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News, Notes, Talk

18 new books to reinvigorate your summer reading.

Hope you all had a lovely long weekend! More importantly: hope you’re all excited for the new books coming out today! * Sayaka Murata, tr. Ginny Tapley Takemori, Life Ceremony (Grove Press) “[A] series of funhouse mirrors, each story in Read more >

By Katie Yee

Jesmyn Ward has won the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.

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 >

By Dan Sheehan

You couldn’t write a sentence this bad IF YOU TRIED.

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 >

By Jonny Diamond

Salman Rushdie has written an epic fantasy novel.

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 >

By Dan Sheehan

19 new paperbacks to tuck into your beach tote this July.

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 >

By Katie Yee

Fuck this shit: Two books are on trial for "obscenity" in Virginia.

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 >

By Jessie Gaynor

These are the best book covers of 2021 you (probably) haven't seen.

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 >

By Emily Temple

Check out a cool new guide to indie bookstores on the West coast.

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 >

By Corinne Segal

Barnes and Noble is launching a summer reading program... on TikTok.

#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 >

By Katie Yee

These superstar middle-grade writers are giving indie bookstores a summer boost.

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 >

By Jonny Diamond

Unsurprisingly, books about abortion and reproductive freedom are in high demand.

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 >

By Jessie Gaynor

Free(!) virtual book events to enjoy from your couch this month.

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 >

By Katie Yee

A “Chinese Borges” wrote millions of words of fake Russian history on Wikipedia for a decade.

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 >

By Jonny Diamond

Essential reading: literary voices respond to the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision.

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 >

By Emily Temple

19 new books to read in the safety of an air-conditioned room.

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 >

By Katie Yee

From Duluth to Decatur these bookstores are helping in the fight for reproductive justice.

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 >

By Katie Yee