Footnotes, November 2019: Book links from around the web

At The Reading List, we’re trainspotters when it comes to interesting book links, and here are a number that caught our eye over the last month. Browse and enjoy!

First up, about that edition of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 that you can only read by holding a flame closely to its pages? Watch a video here, and get pre-order details here.
Next, author Fred Khumalo did something rather extraordinary to promote his new novel, The Longest Walk: he replicated the journey of 7000 Zulus who walked from Johannesburg to Ladysmith in 1899 (it took ten days), in his own two shoes – and now Fred’s walk is going to be an annual event!
Here’s a take by Ferial Haffajee on black tax, inspired by Niq Mhlongo’s book of the same name, that will get you thinking.
Over at Daily Maverick, Mark Heywood reviews Shadow of Liberation by Vishnu Padayachee and Robert van Niekerk; Amy Heydenrych has a column on Elizabeth Day’s new book, How to Fail; and there’s a cracking excerpt of Alide Dasnois and Chris Whitfield’s Iqbal Survé takedown, Paper Tiger.
The Guardian has excerpts of Meghan Daum’s new book, The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through The New Culture Wars, and David Mitchell’s one, Dishonesty Is the Second-Best Policy. Both are excellent – click, click!
Children’s literature and open publishing startup Book Dash has made the news twice in the space of a few weeks: the organisation has been selected as one of 14 award-winners for the 2019 Community Chest Impumelelo Social Innovations Awards; and it received a gong at the Open Publishing Awards. Congratulations to the team!
Where literary prizes be, there be controversy – it seems a rule. Sam Leith is very upset that the Booker Prize named two winners this year, Bernardine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood; and Johannes Anyuru laments the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Slobodan Milošević sympathiser Peter Handke.
Finally, here’s a 20 questions-style interview with Patti Smith on her reading habits. We love Patti. Sigh.