As the story goes, eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley came up with the idea for Frankenstein one dreary summer night in 1816 while she and the poet Percy Shelley (her then lover, later husband), were vacationing in the Swiss Alps with Lord Byron, Read more >
Sixty-two years ago, Boris Pasternak was having a bad day. The Russian author had received the Nobel Prize for Literature several days before, having recently garnered international acclaim for his landmark work Doctor Zhivago, which had been published in Italy Read more >
The late French author Romain Gary is the only writer to have won France’s most prestigious literary award under two names: he received the Prix Goncourt for The Roots of Heaven (Les Racines du ciel; 1956) under his birth name and, more Read more >
As Europe goes back into pandemic lockdown French bookstores are making the case to remain open, despite the fact bars and restaurants will be closing. Citing fears of increasing “cultural isolation” bookstore associations are joining with publishers to demand classification Read more >
Two rom-com titans are getting into bed together over at HBO with the announcement that Mindy Kaling will produce and star in a movie adaptation of Jennifer Weiner’s debut novel, Good in Bed. According to EW, the semi-autobiographical novel, which Read more >
Yes, it’s Kristin Scott Thomas, our most recent Mrs. Danvers and our forever Fiona. Can’t you just imagine her as the narrator of Cusk’s cool-toned autofictions? The best part is, she got the gig because she’s a fan. “Faber heard Read more >
With the end of the year (unbelievably) approaching, there’s a new opportunity for writers of color to kick off 2021: a new mentorship program, created by some of the most accomplished writers in journalism and literary media today, is taking Read more >
The New York Public Library is getting its Christmas gifts early this year—all 692 of them. Thanks largely to Arthur Miller’s family, a massive collection of the dramatist’s plays, books, translations, anthologies, and more spanning the years 1928 to 2012 Read more >
Book sales might be doing ok, but not enough people are buying those books at their local independent bookstores. That’s bad. Stores are hurting, even Paris’s iconic Shakespeare and Co. On the day this site launched I wrote about my Read more >
Adam Sandler—the man who helped Kevin James and Rob Schneider become multi-millionaires and who, in a three-decade career, has made four decent movies and fifty…other movies—is set to star in a Netflix adaptation of Jaroslav Kalfar’s 2017 debut novel, Spaceman of Read more >
They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and . . . book-y? Yes, the Addams Family may have a monstrous manservant and a severed hand for a pet and a high-pitched mop of a cousin, but today I’d like to turn Read more >
This one goes out to all the writers in the Year of our Lord 2020, as we all worry that our total inability to put a sentence together could turn into a lifetime of non-production: It’s never too late. Wole Read more >
In 1977, Dracula came back to Broadway. Frank Langella played the lead in this production of the play by Hamilton Deane and John Balderston. The last time this show had been brought to Broadway, the lead had been Bela Lugosi. Read more >
Here’s an unusual bit of adaptation news: the painter Michaela Yearwood-Dan has created a limited edition cover for the November issue of Harper’s Bazaar‘s Bazaar Art based on Margaret Atwood’s poem “Feather,” from her latest book Dearly, her first collection of poetry Read more >
These days, if you’re any good at Twitter or Tik Tok and have a little money, you start to think maybe you can pull off a hydra-headed IP clearing house that takes teeny, tiny, little ideas and turns them into Read more >
With Halloween fast-approaching, I feel the need (along with every other person on the book internet) to remind you that one of the scariest things imaginable might happen: your local indie bookstore might close. Their fate is in your hands. Read more >
Today, the American Library Association (ALA) announced the longlist for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. The prize, established in 2012, honors the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. Read more >
Today, the New York Public Library announced the launch of its latest service, Shelf Help, a tool that provides its patrons with personalized book bundles curated by skilled librarians. Shelf Help is the Library’s latest initiative to support New York Read more >
Many literary novelists, much like the little girls from Sweden Anthony Kiedis sang about in “Californication,” dream of silver screen quotation. Sure, book deals are nice, but do you know what’s even nicer than a book deal? A goddamn movie Read more >
I wanted to say something beautiful how we turn garbage into gold how we made a swamp fertile land how we turned a curse, into a blessing. –Abioudun Oyewole * Last Sunday, the English artist Richard Kraft gave Donald Trump Read more >
