist Sophie Diao, featuring key scenes from Michael Ende’s 1979 novel.