Not even Little Free Libraries are safe from book bans.

By James Folta

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October 8, 2024, 12:15pm

Book bans are far too common these days, and a recent development has added a new and disturbing wrinkle: right-wing censors in Utah have set their sights on Little Free Libraries.

Typically these censorship efforts have focused on public libraries and schools, where Republicans are at least abusing a legitimate oversight role. But this latest attack on books is targeting Little Free Libraries, which are privately run on private property.

“Don’t tread on me” only applies to guns, I suppose. When it comes to books, tread away.

Last week, Salt Lake City’s Democratic State Representative Sahara Hayes posted a video on Instagram announcing that she was marking Banned Books Week by sharing some books that Utah had banned from public schools, by putting the books in Little Free Libraries. The trolls quickly responded, as covered on Axios and Utah’s KUTV, accusing the Representative of violating a Utah law against distributing certain books in schools.

In fact, the books Rep. Hayes picked came from the list of books now banned by that same law. All but one of the 13 banned books are by women, and six of them are by Sarah J. Maas — Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey and Craig Thompson’s graphic novel Blankets also made the list. These selections feel more arbitrary than usual, beyond the sadly typical targeting of non-normative voices. In a further twist of the knife, Utah’s law requires school libraries to throw out the books — they can’t be sold or given away.

It remains to be seen if Utah’s right-wingers will be successful in prosecuting Representative Hayes, but Utah’s Republicans are going further than I’ve seen before. When right-wing book bans are moving into private libraries, I have to wonder if there’s a limit for these censors.

All the books that (probably) radicalized Lindsay Weir.

By Brittany Allen

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October 8, 2024, 11:36am

Last week, the world’s most perfect television show celebrated its 25th anniversary. Under-loved on its initial release, Freaks and Geeks now enjoys one of the smugger lost cause fan clubs. We are legion, us torch-holders for Lindsay and Sam.

As any one of those smug fans will tell you, Freaks and Geeks is a perfect show because of its extraordinary fidelity to the wonder years. Because our hero Lindsay, as played by Linda Cardellini, distills the social crisis that is finding yourself into a highly recognizable either/or proposition. To freak, or to geek?

I lost sleep wondering what happened to my favorite fictional avatar after this show ended and Lindsay hit the road with the Grateful Dead. Who might she have become, if the short-sighted NBC execs had followed her into senior year? Which path would she have ultimately selected? What might she have seen, or surrendered? What might she have read?

Here are some guesses, on the latter.

Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

Lindsay’s crisis, like Isabel Archer’s, is one of choice paralysis. Should she ride with the Mathletes to academic victory, or follow the Dead to Frisco? Does she feel more herself among the searching, institutional-suspicious “freaks,” or the idealistic ex-hippies like Mr. Rosso? Just like Ms. Archer, she’ll find inaction is its own choice.

Or, maybe she’ll find direction. Around some corner where it’s been waiting to find her…

Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities

Assuming Lindsay does eventually take that full ride to U-Michigan and fall in with the ashes of the SDS, her nascent class consciousness might find a nudge in this ground-breaking investigation of American inequality. Many things she hated about high-school would be demystified in Kozol’s deep dive into all that’s wrong with public education.

Doris Lessing, Martha Quest

In episode ten (“The Diary”), the Weirs get a glimpse of Lindsay’s suburban disenchantment after reading her diary. In its pages, she diagnoses her sweet suburban parents as “the most repressed people on the face of the entire earth.”

The first book in this tetralogy by the Nobel-prize winner follows a young woman who refutes a genteel existence and falls in with adventurous Communists in a fictional British colony. Lessing, like Lindsay, is a brainy woman rattling the bars of a gilded cage.

Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow

I see Lindsay reading a lot of tetralogies, for some reason. I think the first book in this controversial, stirring series would ignite Lindsay’s suspicions re: American empire and Western excess. But before that, I think Kiyoaki, our hero, would appeal to her as another person torn between worlds and modes of self-expression.

