And somehow the long weekend is over! I hope this blog post finds you relaxed, well-rested, and ready to read. This week, we’ve got new books from Sigrid Nunez, Claudia Rankine, Ruth Ware, Ross Gay, Jane Fonda, and much, much Read more >
The first trailer for Rebecca—the forthcoming Netflix adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 psychological chiller, starring Armie Hammer, Lily James, and Kristen Scott Thomas—has dropped, and it looks…interesting. Rebecca, perhaps the most famous Gothic novel of the last century, is Read more >
Following Jennifer Egan’s three-year term as president of PEN America, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and novelist Ayad Akhtar will take on the role starting in December. Akhtar has received wide recognition writing for the stage. His 2016 play Junk: The Read more >
Izumi Suzuki, whose works of science fiction have earned her a special place in Japanese counterculture, will soon make her English-language debut with a story collection whose synopsis sounds almost unbearably cool. Verso Books will publish Terminal Boredom, a short Read more >
I love old Volkswagen vans and I love bookstores and because it’s Friday I also love feel good stories (I also love hardworking local newspaper headlines, but that’s another story). So that’s why I’m bringing your attention to the story Read more >
As the election nears and House Democrats continue to spar with USPS Postmaster General Louis Dejoy, one could be forgiven for feeling anxious about the mail. On Monday, the UCLA Voting Rights Project published a report on the need to Read more >
If you want to understand the deep well of creativity author Ursula K. Le Guin drew from at a young age, you should probably start at home. Le Guin, the California-born author known for her Earthsea fantasy series and novels like The Left Read more >
The International Dublin Literary Award is the world’s biggest annual prize for a single work of fiction published in English. The honor comes with a whopping €100,000. Mark your calendars: the winner will be announced on October 22. Congratulations to Read more >
Hint: not (necessarily) with books. Also consider organic elements! And maybe one of those severed wooden hand things. Some outstanding questions: Who even has empty shelves like this anymore? Does Bobby have any suggestions for those of us with books Read more >
Why aren’t there more Science Fiction Black writers? There aren’t because there aren’t. What we don’t see, we assume can’t be. What a destructive assumption. —Octavia E. Butler, in Octavia E. Butler: Telling My Stories. A small good thing Read more >
As we all know, it’s pretty tough for new books—especially new books from debut writers—to get attention. And that’s in the best of times. As we also know, these are not the best of times. And attention is going to Read more >
Sure, sure, a $2 million advance for a writer in her early twenties is a lot, but what about $3.1 million for a 400-year-old book? Phillip Hainhofer’s 17th-century “friendship book”—basically a Renaissance scrapbook in which otherwise serious men would enthusiastically Read more >
When Charles Andrew was a boy in Monroeville, a city in Alabama that today numbers under 6,000 residents, he used to watch the 1962 film adaption of To Kill a Mockingbird in the town’s segregated, single-screen theater. “It didn’t strike me that Read more >
In a Jane Austen novel, the drama—confessions of love, pleas for help, realizations that your cousin is a jackass—is all in the letters. So it feels particularly fitting that Chronicle Books is releasing an edition of Pride and Prejudice that includes Read more >
The Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize was created to celebrate the art of literary nonfiction and encourage emerging writers. You definitely know its previous winners, which include Esmé Weijun Wang (for The Collected Schizophrenias) and Leslie Jamison (for The Empathy Exams). Read more >
As you may have noticed from the state of the internet, today is Keanu Reeves’ birthday. He is 56. (56!) But just in case you didn’t know, when Keanu is not reading while walking or hanging out with puppies or, you Read more >
Though it has indeed been a crazy summer of pandemic and protest, it’s also been a summer of fires and hurricanes: climate collapse cares naught for our human travails, and if we want to do much more than survive 2020, Read more >
While everyone and their mothers have been getting really into baking during this quarantine, I have been staring longingly at their Instagram posts. I, for one, am useless in the kitchen. There have been no sourdough starters. There have been Read more >
Congratulations to Ethan Hawke, star of my favorite film (Gattaca) and arguably the most bookish man in Hollywood, who has, with today’s inclusion in the (web) pages of the New York Times Book Review, completed his Literary World Bingo Card! Read more >
Happy first day of work to poet Kaveh Akbar, who is the new poetry editor of The Nation as of… today! The magazine announced in a press release that Akbar, who teaches at Purdue University, is taking over the position Read more >
