Hi. Welcome to Nobel Prize speculation season, which used to be a fun time when all us serfs in the kingdom of letters would curl up around our pumpkin-spiced vodka tonics and dredge up charming old world poets and Philip Read more >
Today the Center for Fiction announced the shortlist for its 2020 First Novel Prize. The prize, first awarded in 2006, recognizes the best debut fiction of the year, and it comes with $15,000; each finalist receives $1,000. Previous winners include Read more >
Let’s start with the good news—incredible news, really. Poet Kevin Young and publisher Jamia Wilson, two influential African-American gatekeepers in the book and media sectors, are about to take on illustrious new jobs. Young, currently the poetry editor for the Read more >
Here’s a much-needed palate cleanser after last night’s debate, and a reminder that solidarity works: in a show of support for The New Yorker‘s union, which is in the middle of a contract dispute with management, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Read more >
Truman Capote—the man who created Holly Golightly, wrote the most famous true crime book of all time, sparred with Gore Vidal, and threw the party to end all parties—would have turned 96 today. Capote’s final years were spent in and Read more >
In March, when it became clear that we were all going to be in quarantine for a long while, I thought maybe I’d use the time to become an extremely well-rounded and productive person. Maybe I’d get really into running Read more >
Pandemic? Depression? The rapid destabilization of one of the richest countries in the world? No, 2020 will likely go down in history as the year we had way too many open letters. Today sees an open letter in response to Read more >
You may be one of the world’s most prestigious and coveted literary awards, with a half-century of iconic literary figures in you corner, but you—yes you, anthropomorphized Booker Prize statuette—are no match for the ungodly might of the Obama Publishing Machine. Read more >
This has been an exciting month for Kaveh Akbar. Earlier this month, the author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf was named poetry editor of The Nation, a glittering position once held by writers like Langston Hughes, Anne Sexton, and William B. Read more >
When we were in school, Tuesdays were, arguably, the best weekday. The cafeteria likely nurtured your young, hopeful soul with Taco Tuesday. A crunchy shell, baked beans, hot sauce, melted cheese! And now, as adults who love to read, we Read more >
The results are in, and the list of most challenged books from the last decade is a mix of American classics, LGBTQ-themed books, and stories about female agency and empowerment. In other words, all the books that we should be Read more >
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof—Tennessee Williams’ sultry southern storm of a play about greed, deceit, self-delusion, sexual desire and repression, homophobia, sexism, and the looming specter of death—has had a curious life. Indeed, you could argue that Cat has actually Read more >
Over the weekend, Deadline reported that Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollett have been cast in Spiderhead, Netflix’s adaptation of George Saunders’ short story “Escape from Spiderhead,” which first appeared in The New Yorker in 2010, and later in his celebrated Read more >
I always loved giving my son a picture book rich in detail and watching him get lost in it, thereby gaining a few moments of peace and grown-up solitude—but now science is telling me I may have made him dumber.* Read more >
Within an hour of hearing that she had won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, a top honor given to science fiction published in the UK, Namwali Serpell also heard the news that the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor would Read more >
Graham Swift’s Here We Are; Natalie Zina Walschots’ Hench; Christina Lamb’s Our Bodies, Their Battlefields; and Laila Lalami’s Conditional Citizens all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. Fiction 1. Here We Are by Graham Swift 8 Rave • 5 Read more >
We’re a little more than a month out from Election Day and the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list is looking predictably odd. In a year when books about anti-racism have reached unprecedented sales, so too has the tide of journalistic blockbusters Read more >
Are you happy in your current book world job? Do you arise each morning with a sense of purpose? Does social isolation, political turmoil, and inclement fall weather agree with you? Can you turn up to work barefoot and go Read more >
Traveling might be tricky these days, but that probably wouldn’t have stopped F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. In their honor, and because it’s F. Scott’s birthday today, it might be the right time to book a (socially distanced) trip to Read more >
Remember the episode of The West Wing with the filibuster? While the rest of the staff is running around the White House, trying to get shit done, Sam Seaborn is sitting in the cafeteria, listening to the filibuster unfold on the Read more >