The tortured relationships at the heart of this novel are also rendered with all the drama and pain of high-school love. (“We’ve Got Spirit,” anyone?)

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

Of course Lindsay’s a Dostoevsky bro. She’s contrarian, she’s isolated, and she’s flirting with existentialism. She’s gonna love all the Russians. She’ll gobble up Gogol and Kafka and Bulgakov. And when Elif Batuman writes another Idiot in 2017, Lindsay’s whole book club will see themselves in Selin. But I’m getting ahead of my astral projection.

As a polyphonic exploration of human morality, this one will appeal to Lindsay’s roving spirit. And the spiritual stuff will help with that looming loss-of-faith crisis.

Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed

If those dinner table debates with Harold “Everyone’s a Democrat until they get a little change in their pocket” Weir are anything to go by, Lindsay is also headed for a class consciousness raising. And I’d bet that rebellion takes the form of a hard look at income inequality, given how nuanced the show was on parental wealth.

Barbara Ehrenreich’s undercover expose of making ends meet on minimum wage wasn’t published until 2001, so our girl would have had to wait for this one. But I can imagine a parallel universe where Ms. Weir grows up to be a socially minded journalist prone to stunt reporting.

Ellen Willis, Beginning to See the Light: Pieces of a Decade

Eventually, our dear Deadhead is bound to discover certain annoying things about the rock n’ rollers she loves. And who better to contextualize a complex fandom for The Who then Ellen Willis? This first collection from the brilliant essayist and rock critic engages Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, and Herbert Marcuse with a loving but scrupulous eye.

Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch 

We know from glimpses of Ms. Weir’s Spanish class that she’s close to fluent in the language. We also know that she appreciated Kerouac’s experimental amble, but found the prose in On the Road tedious. I think another experimental novel—one with a savvier structure and some soul-stirring lines—is in the offing.

This knotty, build-your-own-blow-torch of a book inhabits a fraying consciousness. And like Lindsay in 1980, it asks big questions about what it means to make meaning of, well, anything.

Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States

Originally published in 1980, i.e. Lindsay’s junior year, this ur-text for Fussy Nascent Lefties is already on her shelves. Let’s be honest. Mr. Rosso gave her a copy, as a “Congratulations on getting into the academic summit!” gift.

She’ll read it in the van between Dead engagements and periodically wake a sleeping Kim with her gasps.

Octavia Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories

Lindsay’s grip on gender theory was way ahead of its time. (Remember her jibe in episode five? “Men get periods, too. It has to do with your body tides.”) This sci-fi collection, chock full of eerie parables from and for a craven 80s, would totally blow her mind. Especially the titular story, which imagines a world where men give birth.

This one could also make a meaningful book club bridge between the Weir children. Sam would stay for the world-building, while Lindsay can snack on the metaphors.

Here are the bookies’ odds for the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature.

By Emily Temple

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October 8, 2024, 11:28am

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced this Thursday, October 10. Who will win? As ever, no one knows. But everyone likes to guess…and bet. And because money talks, the betting odds can tell you a lot. Or a little. Or, something, anyway!

To figure out where to put my (extremely metaphorical) money this year, I consulted Ladbrokes, the UK’s premiere (?) betting outlet, which offers an extensive list of favorites, including many old hats and a few new ones.

Can Xue tops the list for the second year in a row. Is this her year? (I wouldn’t be surprised—last year, I predicted that she would win in 2024.) Australian novelist Gerald Murnane is in second place. Is it his year? After all, last year he was third, and in second place was Jon Fosse, who won. So it only follows. Maybe, maybe. Murakami is hanging around as always; César Aira is in the mix; the Greek writer Ersi Sotiropoulos makes a surprise appearance. Margaret Atwood has rather come up in the world since last year, when her odds were 39/1. Robert Coover is on the list, though very sadly, now ineligible. J.K. Rowling is in the insult slot, which made me laugh.

