Today, the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL), in partnership with the Brooklyn Eagles, announced the longlist for the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize for fiction/poetry and nonfiction. The prize, one of the few major literary prizes from a public library system, Read more >
Ah, Tuesday rears its ugly head again. But rest assured, there are some good things that have come out of it. Today, we are greeted by new titles from Laila Lalami, Eileen Myles, Noam Chomsky, and more. Happy reading! * Read more >
It used to be there was a season for political memoirs, as candidates thinking of taking a run at the national level would tape together the most flattering aspects of their life story, throw in some hopeful, non-committal bromides with Read more >
Shirley Jackson’s beloved short novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which also happens to have one of the best opening paragraphs of all time, was published on this day in 1962. In addition to being one of the Read more >
Yes, that’s right. Apparently, Elliott Roosevelt, the son of Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt, wrote a long-running murder mystery series starring his mother as an amateur detective. This incredible development was brought to my attention by scholar Bill Black (@williamrblack), Read more >
Here’s a little known fact, of which Mary Karr recently reminded us: as an undergraduate, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died this weekend at the age of 87, was once one of Vladimir Nabokov’s students: she took his legendary class on Read more >
When a group of thieves stole $3.2 million worth of rare books from a London warehouse in 2017, including seminal scientific texts by Isaac Newton and Galileo, they shocked the antiquarian book world and inspired a number of theories about Read more >
It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands Read more >
Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, Ayad Akhtar’s Homeland Elegies, Walter Mosley’s The Awkward Black Man, and Ben Macintyre’s Agent Sonya all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. Fiction 1. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke 14 Rave • 5 Positive Read more >
Last but certainly not least: it’s the time for fiction! The National Book Foundation has announced the ten books contending for this year’s National Book Award for Fiction. The award, created in 1950, is the most prestigious literary prize in the Read more >
“Why do I speak to you from exile? Because a Negro community in the South took up guns in self-defense against racist violence—and used them.” These are the opening lines of Robert F. Williams’ book Negroes With Guns (1962), the work Read more >
Today, the New York Public Library announced the winner for this year’s Young Lions Fiction Award. The award—founded in 2001 by Ethan Hawke, Hannah McFarland, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, and Rick Moody—was created to honor a writer age 35 or younger Read more >
Today, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2020 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The National Book Awards, created in 1950, is the most prestigious literary prize in the United States, rewarding quality and cogent writing. This year’s Read more >
Australia has spoken, and J.K. Rowling is out. Rabble Books & Games in Maylands, Australia, said earlier this week that the store would stop stocking her books due to this, this, or this, all of which, it’s not so wild Read more >
There are very few celebrities whose meals interest me. (Yes, I do hate Instagram, thank you.) But here’s one: Stanley Tucci, who announced today that he’s working on a memoir called Taste: My Life Through Food. Publisher Gallery Books described Read more >
Stanley Crouch, jazz critic, playwright, novelist, public intellectual, celebrated—and controversial—essayist, and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, died on Wednesday at the age of 74. “Mr. Crouch defied easy categorization,” wrote Sam Roberts in The New York Times. A former Black nationalist Read more >
We’ve known for a while that Barack Obama would be coming out with a new memoir. Today his publisher confirmed that the book, A Promised Land, will be released soon after the November elections. The former president isn’t a stranger to Read more >
And now, it’s the time for the poets! Today, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry. The National Book Awards, created in 1950, is the most prestigious literary prize in the United Read more >
Why yes, it’s the RPG of your dreams: You are seminal American modernist poet WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS. It is late at night and you are HUNGRY. Investigate the KITCHEN for something to EAT. Play it all out here. (You won’t Read more >
Lil Nas X has been riding off the success of last year’s single “Old Town Road” for a while now (a fact he commonly makes fun of himself). There was a time last summer when it felt like a new Read more >
