Are you as pleased as I am that Will Smith and Aunt Viv (Janet Hubert) seemed to have made up after decades of mutual shade? Just in time for the 30-year anniversary of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s first episode. There Read more >
The shortlist for the BBC National Short Story Award, one of the most prestigious (and richest) awards given to a single short story in the UK, was announced today on BBC Radio 4. “I am inordinately proud of this year’s Read more >
It’s Friday! What’s George R.R. Martin up to? Not building a castle, that’s for sure. Santa Fe city officials responded this week to his proposal to build one in his backyard—his second request to do so!—with an unequivocal “no,” with Read more >
That’s right. HarperCollins is suing Lindsay Lohan for breach of contract after she failed to deliver a manuscript for the memoir they acquired from her back in 2014. The publishing company is asking for their $365,000 back—ostensibly the first third Read more >
Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, Sigrid Nunez’s What Are You Going Through, Claudia Rankine’s Just Us, and Frederik Logevall’s JFK all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. Fiction 1. What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez 7 Read more >
Wouldn’t it be great if instead of an endless stream of crashed-out, Donald Trump-adjacent memoirs/tell-alls/self-interested “scoops,” we had more quirky graphic novels for kids? And why not? They certainly sell. To wit, Captain Underpants creator Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man: Grime Read more >
Alexander Lukashenko, the first and only president of Belarus, a man who is often referred to as Europe’s sole dictator, has been lashing out like a cornered animal since mass protests began in his country following his dubious re-election in Read more >
At this point, although stories that pass us by in the news cycle do continue to anger and sadden me, I wouldn’t say much has been surprising recently. Unfortunately, that also applies to a story by Politico which revealed that the Read more >
We’ve all seen the video by now: Amy Cooper, a white woman, lying to police about Christian Cooper, a writer and longtime birder who politely asked her to move her dog out of a part of Central Park designated for Read more >
How about some terrific morning literary news to brighten your day? Is that a “yes” I hear? Well, today the National Book Foundation announced that Walter Mosley, author of the highly-regarded Devil in a Blue Dress, will be awarded the Read more >
As the march of technology continues, it’s easy to forget that artists have been warning of its potential dangers to creativity and pointedly searching for nostalgia for nearly three centuries of industrialization and information advances. None, however, has quite the Read more >
The Women’s Prize for Fiction is one of the UK’s most prestigious annual book awards, celebrating artful and inventive literature by women from across the world. It comes with £30,000 and a limited edition bronze statuette called “Bessie” (talk about Read more >
Dang. The first full trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s beloved SF saga looks . . . kinda great. (Which is, as we know, not a given when it comes to Dune adaptations!) This is a generous three 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 the National Book Award-winning author of The Yellow House, Sarah M. Broom. * Book Marks: First book Read more >
This morning, Kirkus Reviews announced its 18 finalists for this year’s Kirkus Prize in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Young Readers’ Literature. The finalists were selected by a panel of judges from the pool of titles that received Kirkus Stars in the last Read more >
Today, Ian Williams announced the longlist for this year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize, named in honor of the late literary journalist Doris Giller, which seeks to recognize the best Canadian fiction every year. (Williams, you’ll remember, won last year’s prize for Read more >
A big congratulations to Viet Thanh Nguyen, who is joining the Pulitzer Prize Board as its first Asian-American and Vietnamese-American member. After an extensive nominating process, the board chooses the winners from a list of finalists in each category and Read more >
Today, Deadline announced that Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner, creators of Grimm, are developing another contemporary adaptation of a centuries-old literary standby—and not just any centuries-old literary standby, but um, the entire works of William Shakespeare. The Stratford, now officially in Read more >
By the time Leo Tolstoy died, in 1910, at the age of 82, he was one of the most celebrated figures in his country—not only for his writing, but for his outspoken political and philosophical views, his charitable acts, and Read more >
Today, the National Book Foundation announced extraordinary news for an extraordinary prize: The late president and chief executive of Simon & Schuster, Carolyn Reidy, will be the recipient of its Literarian Award at the 2020 National Book Awards. The lifetime Read more >