Anyway, one of these writers (or possibly another person altogether) will win 11 million Swedish krona (almost a million US dollars). See the full Ladbrokes list below, and place your bets.

Here are the odds as of this writing:

Can Xue – 10/1
Gerald Murnane – 12/1
Haruki Murakami– 14/1
César Aira – 16/1
Ersi Sotiropoulos – 16/1
Margaret Atwood – 16/1
Thomas Pynchon – 16/1
Anne Carson  – 20/1
Bushra al-Maqtari – 20/1
Carl Frode Tiller – 20/1
Norbert Gstrein – 20/1
Pierre Michon – 20/1
Ali Ahmad Said Esber – 25/1
Dag Solstad – 25/1
Don DeLillo – 25/1
Ludmila Ulitskaja – 25/1
László Krasznahorkai  – 25/1
Mieko Kanai – 25/1
Mircea Cărtărescu – 25/1
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o – 25/1
Peter Nadas – 25/1
Salman Rushdie – 25/1
Karl Ove Knausgaard – 28/1
Leslie Marmon Silko – 28/1
Mia Couto – 28/1
Michel Houellebecq – 28/1
William T. Vollmann – 28/1
Alexis Wright – SUSP
Ananda Devi – 33/1
Andrey Kurkov – 33/1
António Lobo Antunes – 33/1
Colson Whitehead – 33/1
David Grossman – 33/1
Duong Thu Huong – 33/1
Edmund White – 33/1
Emmanuel Carrère – 33/1
Enrique Vila-Matas – 33/1
Garielle Lutz – 33/1
Hamid Ismailov – 33/1
Han Kang – 33/1
Homero Aridjis – 33/1
Hwang Sok-yong – 33/1
Hélène Cixous – 33/1
Ivan Klíma – 33/1
Jamaica Kincaid – 33/1
Joy Harjo – 33/1
Joyce Carol Oates – 33/1
Mahmoud Dowlatabadi – 33/1
Marie NDiaye – 33/1
Marilynne Robinson – 33/1
Martha Nussbaum – 33/1
Nuruddin Farah – 33/1
Robert Coover – 33/1
Robert Macfarlane – 33/1
Ryszard Krynicki – 33/1
Salim Barakat – 33/1
Scholastique Mukasonga – 33/1
Sebastian Barry – 33/1
Tahar Ben Jelloun – 33/1
Yan Lianke – 33/1
Amitav Ghosh – 40/1
Ivan Vladislavic – 40/1
Linton Kwesi Johnson – 40/1
Louise Erdrich – 40/1
Patricia Grace – 40/1
Paulina Chiziane – 40/1
Vladimir Sorokin – 40/1
Wendell Berry – 40/1
Xiaolu Guo – 40/1
Ali Smith – 50/1
Botho Strauss – 50/1
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – 50/1
Claudio Magris – 50/1
David Peace – 50/1
Ko Un – 50/1
Murray Bail – 50/1
Stephen King – 50/1
Yoko Tawada – 50/1
Yu Hua – 50/1
Zoe Wicomb – 50/1
J.K. Rowling – 66/1

Margaret Atwood’s poems! Spamalot! Marie Curie! 25 new books out today.

By Gabrielle Bellot

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October 8, 2024, 4:06am

October is moving briskly along. If it’s all moving a bit too quickly, and you need to slow down for a bit with a brilliant new book, you’re in luck. Below, you’ll find twenty-five exciting, distinctive works out today in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.

There’s anticipated new fiction from John Edgar Wideman, Mark Haber, Maame Blue, GauZ’, Camilla Grudova, and more; poetic experiments by Margaret Atwood, Jenny George, and Pam Rehm; nonfiction exploring the legacies of Marie Curie, John Lewis, Shirley Chisholm, and others; and books taking a deep dive into essential short nonfiction, the design history of the car, the making of Spamalot, Yellowstone’s paradigm-shifting designation as a then-new idea, a national park; and more.

