Mae West is an icon: literally, a representative symbol. In the popular imagination, Mae West stands in for a certain type of seduction—blonde, campy, one-liner-heavy. But though West is best known for her distinctive performances, she was also a controversial Read more >
Framed as a “statement from the workforce of S&S” an open letter is now circulating that calls out Simon & Schuster for maintaining its distribution relationship with Post Hill, a far right small press that publishes the likes of Matt Read more >
This Saturday is Independent Bookstore Day. So you basically have to stop by your local indie and stock up on books to your heart’s content! * Richard Wright, The Man Who Lived Underground (Library of America) The Man Who Lived Read more >
Sometimes the Internet is . . . good? Case in point: today, the algorithm directed me to this speedy visual recap of Pride and Prejudice, explained in the (cherry-picked) dulcet tones of John Mulaney. And you thought there was nothing Read more >
Multi-decorated author Elizabeth Acevedo is set to publish her first novel for adults in 2023. The currently untitled novel centers on a Dominican American family as they organize a wake for Rosa, a beloved matriarch who is still alive. (Rosa Read more >
If you’re still mourning the end of Michaela Coel’s fantastic series I May Destroy You (and you’ve already revisited her brilliant first show, Chewing Gum), here’s some welcome news: Coel’s first book, Misfits: A Personal Manifesto, is coming in September. My first Read more >
Sleuths rejoice! After twenty years, the Oxfordshire house where Dame Agatha Christie wrote many of her most famous crime novels is on the market once more with a guide price of over £2.75 million. It’s got to be said that Read more >
Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain, Elizabeth McCracken’s The Souvenir Museum, Cynthia Ozick’s Antiquities, and Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes Read more >
Tomorrow marks the 124th birthday of Thornton Wilder—and we’re celebrating by watching the opening monologue of the formally innovative Our Town delivered by another theatrical innovator, Spalding Gray. Spalding Gray as the Narrator in Our Town seems like perfect casting: Read more >
When I was a kid, there was nothing I loved more than a fresh new sketchbook (so much so that I tended to abandon them after filling out four or five drawings of people standing on tippie toes because I Read more >
Beware—there’s a new wave of COVID! It’s novels. The latest writer to be infected is Super Sad True Love Story author Gary Shteyngart, whose newly announced novel Our Country Friends follows the shifting relationships of a group of friends at Read more >
When we first meet Geoffrey Chaucer in the very fine medieval sports movie A Knight’s Tale (2001), he is naked. Butt-naked, I should say, considering the camera work. “Oi sir,” says Heath Ledger, aka William, aka Sir Ulrich. “What are you Read more >
At long last! Today, the first full trailer for the Amazon Original adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad was released. South African actress Thuso Mbedu plays Cora, a woman enslaved on a Georgia plantation, who decides to escape to Read more >
Today marks 21 years since the death of Edward Gorey, known for his playfully macabre illustrated books. His crosshatched drawings warped Edwardian settings into worlds so distinctive they’re now described as “Goreyesque”—and today, we’re celebrating how he carried his heightened Read more >
In this 1968 episode of William F. Buckley’s Firing Line, Jack Kerouac (who is clearly drunk) joins Ed Sanders (of The Fugs) and square sociologist Lewis Yablonsky (author of The Hippie Trip) to discuss a then-hot topic: hippies. When the Read more >
The Goethe-Institut, Germany’s cultural institute promoting the study of German culture and language, has announced the shortlist for the 2021 Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize. Funded by the German government, the Translator’s Prize celebrates an outstanding literary translation from Read more >
They say that in this world nothing can be said to be certain—except death and taxes. Well, it’s Tax Day, friends! No, don’t have a heart attack. They pushed it back this year. (They did, right? I won’t go like Read more >
This evening, in a virtual ceremony, the Whiting Foundation announced the recipients of its 2021 Whiting Awards, which seek to “recognize excellence and promise in a spectrum of emerging talent.” These ten writers, working in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, Read more >
In a one-sentence aside in The New York Times, Ben Smith revealed that Bustle Media Group is rebooting controversial news and gossip site Gawker, three years after BMG bought Gawker for only $1.35 million at a bankruptcy auction. Bustle Media Read more >
Prepare the discourse: Hanya Yanagihara’s next novel, To Paradise, will be released on January 11, 2022, by Doubleday in the US and Picador in the UK . This will be Yanagihara’s first book since her controversial 2015 novel A Little Read more >
