Want to read what everyone else is reading? MarketWatch reports that in honor of World Book Day, Amazon has released a list of their 50 overall bestselling books in the U.S. (at least in the 27 years since their launch Read more >
Poetry-heads rejoice, and then leap into action: a handwritten copy of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is currently up for auction through Lion Heart Autographs. The copy is not the original manuscript of the poem, but Read more >
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery—here’s some good Friday news: in a new study, a team from UT Austin has encoded a quote from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park on a small plastic molecule. The goal of the study Read more >
In advance of Independent Bookstore Day on April 24, the Community of Literary Magazines & Presses has put together a map of 140 bookstores that give special support to independent publishers. The list, which was compiled by recommendations from CLMP Read more >
Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the US cover for Wole Soyinka’s new novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, which will be published on September 28 by Pantheon Books. This will be Soyinka’s first novel Read more >
If you’ve been seeing headlines this week that say things like “Jane Austen canceled for drinking tea” and “Woke Madness! Jane Austen under historical interrogation,” and are a.) worried or b.) simply confused, let me clear things up: Jane Austen Read more >
The International Booker Prize has just announced the six books in the running for this year’s award, which celebrates the finest fiction from around the world, translated into English. The £50,000 prize is split evenly between author and translator. Said Read more >
Today is a day specifically set aside to celebrate and support environmental protection efforts. Really, this should be every day. Climate change is real. Please read Greta Thunberg’s twitter. There is certainly no shortage of books on the subject. You Read more >
Just a little, happy reminder: Independent Bookstore Day is this Saturday, April 24th. This year, the celebration is both online and in person at over 700 stores nationwide, featuring free author conversations as well as Independent Bookstore Day-exclusive books and Read more >
Ask and you shall receive! Actor, producer, and children’s television icon, LeVar Burton, was just named as one of the new guest hosts for Jeopardy! The announcement seems to be a testament to the tenacity of fan support. In November, Read more >
Last night, Louise Erdrich was named the winner of the $35,000 Aspen Words Literary Prize, established by the Aspen Institute to honor a work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on Read more >
I love a good aside. I live for literary intrusion. I want comments on my comments, discursive thinking, footnotes. I want to be distracted, taken off course for a while before being firmly set back down. What I’m saying is Read more >
This week, an open letter from the workforce of Simon & Schuster was circulated, demanding that S&S cancel Mike Pence’s two-book deal, as well as end their distribution deal with the far-right, murderous-cop-platforming Post Hill Press. The open letter called Read more >
I’m a huge Tennessee Williams fan, and a reasonably big Antoine Fuqua fan, so today’s news that the Training Day director will helm a movie adaptation of Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece of mendacity and buried familial trauma, Cat on a Hot Read more >
Alyssa Collins, assistant professor of English Language and Literature and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina, has been awarded an Octavia E. Butler Fellowship by the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens for her project entitled Read more >
A wildfire displaced 4000 students and destroyed several buildings on the University of Cape Town’s campus over the weekend, including UCT’s Jagger Reading Room, which houses part of the UCT Libraries’ Special Collections. This is a major loss; UCT’s Special Read more >
According to the Los Angeles Times, Blake Bailey, author of a new and much-discussed biography of Philip Roth, has been dropped by his agency, the Story Factory, after allegations of “grooming and manipulation” along with other sexual misconduct. The allegations were Read more >
Have you ever wanted the inside scoop on midcentury Gothicist par excellence Daphne Du Maurier’s personal life? Did she really carry on illicit affairs with Gertrude Lawrence and Ellen Doubleday? What really prompted her retreat from public life? Was she Read more >
How quickly come the reasons for approving what we like—when what we like is a Jane Austen adaptation, and there are many reasons to approve! Deadline just announced that Dakota Johnson has signed on to star as Anne in Netflix Read more >
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 >