It’s an excellent day for new things to read. I hope you’ll add some, or many, of these to your lists and piles!

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John Edgar Wideman, Slaveroad
(Scribner)

“Long heralded as one of literature’s preeminent voices….His latest blends memoir, fiction, and history to describe what he calls the ‘slaveroad,’ a psychological and geographical artery that extends from Africa to the Global North; from the sixteenth century to the present day; and from his own family’s travails to a wider consideration of the African American experience…offers a fresh perspective of slavery’s impact and a confirmation of Wideman’s exalted status in American letters.”
–New York Magazine

Alan Hollinghurst, Our Evenings
(Random House)

“This is an extraordinary novel from Booker Prize winner Hollinghurst, memorably conceived, beautifully executed, and a gift to lovers of serious literary fiction. Every aspect is flawless: complex, multidimensional characters, subtle treatment of emotions, beautiful writing, a vividly realized theatrical setting, and more.”
–Booklist

Maame Blue, The Rest of You
(Amistad Press)

“Blue’s evocative prose and keen insights make for a compelling read, inviting reflection on the nature of trauma and the quest for identity. This powerful story affirms Blue’s place as a significant voice in contemporary literature.”
–Booklist

Kenneth C. Davis, The World in Books: 52 Works of Great Short Nonfiction
(Scribner)

“In his accessible, well-written, and unanticipatedly humorous The World in Books, Kenneth C. Davis takes readers on a journey that highlights fifty-two short yet provocative works of non-fiction. Highlight[s] both traditional favorites and contemporary classics….His poignant ‘Introduction’ sets the stage for…why books like these matter in contemporary times, which makes this collection all the more relevant. Highly recommended for every person who treasures the freedom to read.”
–J. Michael Butler

Witold Rybczynski, The Driving Machine: A Design History of the Car
(Norton)

“With exuberant insight, Rybczynski offers an intriguing, cross-continental history of the evolution of automobile design over a hundred and fifty years….The lively charm of this accessible, enjoyably mapped-out narrative is further enriched by [his] well-crafted drawings of referenced cars….Automotive enthusiasts and general readers alike will be equally enthralled.”
–Shelf Awareness

Randy Rainbow, Low-Hanging Fruit: Sparkling Whines, Champagne Problems, and Pressing Issues from My Gay Agenda
(St. Martin’s Press)

“Side-splitting….Rainbow’s saucy takes on the maladies of modern life position him as a kind of millennial Larry David, and the wry humor lives up to that comparison. This will leave readers with a smile.”
–Publishers Weekly

Margaret Atwood, Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems: 1961 – 2023
(Knopf)

“Tracing the legacy of Margaret Atwood…Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems, 1961–2023 assembles Atwood’s most vital poems in one essential volume. In pieces that are at once brilliant, beautiful, and hyper-imagined, Atwood gives voice to remarkably drawn characters—mythological figures, animals, and everyday people—all of whom have something to say about what it means to live in a world as strange as our own.”
–CBC

Jenny George, After Image
(Copper Canyon Press)

“George’s debut collection, The Dream of Reason, remains one of the more overlooked poetry projects of the past decade, a gently arcadian head nod toward Louise Glück….This sophomore effort is a more resolutely gutting affair, its title referring to the grief that clouds every experience in the aftermath of loss, the collection rife with any number of absolutely pummeling expressions of how such pain manifests….emotionally devastating and formally dynamic.”
–Library Journal

Pam Rehm, Inner Verses
(Wave Books)

“Pam Rehm…mysteriously resets the balance between outer and inner weather, the abstract and the concrete. Her poetry saints may include both the William Carlos Williams of Spring and All and Robert Creeley, whose off-kilter lines keep us surprised. In her matter-of-fact meditativeness she has something in common with James Schuyler.”
–Angela Ball

Mark Haber, Lesser Ruins
(Coffee House Press)

