Pandemic shopping: it’s just so hard to resist, especially when your purchase comes with some intrigue. The Real Deal reports today that the townhouse at 207 East 32nd Street, first built in 1902, has been sold to the New York Read more >
At this point in the pandemic, moviegoing has come to feel downright archaic to many, but anyone with an internet connection—and a select few with a car to take them to the drive-ins set up in Flushing Meadows Corona Park Read more >
Dirty Dancing has given us many things. A love story. A drama about class. An argument for legalized abortion. A million classic wedding songs. “No one puts Baby in a corner.” And of course, The Lift. It also, as I Read more >
Yōko Ogawa’s acclaimed surrealist novel—the story of a young woman, struggling to maintain her career as a writer on a island where objects are disappearing, who concocts a plan to hide her endangered editor from the Memory Police—was one of Read more >
In spite of everything, some good things happen in 2020. Case in point: Louise Glück won a Nobel Prize for Literature today, bringing us a great reason to revisit some of the fantastic interviews she’s done over her long career Read more >
I’ve always wanted to be able to do accents, voices, impressions. I’m transfixed by the ability. When done well, accent work is what makes garbage like, say, 95% of SNL, slightly more bearable. Of late, I’ve taken to watching behind-the-scenes Read more >
Congratulations to the great Louise Glück, who was a surprise choice for this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. Granted, the prize is rarely obvious, but Glück —a former poet laureate of the United States—wasn’t mentioned much in any of this Read more >
To mark the 24th anniversary of the Fox News Channel’s debut, HarperCollins and Fox News Media have announced the creation of a new imprint that will publish a stream of books I’m sure you’ll read by Fox News personalities. If Read more >
Welcome to the Book Marks Questionnaire, where we ask authors questions about the books that have shaped them. This week, we spoke to Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Sleep Donation, Karen Russell. * Book Marks: First book you remember loving? Read more >
The Nobel Prize in Literature has been . . . fairly chaotic in recent years. First, in 2016, there was Bob Dylan (absurd). Then, there was Kazuo Ishiguro (apologetic). Then, there was no prize (sexual misconduct scandal). Then, a dual Read more >
Depending on how familiar you are with her work, you may not be surprised to learn that graphic memoirist Marjane Satrapi, whose Persepolis has become a modern classic, is also a figurative painter. “Painting is about going back to the Read more >
The last few days have brought two major pieces of surf literature news: one welcome, the other dispiriting. The first is that Barbarian Days—New Yorker staff writer and journalist William Finnegan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning surf memoir and one of the greatest books ever Read more >
The BBC Short Story Award, created in 2005 to recognize the short story as an invaluable literary form, is one of the most prestigious prizes for a single short story in the United Kingdom. The honor comes with £15,000, and Read more >
Colson Whitehead’s zombie novel Zone One was published nine years ago today, on what I imagine to have been a chilly and sweeping October day in 2011. I was a teenager when the novel was released, and only got around Read more >
Proving that good news is somehow still possible in 2020, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded fellowships (or as they are commonly known, “genius grants”) to a group of writers whose work interrogates structural racism through Read more >
When the annual New Yorker Festival began online yesterday, there were two notable absences: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who withdrew from the event last week in support of the New Yorker Union’s planned digital picket line. In 2018, Read more >
Today, The Washington Post announced all of the finalists for the 2020 National Book Awards. The twenty-five finalists were selected from fifty longlisted writers across five genres—Young People’s Literature, Translated Literature, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Fiction—by a distinguished panel of literary experts. Read more >
You know it’s a good day when you’re greeting with brand-new books from Rumaan Alam, Phil Klay, Tana French, Sayaka Murata, and Alice Hoffman! What’s a few more books on the TBR pile amongst friends? * Rumaan Alam, Leave the World Read more >
Dear reader: the Practical Magic soundtrack is on at full volume as I write this. I’ve got a pumpkin-scented candle going. There are decorative gourds all over the place. (Seriously, I tripped on a stray one just a minute ago.) Read more >
Air/Light is a brand new literary magazine—launched today!—helmed by Editor-in-Chief David Ulin, with support from the University of Southern California English department, that aims to “celebrate an inclusive culture, illuminating voices from a diverse array of writers.” According to its Read more >
