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News, Notes, Talk

Here are 7 book recommendations for Rory Gilmore.

Everyone knows that Rory Gilmore is America’s #1 on-screen bookworm. And I understand why—I too was once 15 and awkward, and Rory’s whole “I’d-rather-read-than-be-at-a-party” vibe was deeply relatable. But with time and age come wisdom, and with wisdom comes the Read more >

By Snigdha Koirala

The Library of Things We Forgot to Remember is a new kind of library.

Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai Chiurai’s The Library of Things We Forgot to Remember is an archive of materials including vinyls, posters, and paintings drawn from private African collections; among other materials, the collection includes Chiurai’s own personal collection of 1970s-80s vinyl Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Here's the longlist for the 2021 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

Today, the National Book Foundation announced their longlist for the 2021 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. This year’s longlist includes books by two previous National Book Award longlisters, Kekla Magoon and Anna-Marie McLemore, as well as two novels Read more >

By Emily Temple

Cathy Park Hong is on the cover of the TIME 100 issue.

Major feelings! (Sorry.) This week, TIME magazine published its annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people, and Cathy Park Hong was featured on the issue’s cover. On Twitter, Hong pointed out how seldom the list highlights poets, to say Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

The time Norm Macdonald dunked on Bret Easton Ellis in defense of Alice Munro.

Norm Macdonald was very funny and I’m sad that he’s dead. His weird, dry, occasionally discordant humor always reminded me of the weird, dry, occasionally discordant humor I grew up with in suburban Toronto. Also, we both love Alice Munro. Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Remember the Dante’s Inferno video game (and its deranged gonzo marketing)?

Today marks the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri—and the world Dante created in The Divine Comedy has influenced creators across the globe for those 700 years. You can take a look at the art Dante inspired through Read more >

By Walker Caplan

The Netflix-Don DeLillo romance continues with Underworld.

After nearly 40 years of crickets and tumbleweeds from tinseltown, it really has been a banner decade for Don DeLillo adaptation announcements. David Cronenberg got the ball rolling in 2011 when he and Robert Pattinson brought Cosmopolis to the big Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Patricia Smith has won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement.

Poet Patricia Smith has won the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. Smith is widely celebrated for her collections like Blood Dazzler and Incendiary Art, the latter of which was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. The Read more >

By Snigdha Koirala

Jhumpa Lahiri's new book on translation will be published next spring.

If you’ve been wondering when a new Jhumpa Lahiri book will grace your shelves, you’re in luck! On Monday, Princeton University Press announced that the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s next book, Translating Myself and Others, will be published next spring. The Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

New Yorker editor calls out her own magazine for woeful record on diversity.

New Yorker archives editor Erin Overbey is calling out her own publication over the magazine’s woeful history of employing and publishing writers and editors of color. With a focus on the last 30 years of the print magazine, Overbey lays Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Here's the shortlist for the 2021 Booker Prize.

Today, Maya Jasanoff, the chair of this year’s Booker Prize judging panel, announced the shortlist for this year’s Booker Prize, the UK’s most prestigious prize for a novel written in English. Jasanoff described the shortlist as “immersive; global and engag[ing] Read more >

By Emily Temple

15 new books to get from your local indie this week.

Raise your hand if your TBR pile is getting precariously tall and might just crush you at any given moment? * Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle (Doubleday) “In his eminently enjoyable new novel, Mr. Whitehead’s various powers have attained something like Read more >

By Katie Yee

Read the 1985 comic strip that inspired the Bechdel Test.

To know whether a movie is feminist, use the Bechdel Test: to be a feminist movie, a movie must have two women talking to each other about something other than a man. At least, that’s the stance many thinkpieces, film Read more >

By Walker Caplan

One more reason Amazon’s almighty algorithm is bad for us.

There are many reasons why an opaque and all-powerful shopping algorithm attached to the largest “store” in the history of the universe is bad for books (and people!), but here’s another one. According to this Business Insider article, when members Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

This year, for the very first time, a poet is hosting the Met Gala.

There have been designers. There have been celebrities. There have been media moguls. There has been a Jeff Bezos, and a Beyoncé. There has always, always been Anna Wintour. But a poet has never hosted the Met Gala . . Read more >

By Emily Temple

Here are the finalists for the 2021 Kirkus Prize.

This morning, Kirkus announced its 18 finalists for the 2021 Kirkus Prize, which each year celebrates the best in fiction, nonfiction, and young readers’ literature. The winner in each category will be awarded $50,000, making the Kirkus Prize one of Read more >

By Snigdha Koirala