“In Lesser Ruins, Haber transforms the private idiosyncrasies of grief into a novel of great vitality. Haber has a tremendous talent for revealing the forms of self-sabotage particular to academia but also forms of it found everywhere, the lesser ruins that humans have been making for themselves and others for millennia. I relished the complexity and understated humor of this impeccably constructed and wondrous novel.”
–Idra Novey

GauZ’, Comrade Papa (trans. Frank Wynne)
(Biblioasis)

“A funny, ebullient, often chaotic tale of French colonial exploitation of Ivory Coast…author GauZ’ was shortlisted for the International Booker prize for his [first] novel Standing Heavy. Comrade Papa is even better.”
–John Self

Luis Jaramillo, The Witches of El Paso
(Atria/Primera Sueno Press)

“Jaramillo’s debut novel strikingly portrays a family’s unrelenting love and survival across borders, generations, and adversity with vivid descriptions of El Paso, Juarez, and the supernatural. Fans of Isabel Cañas, Zoraida Córdova, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia who enjoy historical fiction and subtle fantasy will devour this book.”
–Booklist

Rae Garringer, Country Queers: A Love Letter
(Haymarket)

“For over eleven years, writer and oral historian Rae Garringer has been thoughtfully listening to and documenting the experiences of queer people living in rural America, and now they have gathered these remarkable stories….Country Queers is a tender, fierce, and inspiring love letter to a population that is too often made invisible. Garringer serves as a generous and attentive guide, shining a light on stories of queer joy, courage, and fierce resistance. An important and necessary book.”
–Carter Sickels

Eric Idle, The Spamalot Diaries
(Crown Publishing Group)

“Idle provides a rollicking account of the making of his Broadway musical Spamalot…[and] an irresistible and unfiltered ode to the art of live theater. Fans will love this tantalizing glimpse behind the curtain.”
–Publishers Weekly

Dava Sobel, The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science
(Atlantic Monthly Press)

“Paints a human portrait not of an isolated genius, but of a woman who existed in and built scientific community…Sobel analyzes her subject with care and through detailed historical and personal accounts….An essential read for anyone who values works that highlight women in the sciences.”
–Shelf Awareness

Johannes Anyuru, Ixelles (trans. Nichola Smalley)
(Two Lines Press)

“A multilayered novel blending mystery, SF, and politics in an uneasily multicultural Europe…part Borges, part Stieg Larsson, and part the P.D. James of The Children of Men….Memorably inventive: the work of a writer, well established in Sweden, whom American readers will want to know.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Camilla Grudova, The Coiled Serpent
(Unnamed Press)

“Grudova’s stories are dark, creepy and strange, each a little off-kilter in a world where mental anxiety and fleshy reality are twisted into surreal scenarios by her fertile but festering imagination…for those with a penchant for gothic-tinged body horror, these are the business.”
–Eithne Farry

Cherry Lou Sy, Love Can’t Feed You
(Dutton)

“Cherry Lou Sy brings her expert playwriting gifts into the realm of Filipina coming-of-age novel….I was struck by our storyteller’s stunning precision….[I]n Cherry Lou Sy’s moving novel the skill is sourced from much warmth and tenderness. Plus, the unwillingness to simplify and spoon-feed identity is key to why Love Can’t Feed You works so well; this novel is an intensely engrossing master-class in a most real all-encompassing humanity!”
–Porochista Khakpour

Kate Greathead, The Book of George
(Holt)

“This book is a knockout. Mesmerizing from page one, it’s Stoner meets Mrs. Bridge meets George, the millennial male we can’t look away from. Kate Greathead has gifted us with a character for the ages and a novel that is sure to be swooned over and endlessly discussed.”
–Maria Semple

Shirley Chisholm, Zinga A. Fraser (editor), Shirley Chisholm in Her Own Words: Speeches and Writings
(University of California Press)

