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 >
The owners of Greenlight Bookstore, which has two Brooklyn locations, came forward this week to take responsibility for “negative experiences of Black customers and employees in our stores” with a commitment to improving. In an open letter published Wednesday, co-owners Read more >
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust, the man perennially in search of lost time, was born on this day in 1871. The ruminative frenchman is of course best known for his mammoth seven-volume novel À la recherche du temps perdu, Read more >
I am clearly a coastal elite out of touch with how people really read* because I did not know there’s a robust, overcrowded field of sports-themed romance novels. This is one of the things I learned in this feature at Read more >
The National Book Foundation has announced that this year’s National Book Awards events—including the 71st annual ceremony—will be held digitally, due to the ongoing, not-even-remotely-controlled, coronavirus pandemic. Lisa Lucas, the National Book Foundation’s Executive Director, said of the decision,”As a Read more >
It’s the audio version that I want. Wouldn’t you? Mariah Carey’s memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, is set to come out this fall. Carey herself will be reading the audiobook, which will feature occasional musical interludes. Carey’s career has had Read more >
“I, Ennio Morricone, am dead. This is an announcement for all my dear friends, too many to name here. There is a reason for this farewell, as it is my wish to have my funeral celebrated privately: I don’t want Read more >
Authors including Colson Whitehead, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., and Adam Rutherford are cancelling events at the Free Library of Philadelphia over complaints from Black employees that they have been mistreated and undervalued there. An open letter from Black employees says Read more >
Ernest Cline’s young adult novel Ready Player One was one of 2011’s biggest publishing success stories. Nearly ten years later, fans are getting another chance to visit the world of The Oasis. The sequel’s title? You guessed it: Ready Player Two. The first Read more >
The Prix Albertine Jeunesse is a prize chosen for children, by children—that is, a reader’s choice award in which people between the ages of three and fourteen vote on their favorite book from a selection of Francophone literature. This award Read more >
Today, Penguin Random House announced the launch of a new imprint, Tiny Reparations Books, founded by New York Times bestselling author, comedian, actress, and producer Phoebe Robinson. Robinson will be partnering with Plume (a division of Dutton, which is itself Read more >
The artist’s retreat formerly known as the MacDowell Colony announced today that it would drop the “Colony” from its name going forward and be known simply as MacDowell (which is, I gather, what the cool kids have been calling it Read more >
The dubious genre of Trump tell-all memoirs has a new member: Melania & Me, written by a previous advisor to Melania Trump, which will be published by the Simon & Schuster imprint Gallery Books on September 1. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Read more >
Good morning to everyone, but especially to Margaret Atwood, who has enraged transphobic Twitter trolls today with this post. Some science here: “When Sex and Gender Collide.” https://t.co/oOxAsEWJm8 #TransGenderWomen Biology doesn’t deal in sealed Either/Or compartments. We’re all part of Read more >
Summer reading had me a blast Summer reading happened so fast I found a book perfect for me Bought a book new as can be… Seriously, friends, what else is there to do on these hot summer days besides belt Read more >
The Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit(??) “devoted to applying Rand’s ideas to current issues and seeking to promote her philosophical principles of reason, rational self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism,” has recently accepted—I assume grudgingly—government assistance to the tune of a Paycheck Read more >
