This Sunday marks Herman Melville’s 202nd birthday, and I decided to honor him by looking through a scholarly book of his correspondence to find something noteworthy to write about (beyond, of course, his passionate love letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne). Why, Read more >
It’s a great day for bibliophiles, as I have some exciting news to share that doesn’t involve homophobic rappers named DaBaby, whose antics have been clogging my social media timeline. (Of course, I realize a lot of you dear readers Read more >
It’s been a week of good news for globe-trotting American novelist and travel writer Maggie Shipstead. On Tuesday, Shipstead’s latest novel, Great Circle, made the star-studded longlist for the 2021 Booker Prize, and Deadline has today reported that the book is also set for a Read more >
For all the Internet’s horrors, it’s occasionally nice to appreciate the sheer access to information it gives us. One instance: the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s digital collections, which are mostly open to the public, and allow users to Read more >
Apparently, there is only one known recording of J.D. Salinger’s voice. Also apparently, the woman who recorded it never plans to release it. In fact, the 30-year-old recording will die with her—when she has it cremated along with her body. Read more >
After more than two and a half years of negotiations with Condé Nast and a threatened strike, members of the New Yorker Union have unanimously voted to ratify their first collective bargaining agreement. Just some of the significant changes the Read more >
On this day in 1965, the highly acclaimed writer and teacher Chang-rae Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea. When he was three years old, Lee and his family immigrated to the United States. Later, he attended Phillips Exeter Academy Read more >
Well, this is kind of heartwarming. A full quarter-century after shuttering his old store in Bloomington, Indiana, Rick Morgenstern has opened what suddenly becomes the state’s largest independent bookstore. The reboot of the eponymous store has been in the works Read more >
Exciting book news: Detransition, Baby author Torrey Peters’s novellas Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones and The Masker, previously published online in 2016 and available for free on her author website, will be reissued by Random House in 2022. Two Read more >
On this day in 1866, Beatrix Potter—beloved children’s author, creator of Peter Rabbit (along with his slightly more rabbitly named sisters Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail), and passionate naturalist who once told Roald Dahl to “buzz off”—was born. In the unlikely Read more >
Writers who eschew traditional publishing methods have a variety of platforms from which to choose: Substack, Patreon, Blogspot, NFTs, and now, the moon. This year, speculative fiction author Susan Kaye Quinn launched (pun intended) Writers on the Moon, a lunar Read more >
A recent update to a story I can’t believe everyone isn’t talking about every day: the U.S. Department of Justice has formally seized the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet (a cuneiform tablet inscribed with part of the Epic of Gilgamesh) from Hobby Read more >
Ah, the Enneagram. It’s the lesser-known but (in my humble opinion) far superior personality test. Unlike the Meyers-Briggs, which honestly offers different verdicts based on your mood and which I’m told you “should” re-take from time to time, the Enneagram Read more >
Today, the National Book Foundation announced that this year’s National Book Awards Ceremony will be held in person, at Cipriani Wall Street on November 17, 2021. Proof of vaccination will be required for guests, and the ceremony will also be Read more >
O Sport, pleasure of the Gods, essence of life, you appeared suddenly in the midst of the grey clearing which writhes with the drudgery of modern existence, like the radiant messenger of a past age, when mankind still smiled. And Read more >
Today marks the 105th birthday of the late Elizabeth Hardwick, sweeping, incisive critic, novelist and short story writer. Festively revisiting her 1985 Art of Fiction interview in The Paris Review, I was pleased but unsurprised to see her response to Read more >
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