Jesmyn Ward—the two-time National Book Award-winning author of Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing—has just become, at 45, the youngest ever winner of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. The prize, which was established in 2008 as Read more >
Or could you? I hadn’t heard of the Lyttle Lytton Bad Sentence Contest (run by Adam Cadre for 22 years!) till this morning, but poring over this year’s winners, coffee in hand, was just the break from doomscrolling I needed. Read more >
Salman Rushdie—the former PEN America President and Booker Prize-winning author of Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses, and Joseph Anton—just sold a new novel, and it sounds like a doozy. Billed as a translation of an ancient Indian myth, Victory City—Rushdie’s Read more >
Paperbacks—so lightweight, so convenient, so perfect to accompany you to the beach or wherever you’re off to this summer. Here are a few of those we’ll be toting this month: * Rachel Yoder, Nightbitch (Anchor Books, July 5) “[W]hat makes Read more >
In another example of this country being thrust back into the past, two books are currently on trial in Virginia for obscenity: Maia Kobabe’s graphic memoir Gender Queer (“This heartfelt graphic memoir relates, with sometimes painful honesty, the experience of growing Read more >
Today, AIGA, the professional association for design, announced the winners of their annual 50 Books | 50 Covers competition. Jurists Silas Munro (Jury Chair), Laura Coombs, Brian Johnson, and Kimberly Varella reviewed 605 book and cover design entries from 29 Read more >
Alta Journal just released a map for the Western bookstore road trip of my dreams: it’s a guide to indie bookstores on the West coast (with a few options from the desert and other non-coastal spots thrown in, because why Read more >
#BookTok—surely you’ve heard of it. It’s the place where youths cry and make Madeleine Miller’s The Song of Achilles fly off the shelves. It’s the thing prompting publishers to wonder if they need to download TikTok…one more thing on the Read more >
Five years ago, I didn’t even know there was a literary category called “middle-grade,” but now that my 11-year-old devours at least one giant book a week, I have become something of an expert.* So I was happy to see Read more >
In the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade by a “vehemently anti-Democratic Supreme Court,” publishers have reported higher sales of both front- and backlist titles about abortion and reproductive freedom. Among the titles in high demand are Annie Read more >
Living in New York is great because there are cool things happening all the time. (Quick shoutout to the Center for Fiction’s Indie Press Summer Fridays series, which is free to attend!) But it’s also expensive as hell and bullshit that Read more >
For over a decade, a Chinese woman known as “Zhemao” created a massive, fantastical, and largely fictional alternate history of late Medieval Russia on Chinese Wikipedia, writing millions of words about entirely made-up political figures, massive (and fake) silver mines, Read more >
As you might have heard, on Friday, the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, eliminating Americans’ constitutional right to an abortion and dragging the country back in time almost 50 years. If you’re looking for Read more >
I’m looking at the weather for this upcoming week, and oh boy it’s going to be a scorcher! If you’re looking for me, you will find me in the cool embrace of the nearest air-conditioned library/bookstore, where these new books will Read more >
As per usual, indie bookstores remain a beacon of hope in this country. After Friday’s devastating decision overturning Roe v. Wade, many feminist/social-justice-oriented bookshops became a sanctuary for those grieving across the country—particularly in states with trigger laws in place. Read more >
As the catastrophic Russian invasion of Ukraine drags on, we all continue to marvel at the resilience and courage of a Ukrainian people who, regardless of background or vocation, have united in resistance to imperial aggression. One such stalwart is Read more >
Following the recent onslaught of attacks on LGBTQ+ rights across the nation, the Smithtown Library Board of Trustees passed a resolution on June 21st to remove all Pride month displays from their children’s sections across all four buildings in the Read more >
Last week I posted about a bunch of loser Proud Boys who attacked a queer-friendly drag queen story time in San Diego. As ever with these sad-sack wannabe Brownshirts there’s a distinctly pathetic element to their bullying, derived as it Read more >
Remember that exhausting parade of Trump insiders and ex-staffers getting book deals for dishy tell-alls? Turns out no one’s really interested in reading them. Politico went digging around NPD Bookscan (which reflects about 70 percent of sales) to get the Read more >
I was first introduced to the great Frances McDormand as a pig-tailed, knife-wielding women’s studies professor in the Nancy Meyers’ film Something’s Gotta Give, which might remain my favorite role of hers—you know, sentimentally—but there’s a lot more where that Read more >
