Distracted as we are by November’s Clash of the Predators, by the grim slog of the ongoing COVID crisis, by our tiger kings and our last dances and our normal people, we almost forgot about what is, unquestionably, the most Read more >
Even as local leaders start to talk about re-opening businesses, an open letter signed by artists, writers, and scientists around the world asserts that there is no “going back to normal” beyond the coronavirus pandemic. Anne Carson, Naomi Klein, and Read more >
Um, did everyone else know that there was a movie in the works with Elisabeth Moss playing Shirley Jackson and Michael Stuhlbarg playing her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman? I for one did not, but after seeing the trailer, which dropped Read more >
There’s a certain gravitas about a Penguin Classic. I mean, any idiot can publish a book, but not all of them are approved by the cutest flightless bird in the southern hemisphere. Well now, thanks to Nicholas Love’s neat cover Read more >
Today is the centenary of the birth of Richard Adams, author of Watership Down, surely your favorite novel about adventuring rabbits. So when better to revisit the time that Adams, who died in 2016, called his own dog, a Welsh Read more >
James Patterson certainly isn’t a stranger to surprising collaborations. His The President is Missing, a political thriller that credits Patterson and Bill Clinton as co-authors (Co-parents? Idea generators?), was one of 2018’s bestselling books and Showtime will be adapting it for TV. If Read more >
It’s official: We have now reached the “dyeing our clothes with beets” stage of quarantine. But there is another way. Take a deep breath. Leave your beets alone. Read these stories about doing nothing, and then, maybe, if it’s an Read more >
Poets & Writers has just named Ed Roberson the winner of this year’s Jackson Poetry Prize, which celebrates an American poet of exceptional talent and comes with a purse of $70,000. For the past 14 years, this prize has provided Read more >
No one will be surprised by this but yes, two of the most combative and competitive literary men of the 20th century once hit each other. Our story opens in February of 1936 in Key West—really the perfect place for Read more >
If you are currently living out your quarantine with an argumentative reader of fantasy and science fiction (possibly this person is your child, who knows), or if you aren’t but would like to be, you may get a kick out Read more >
Living in a state of quarantine right now involves developing a strange, contradictory relationship to stimulus; the quiet pace of life indoors belies the frantic, endless flow of news from outside, if you choose to follow it. A Delicate Sight, Read more >
Well, well, well. It looks like 2020 isn’t the only year with a concerning case of the hots for Dr. Anthony Fauci. But while today’s lust stems from the NIAID director’s pandemic-related competence, in 1991 he played a slightly more Read more >
If you, like me, loved Sayaka Murata’s 2019 novel Convenience Store Woman, I have some good news for you: Murata’s next novel, Earthlings, also translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, is slated to hit shelves in October, and it is about Read more >
Recently on Twitter (because where else does anyone go these days), I was alerted to this 19th Century Character Trope Generator, which is . . . well, exactly what it says and no more. It is surprisingly diverting for such Read more >
The Association of University Presses has announced its selections for the 2019 AUPresses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show, now in its 55th year. The selected books will be displayed at the Association of University Presses Annual Meeting (digital this year), and Read more >
The future may be uncertain, but one thing we can always count on is the bunch of new books that come into the world every Tuesday. Welcome, friends. * Emma Straub, All Adults Here (Riverhead) “Straub cements her status as a Read more >
The winners of this year’s Pulitzer Prizes were just announced via video stream. Originally scheduled for April 20th, the announcement was postponed this year because of the pandemic. The award ceremony, typically held in May at Columbia University, will be Read more >
I have long enjoyed exchanging recorded “letters” with loved ones thousands of miles away. There’s something about the voicemail-as-letter that doesn’t quite have the formal pressure of the written word, but can also exist outside the stresses and banalities of Read more >
Fifty-seven years ago this month, Frank O’Hara moved into his last New York apartment, a floor-through loft at 791 broadway, across from Grace Church. As Brad Gooch describes it in his fabulous biography, City Poet, the place sounds like a deal. Read more >
Well, here’s something! Stephenie Meyer announced on Good Morning America that she would release Midnight Sun, a retelling of the Twilight saga from the perspective of the emotionally abusive vampire. In 2008, Meyer abandoned the manuscript after the first 12 chapters were leaked Read more >
