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News, Notes, Talk

Bryan Washington's new novel will be adapted for television.

Well, that didn’t take long: Two weeks before its release by Riverhead, Bryan Washington’s Memorial has been acquired by A24 for television. Washington will adapt his novel, which focuses on a couple, Benson and Mike, and the choices they make as Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Aleksandar Hemon has been awarded the 2020 John Dos Passos Prize for Literature.

Today, Longwood University announced that Aleksander Hemon has been named the winner of the 2020 John Dos Passos Prize for Literature. The prize is Longwood University’s premier literary award—the largest literary award of any Virginia college or university; it aims to Read more >

By Rasheeda Saka

18 new books to get from your local indie today.

Today is apparently Amaz*n Prime Day, which I strongly encourage you to boycott by buying all these new books from your favorite independent bookstore. I know I’m preaching to the choir here, because you, dear reader, know that Jeff Bezos Read more >

By Katie Yee

Leo Lionni's gorgeous picture books are about what it means to be an artist.

Leo Lionni wrote and illustrated more than forty children’s books in his lifetime, but the one which is the most meaningful to me might be his most famous: Frederick, the story of a little field mouse who keeps his family Read more >

By Olivia Rutigliano

Your favorite modern horror movies, reimagined as '70s mass market paperbacks.

Yesterday, on Twitter, Elizabeth Belsky, a senior marketing manager at Hachette Books, shared her “little personal project of the month: reimagining modern horror films as trade paperbacks from the ’70s and ’80s.” And um, they’re incredibly awesome—the perfect blend of nostalgic Read more >

By Emily Temple

These are absolutely the ten best Sandra Boynton books.

Do you have a smush of a child who is aged in between eating books and listening to you read them? Then you probably own three or six or twenty Sandra Boynton titles. Boynton, who has sold over seven million Read more >

By Emily Firetog

An editor snuck Covid-19 into Don DeLillo's new novel—but DeLillo took it out at the last moment.

Over the weekend, in The New York Times Magazine, David Marchese spoke with Don DeLillo, the notoriously interview-shy Nobel bridesmaid whose latest novel, The Silence, will be published next week. Rather than beginning with broad strokes, Marchese’s first question reveals a Read more >

By Emily Temple

Here are the best reviewed books of the week.

Tana French’s The Searcher, Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind, Phil Klay’s Missionaries, and V. E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Read more >

By Book Marks

The NYRB just bought Milton Glaser's old townhouse.

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 >

By Corinne Segal

Fans of French Exit will love the new film adaptation.

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 >

By Joseph Pomp

Remember: Dirty Dancing demonstrated the best response to a guy pushing Ayn Rand on you.

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 >

By Emily Temple

Charlie Kaufman is adapting Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police into a feature film.

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 >

By Dan Sheehan

"I feel like a tracker in the forest following a scent." Louise Glück on how she writes.

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 >

By Corinne Segal

Zachary Quinto and Jim Parsons break out their Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote impressions.

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 >

By Dan Sheehan

Louise Glück has won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

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 >

By Jonny Diamond

Because there is no morality in capitalism, Fox News is getting its own imprint at HarperCollins.

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 >

By Aaron Robertson

Karen Russell has recommended reading for you, Joe Biden.

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 >

By Book Marks

Here are the bookies’ odds for the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature.

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 >

By Emily Temple

Marjane Satrapi's hypnotizing paintings of women are now on view in Paris.

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 >

By Emily Temple

It's been a bittersweet week for surf literature.

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 >

By Dan Sheehan