We never really got over the typewriter. Yes, we have shiny laptops now that weigh less than two pounds apiece, sleek machines that allow you to write as much as you want, that can eradicate your mistakes at the touch Read more >
As libraries begin to reopen around the country, patrons are excited to get back to borrowing books—but they’re also still nervous about COVID-19, which is understandable. At least some of them have been “getting creative” in their attempts to protect Read more >
I purchased an independent bookstore in Salisbury, North Carolina just six months ago, after taking leave from my career as a foreign service officer with the U.S. Department of State. After tours in Afghanistan, India, and other cities overseas, I Read more >
Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy has long been one of the great unadaptable science fiction works (read more on that here, along with a catalogue of Asimov’s awful serial harassment of women), but after 50 years, it has finally made it Read more >
As many of us head into our fourth month of isolation, our at-home activities are getting . . . unusual. So today, if you’ve already voted (if you’re in Kentucky or New York) and called your representatives about defunding the Read more >
You definitely shouldn’t go to the beach or the pool, so here are 13 brand-new books to dive into instead! * Ottessa Moshfegh, Death In Her Hands (Penguin Press) “…a darkly comic, brutal examination of the mucky corners of the Read more >
Last Friday, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods celebrated its 19th publication anniversary. Earlier this year, The Annotated American Gods was published. Leslie Klinger, the attorney/genre fiction annotator/writer/Sherlock Holmes super fan who annotated the new edition answered a few of my questions about the book over email. Read more >
Around these parts, there are few things we love more than ogling beautiful book covers—and it turns out, even the “book” part is negotiable. Enter: designer and illustrator Matt Stevens’ ongoing project (and soon-to-be book) Good Movies as Old Books, Read more >
After spending the week getting destroyed by Gen Z on TikTok, here’s some good news for millennials: every 90s kid’s favorite portmanteau-titled book series is finally(?) getting a film adaptation. For the unacquainted(/Irish), the Animorphs were a scrappy gang of Read more >
Practical Magic just may be the best movie of all time. Every time the leaves get crisp and the jack o’lanterns come out, I put on that sweet ’90s soundtrack. (Okay, it’s on right now and Stevie Nicks is singing Read more >
Members of the National Book Critics Circle are mobilizing to remove Carlin Romano, a member of its board, from his position after he criticized an anti-racist pledge the organization was planning to release, then threatened to sue his colleagues on Read more >
The Room Where It Happened, John Bolton’s memoir of his time in the Trump administration, is the #1 bestseller on Amazon in advance of its release on June 23, even as the government has sued to slow its publication. The Read more >
The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) has announced the finalists for the sixth annual Firecracker Awards, which honor the best independently published fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Mark your calendars: the winners will be announced on June 30th. Read more >
In honor of the 62nd anniversary of the publication of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart—a novel about the horrors of colonialism that still feels horrifyingly relevant—I spent some time this morning watching a 1964 conversation between Achebe and two other Read more >
Oprah Winfrey announced today that her next book club selection would be Deacon King Kong by James McBride, a novel that she says resonates at a time when America is facing a reckoning over race and violence against black people. Read more >
The brilliant Bernadine Evaristo—a longtime advocate for writers and artists of color whose most recent novel Girl, Woman, Other took home last year’s Booker Prize—appeared on the BBC’s topical debate show Question Time last week to talk about the welcome wave of Read more >
What is Bloomsday anyway? The classic Dublin celebration of James Joyce, commonly referred to as “Bloomsday,” is celebrated on June 16 every year, the day Leopold Bloom wandered the streets of Dublin in the epic novel Ulysses. Though usually the Read more >
Worldwide protests ignited by the death of George Floyd have continued, including in Nuneaton, Warkwickshire, where a group of locals thought they were protecting a statue of George Eliot over the weekend. Valiant defenders of this bronze effigy popped up Read more >
Spike Lee hasn’t slowed down in nearly 40 years of filmmaking, and his latest feature after 2018’s Black KkKlansman, Da 5 Bloods, has been receiving critical acclaim for its story and performances. At least one critic called it among the greatest war films Read more >
This morning, I drank my coffee while listening to this 1979 speech, given by James Baldwin in Berkeley. It is no novel thing to remind you, readers of this website, that James Baldwin was one of our most essential speakers, Read more >
