Variety reports that sales for J.K. Rowling’s books slowed down in June, in a period that appears to be somewhat of an anomaly for the author, as well as out of step with the wider industry. Last year, as sales Read more >
Yet again, a debate about color-coordinated bookshelves has sprung up on the internet. This time, it was catalyzed by a tweet from writer and journalist Jennifer Wright, which features said bookshelf style as well as a very fun dress (which is Read more >
Let’s welcome Friday with a little bit of light. This morning, three major arts nonprofits, supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, announced a $3.5 million fund that will be used to give one-time grants (between $5,000 Read more >
I started writing this post as a counterpoint to the “describe your favorite book in the most boring way possible” trend. It was meant to be something along the lines of “describe a plotless book in the most exciting way Read more >
Here’s another one for our ever-growing post-quarantine travel wish lists (assuming U.S. passports aren’t just cancelled forever now): Beijing’s Zhongshuge bookstore, which features some very dreamy book tunnels. According to X+Living, the design firm behind the literary wonderland, the tunnels Read more >
Mary Trump’s book Too Much Is Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, which focuses on the history of the Trump family and the psychology of the president, had sold 950,000 copies by the end of Tuesday, Read more >
I recently discovered the art of Rick Beerhost, a printmaker, painter and sculptor from Grand Rapids, Michigan, who creates, among other things, many paintings of young women reading books. Often the women have their eyes obscured—hummingbirds are favored; the influence Read more >
Over the years, Lydia Davis has gifted us with dozens of interviews chronicling her relationship to literature, laying out her writing process, and analyzing the many craft-related choices that writers make every day. Today is her birthday and a great Read more >
One month after controversy over an anti-racism pledge led most board members of the National Book Critics Circle to resign, the organization has announced its newest slate of board members. In June, a working committee led by Hope Wabuke drafted Read more >
Wishbone—a kids’ series which aired on PBS from 1995-97, in which a Jack Russell terrier, surrounded by a cast of humans, acts out works of classic literature (while the kids in his orbit navigate vaguely thematically related kid problems)—is getting Read more >
Lorrie Moore has written a kind of ecstatic, intergenerational, theses-nailed-to-the-door review of Sally Rooney’s Normal People (both the novel and the TV show). I like the fiction of both Moore and Rooney. I am also a Gen X’er. I think Read more >
On January 1, 2021, The Great Gatsby will become the latest masterwork of 20th century literature to enter the public domain, and because time and tide wait for no man, just a few days later, on January 5, we’ll all be Read more >
Lisa Lucas is stepping down as executive director of the National Book Foundation to become Senior Vice President & Publisher of Pantheon and Schocken Books. According to a press release from the NBF Lucas, who took over the ED role Read more >
Andrew Weissmann, who served as a prosecutor for Robert Mueller during an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, is releasing a book this fall—and says it will include details on the investigation’s “mistakes.” Random House will publish Where Read more >
Every year, the UK’s Prospect releases a list of the top 50 thinkers in the world and this year is no different—except that 2020 is very different, and so this year’s list is explicitly branded as “the world’s top 50 thinkers for the Read more >
A recent advice-seeker in Slate’s Dear Prudence column wrote to ask Prudence (AKA Danny M. Lavery)’s opinion on their boyfriend’s expressed interest in some good old-fashioned Middlemarch role-play. “My boyfriend recently brought up the hypothetical idea of ‘solemn play’—someone who has Read more >
It’s been quite a year for Colson Whitehead! First, he won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (again) and then he received the Orwell Prize for political fiction. And now the Library of Congress is honoring him with their lifetime achievement prize. Read more >
Oh, glorious day! Bookstores across the country are opening up again. (My local Greenlight is browsable as of this week—I’m not crying, you’re crying.) As you cross the threshold of your favorite local indie for the first time in months, you Read more >
Probably, yes. Back when I had time to read for many hours a day I devoured Seth’s 1,300-page, 1993 epic of love, class, politics, and just about everything else, all of it set against post-partition India’s roiling transition from colonial Read more >
It has recently come to my attention that Jane Austen’s former Bath home is available to rent for your writing retreat/pandemic escape plan through Airbnb. You can sleep under the same roof (er, approximately) as the literary legend for a Read more >
