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News, Notes, Talk

The first look at Barry Jenkins's adaptation of Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad

We’ve known about this for almost three years, and here it is, the first look at Barry Jenkins epic adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad – Preamble from Barry Jenkins on Vimeo. Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

A bookstore that dwells in darkness, literally.

How does one browse in a dark bookstore? Picture row upon row of faced-out books lit like tiny billboards floating in an inky black room, small candle lit café tables as little islands of light between hundreds of glowing covers… Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Here are the 2020 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award winners.

The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation announced the winners of its 2020 Legacy Awards on Friday, October 16th. The Awards, inaugurated in 2001, recognize and celebrate Black writers in the United States and of the diaspora for literary achievement. It Read more >

By Rasheeda Saka

The week in literary film and TV news.

“Why read a book when you can watch a movie adaptation of said book?”, that’s what I always say. Better yet, just watch the trailer. Trailers are so slickly produced these days, it’s no wonder they have their own awards Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

The Italian adaptation of Jack London's Martin Eden is a dreamlike, Romantic epic.

Near the end of Pietro Marcello’s Martin Eden, the 2019 film adaptation of Jack London’s 1909 novel, released today in the US, a withered Luca Marinelli as Eden tells a bemused audience, “The writer Martin Eden doesn’t exist. He is Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Here are the best reviewed books of the week.

Xiaolu Guo’s A Lover’s Discourse, Rebecca Roanhorse’s Black Sun, David Leavitt’s Shelter in Place, and Craig Brown’s 150 Glimpses of the Beatles all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for Read more >

By Book Marks

We won't get to see Lupita Nyong’o star in Americanah after all.

Here’s one to add to the comically long list of disappointments 2020 has inflicted upon us: Americanah—the hotly-anticipated limited series adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s bestselling novel of the same name—will no longer be moving ahead at HBO. Americanah had been Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Here's the shortlist for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction.

The UK literary prizes are still coming in hot! Today, the Baillie Gifford Prize announced its 2020 shortlist. The award, founded in 1999 following the end of the NCR Book Award for Nonfiction, celebrates the best non-fiction writing in the Read more >

By Rasheeda Saka

Controversial indie screenwriter Christopher Moltisanti throws support behind Biden.

Former enfant terrible of the New Jersey screenwriting scene Christopher Moltisanti has, in a characteristically provocative move, returned from the grave this week to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden. Once the hot-headed darling of the indie horror film Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Are these the best 10 works of journalism published in the last decade?

Yesterday, in a virtual ceremony, the faculty of NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute announced their choices for the best 10 works of journalism published in the last decade (2010 to 2019). The final top 10 pieces of journalism (some Read more >

By Emily Temple

Here's the shortlist for the 2020 T. S. Eliot Prize.

Today, the T. S. Eliot Prize, one of the UK’s most prestigious poetry honors, announced its 2020 shortlist. The award, inaugurated in 1993, recognizes the best poetry collection of the year and comes with a £25,000 purse; each of the Read more >

By Rasheeda Saka

A Shakespeare First Folio sold this week for $10 million.

Congratulations to Stephan Loewentheil, the proud new owner of a Shakespeare First Folio, which he acquired on Wednesday at Christie’s for the low, low price of $10 million. And it’s not even his first one! Loewentheil, who founded the 19th Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Stacey Abrams is publishing a "Supreme Court thriller" in May.

Here’s a book genre we never knew we needed: the Supreme Court thriller. In May, Doubleday will be publishing While Justice Sleeps, a novel by Stacey Abrams about the Supreme Court. It centers on a law clerk who learns of Read more >

By Corinne Segal

We're getting another gigantic Richard Powers novel in 2021.

I mean, I assume it’ll be gigantic, given the Publishers Marketplace description that went up yesterday evening: Richard Powers’ Bewilderment, looking at the world both perilous and imperiled that we are leaving for our children to inhabit, offering “soaring descriptions Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Isabel Wilkerson's Caste is about to get some Ava DuVernay energy.

Some dream projects seem inevitable when they actually do happen. That is certainly true of the news that director and producer Ava DuVernay is bringing her feature adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s bestselling book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, to Netflix. Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Six writers were awarded a new fellowship for disabled artists.

A number of writers were named Disability Futures Fellows as part of a new initiative that supports disabled artists working in various media. Each of the 20 fellows begins the 18-month fellowship with a $50,000 grant. A coalition of philanthropic organizations created Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Glenn Close is unrecognizable in the first trailer for Hillbilly Elegy.

This week in films that I just…I just can’t: the first trailer for Ron Howard’s adaptation of J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy is now live. Based on Vance’s bestselling memoir about growing up in, and then escaping from, an abandoned Rust Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

48 literary social media accounts you should be following.

I think we all know this fact: social media is a big part of our lives, whether we even have a social media account or not. And I think we all know another: that social media has impacted the way Read more >

By Rasheeda Saka

Here is the book you should read based on your favorite episode of The Twilight Zone.

[Rod Serling Voice]You are about to enter the realm between light and dark, the nebulous space between silver screen and written word. Here, weary traveler, you find yourself with your back to the closed door of the Twilight Zone. In Read more >

By Katie Yee

Because money is great, Faber is publishing the complete Normal People screenplays.

As The Bookseller reports, UK publisher Faber has announced that they will be releasing the complete screenplays of Normal People, the popular BBC adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel of the same name. Whether or not you understand on a larger Read more >

By Emily Temple