“A compendium of works by the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress….This collection of her writings is divided thematically into eight sections, including education, criminal justice, racism and civil rights, and women’s rights and leadership. The preface provides a sweeping introduction by Fraser, director of the Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women’s Activism at Brooklyn College….Potent and relevant pieces by a groundbreaking Black politician.
–Kirkus Reviews

David Greenberg, John Lewis: A Life
(Simon & Schuster)

“Behold an American life like no other—lived from outsider protest activist to insider savvy politician with epic, spiritual consequences. From hundreds of revealing interviews and exhaustive documentary research, Greenberg captures Lewis’s poetic life in lyrical prose. How dearly we need this model right now of both unsurpassed moral leadership and of the craft of biography.”
–David W. Blight

Richard Bernstein, Only in America: Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer
(Knopf)

“The story of Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer is, in Richard Bernstein’s capable hands, the story of a generation of Jews in the entertainment industry.  It serves as a timely reminder of what America meant to successful immigrants and their children. Replete with insights concerning sensitive issues like assimilation, intermarriage, the generational divide, and Black-Jewish relations, Only in America deserves a wide readership.”
–Jonathan D. Sarna

Randall K. Wilson, A Place Called Yellowstone: The Epic History of the World’s First National Park
(Counterpoint)

“In this fascinating account of America’s most famous landscape, Randall Wilson tells the history of Yellowstone Park and how it relates to the larger story of the American West. In vivid detail, Wilson weaves a compelling tale about a then-revolutionary concept—preserve a spectacular wilderness from commercial exploitation while opening it to the public…a must read for anyone who cares about Americans’ relationship to the natural world and the nation’s legacy of public lands.”
–Peter Stark

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World
(Riverhead)

“Although we imagine the world as divided neatly into nation-states, it is in fact strewn with loopholes, islands, freeports, and zones where the usual laws don’t apply. Such places don’t draw attention, but they matter enormously. Atossa Abrahamian is the ideal guide—fluid, sharp-eyed, and thoughtful—to this hidden landscape.”
–Daniel Immerwahr

Jeff Jarvis, The Web We Weave: Why We Must Reclaim the Internet from Moguls, Misanthropes, and Moral Panic
(Basic Books)

“It’s fashionable these days to blame the Internet for many of society’s woes, but as Jeff Jarvis points out in this fascinating book, the Internet is merely a mirror of everything we are, good and bad, fractious and collegial, angry, sad, and joyful. One of humanity’s greatest inventions deserves to be protected and nurtured, so that it can continue to nourish us….He is the champion the Internet—and all of its users—deserve.”
–Leo Laporte

Postmodern genius Robert Coover has died at age 92.

By Emily Temple

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October 7, 2024, 10:04am

Novelist and short story writer Robert Coover, a master of metafictional and intricately fabulist and experimental literature, died on Saturday in Warwick, England, “surrounded by family,” according to the AP.

He was celebrated (particularly by other writers) for works that used and exploded myths of all kinds—fairy tales, political narratives (his most famous book is likely The Public Burning, a satirical novel about the Rosenbergs), and other invisible frameworks on which we base our everyday lives. In his most famous short story, the brilliant, destabilizing “The Babysitter,” which was included in his first story collection, Pricksongs and Descants, he calls into question the very nature of storytelling itself—and a lot of other things besides.

“The experimental methods which interest Coover, and which he chooses to exploit so skillfully,” observed William H. Gass in a 1969 review of the Pricksongs and Descants, “are those which have to do with the orderly, objective depiction of scenes and events, those which imply a world with a single public point of view, solid and enduring things, long strings of unambiguous action joined by tight causal knots, even when the material itself is improbable and fantastic; and the consequence of his play with these techniques is the scrambling of everything, the dissolution of that simple legendary world we’d like to live in, in order that new values may be voiced; and, as Coover intends them, these stories become ‘exemplary adventures of the Poetic Imagination.'”

“We need myths to get by,” Coover famously said. “We need story; otherwise the tremendous randomness of experience overwhelms us. Story is what penetrates.”

Especially stories like these.