Lucy Ellmann, author of Ducks, Newburyport, one of the biggest books (in every sense) to come out in 2019, won this year’s James Tait Black Prize in fiction. It is among the oldest literary awards in the UK, which Ellmann’s father, Read more >
Three competing design proposals are out for the forthcoming Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota, a city of 112 people that sits on the southern border of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The finalists—Snøhetta, Studio Gang, and Henning Larsen—all Read more >
By now, the events of Oscar Wilde’s 1882 speaking tour, which formally introduced him and his ideas to the US, are thoroughly mythologized: the unintended laughter he received at his first lecture in New York City, his visit with Walt Read more >
Does anyone else remember the young adult series From the Files of Madison Finn? Surely I can’t be the only one who, as an awkward and bookish middle-schooler, devoured them. The series follows twelve-year-old Madison Finn. She lives in upstate New Read more >
I didn’t. But it’s true: in 1945 or 1946, Ray Bradbury (who was born 100 years ago tomorrow), then known mostly in the pulp fiction market, submitted one of his short stories, “The Homecoming,” to Mademoiselle, a fashion magazine known Read more >
The Huntington Library, part of a beautiful complex with an art museum and botanical garden in San Marino, California, turns 100 this year and they’ve found a great way to celebrate. The library announced a one-year fellowship that will fund Read more >
If you can remember as far back as February 2019, surely you recall Ian Parker’s barn-burner of a New Yorker story about the trail of deception left by book editor turned novelist Dan Mallory, whose authorship of the best-selling thriller Read more >
Apparently Spotify is looking for someone to run an audiobooks division, per this very thorough analysis by Mark Williams at The New Publishing Standard. With 299 million monthly users, that could actually be a pretty huge deal for a sector Read more >
Rachel Bloom, the ingenious creator and star of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, has written a book! Last night, she announced its November 17th publication on Instagram. (Shoutout to my dear friend who texted me at an odd hour of the evening to Read more >
This weekend, the Ray Bradbury Centennial team, in partnership with the Library of Congress, Los Angeles Public Library, and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, will present the first annual Ray Bradbury Read-A-Thon: a chorus of voices will read Read more >
Since 2014, I haven’t been able to convince myself that there is a literary genre as enigmatic, macabre, and folkloristically rich as a work of hagiography, the vita or “life” of a saint. Six years ago, I traveled to a handful of Read more >
An open letter published today and signed by 30 members of the National Book Critics Circle calls for sweeping changes to the organization’s structure and practices, with a specific set of recommendations meant to address inclusion, accessibility, and anti-racism. The Read more >
Ah, yes, the good old days: when novelists lent their faces and testimonials to advertisers hoping to sell tires, or a certain kind of beer, or fancy watches. It’s something you don’t see very much anymore, because we writers have Read more >
Break out the mustache wax and pour yourself a stiff G&T, because the first trailer for Death on the Nile—the Kenneth Branagh-directed adaptation of Agatha Christie’s canonical 1937 crime novel in which Detective Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of a Read more >
Harnessing the power of extremely famous people to sell books is nothing new, but what about combining the influence of multiple famous people—from billionaire “philanthropist” Richard Branson to beloved journalist/Twitter lush Susan Orlean—to sell books combined with the vaporous concept of “access” Read more >
Organizations representing bookstores, writers, and publishers sent a joint letter to the House Antitrust Subcommittee yesterday asking them to put a stop to Amazon’s “unhealthy degree of control” over the the marketplace for books. Addressing Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI), the Read more >
Today marks the 62nd anniversary of the American publication of Vladimir Nabokov’s most controversial and iconic work. Lolita—the story of a verbose, middle-aged literature professor, sexually obsessed with pre-pubescent girls, and his perverse and destructive relationship with 12-year-old Dolores Haze—became Read more >
The Democratic National Convention has begun, and this year, it’s refreshingly personal, with the majority of statements and speeches coming from inside people’s homes—or backgrounds of varying oddity. Among the highlights: Megan Rapinoe has utterly mastered both monochromatism and lighting; Read more >
I used to be a steadfast book-finisher. At least when it came to books I picked up voluntarily, I was committed to gritting my teeth and cleaning my plate (unfortunately, this didn’t apply to the many assigned history texts I Read more >
Oh boy. Today, Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House, announced that they would be publishing New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo’s American Crisis on October 13th. The publisher describes the book as “a revealing, behind-the-scenes account of his experience leading Read more >
