The Aspen Institute has just announced the winner of their 2020 Literary Prize: Christy Lefteri, for her novel, The Beekeeper of Aleppo, which tells the story of Syrian refugees in Great Britain. The Aspen Words Literary Prize was established to celebrate Read more >
Putting roughly half a million Brooklyn home cooks to shame, a sourdough library in Belgium has placed 125 sourdough starters from around the world on display in a space that offers virtual tours. The Puratos Sourdough Library in St. Vith, Read more >
After a six-week battle with coronavirus, the Chilean author Luis Sepúlveda has died at the age of 70. The government of Asturias, where he was living in Spain, confirmed his death today. The author had been hospitalized in late February Read more >
These days, everything feels a little bit bleaker than usual. But one thing that genuinely made me smile as I was panic scrolling last week? The clever designs of Read Books, Serve Looks, otherwise known as Thom Stead (Instagram bio: Read more >
It’s been nearly twenty years since Jeffrey Eugenides’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Middlesex (a multi-generational coming-of-age epic focusing on the travails of an intersex protagonist in 1960s Detroit) first hit shelves, and its legions of fans (the book has shifted upwards Read more >
In the late 1850s, the Pre-Raphaelite poet Christina Rossetti wrote a poem about her annoyance with a suitor who couldn’t seem to comprehend the fact that she didn’t want to marry him—despite her telling him so quite plainly. In a Read more >
Yesterday, as part of NBC’s limited rollout of its new screening service Peacock, they released a few teasers for their original content—including this teaser trailer for their adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 classic Brave New World, which will be debuting Read more >
On this day in 1962, Doris Lessing published The Golden Notebook, arguably her most famous work, in part because of how diligently college-age men still name-drop it to try to endear themselves to hot feminists. (Hi, we see what you’re Read more >
The BBC’s children’s channel CBeebies has had tremendous success over the past decade with its Bedtime Stories program—a ten-minute slot, airing every weeknight from 6:50 to 7, wherein a celebrity reads a children’s story to an audience of rapt rugrats across Read more >
The New York Public Library’s list of what books New Yorkers are reading as they social distance shows a taste for dystopia, other people’s problems, and Michelle Obama—so, you know, the usual. As library locations remain closed, the NYPL has Read more >
If you’re looking to add a little mobility and a lot of whimsy to your home life (or as we call it, life), and you have $783,000, you’re in luck! Shel Silverstein’s houseboat, currently floating in Richardson Bay in Sausalito, California, is Read more >
A novel set at the beginning of France’s long conquest of Algeria has won the 13th International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Algerian writer Abdelouahab Aissaoui is the first from his country to win the prize, which comes with a $50,000 Read more >
Last night, journalist Jess Hill was named the winner of the $50,000 Stella Prize, which celebrates excellence in Australian women’s writing. (The shortlisted authors, who will each receive $2,000, are: Charlotte Wood for her novel, The Weekend; Tara June Winch Read more >
Please tune in tomorrow night, Wednesday the 15th, at 7pm for a special FSG poetry reading at Lit Hub’s Virtual Book Channel. Host Hannah Aizenman, poetry coordinator at The New Yorker, will be joined by three poets, Eliza Griswold, Shane McCrae, Read more >
Today from the endless vault that is the internet: your favorite pop songs, rewritten as sonnets. I only recently stumbled across this truly hilarious and inspired (and now-defunct) Tumblr, but it made me laugh out loud in an otherwise depressing Read more >
My second favorite quarantine activity has become refreshing the bookshop.org page to see how much they’ve raised for local bookstores. (At the time that I’m writing this, they’ve crossed over the half a million line!) My first favorite quarantine activity Read more >
Poets & Writers is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2020. The organization began in 1970 with a program—which continues to this day—that pays writers fees for giving readings and leading writing workshops in community-based settings. In 1973 Poets & Writers Read more >
Poets & Writers will give 80 grants of up to $1,000 to writers who have an affiliation with the organization and need emergency aid due to the coronavirus pandemic. Grants will be available to “writers with a prior affiliation with Read more >
You guys: with the A-list actors confined to their gated compounds and every notable film release date kicked months down the road as the once-unstoppable juggernaut that is Hollywood grinds to a near-standstill amid the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown, we almost Read more >
If you have a child you’ve been trying to “homeschool” first of all, much love and solidarity to you. But also, have you been letting the kid do random educational-adjacent things like “read graphic novels for two hours” and calling Read more >
