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News, Notes, Talk

The first lines of 10 classic novels, rewritten for social distancing.

Of course, books can be a balm in these terrifying times—but as the surge in sales of plague-related literature reveals, sometimes all we want to read are books that speak directly to our terrifying times. Well, friends, with a little elbow Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Can't decide what to read next? Tell us your favorite books and we'll recommend one just for you.

Have you already gotten through the first round of your self-isolation reading list? Are you trying to decide what book to read next? The Literary Hub staff has got your back—not to mention a lot of strong opinions about literature. Read more >

By Emily Temple

The Museum of the Bible's Dead Sea Scroll fragments have been revealed as worthless forgeries.

Here’s some Monday morning schadenfreude to start your week right: after extensive testing, it seems that the Museum of the Bible’s sixteen fragments of the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls, for which museum founder Steve Green paid millions of dollars, are in Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

So Shakespeare wrote King Lear during a plague. Well, good for him, say all the writers.

Over the weekend, as countries around the world began or continued to shut down, many Twitter users, the most prominent among them being Rosanne Cash, reminded their followers of how productive one William Shakespeare managed to be when the plague Read more >

By Emily Temple

Hold on to your Nebulas: Ken Liu's short stories are coming to TV.

Ken Liu, the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of more acclaimed SFF short stories than you can shake a futuristic stick at, will soon be bringing his expansive imagination to the small screen. As Publishers Marketplace announced earlier today, AMC Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Lots of people are looking up "pandemic" and "quarantine" and "Kafkaesque" in the dictionary.

Turns out people have some questions about the new coronavirus—and not just “what is social distancing, exactly” and “can I go to the gym?” This morning, Merriam-Webster lexicographer Peter Sokolowski tweeted this list of recent lookups in the digital dictionary: Read more >

By Emily Temple

Here are the National Book Critics Circle Award winners!

This evening, the National Book Critics Circle announced the winners of their annual awards, which celebrates excellent writing and encourages the discourse around literature. These are the only national awards chosen by the book critics themselves. The original ceremony that Read more >

By Katie Yee

A Natalie Wood biography suggests her husband played a role in her death.

Almost 20 years ago, celebrity biographer Suzanne Finstad published her 2001 bestseller Natascha: The Biography of Natalie Wood. By that point, the vague details surrounding Wood’s death in 1981 made it one of Hollywood’s most infamous mysteries. Wood had gone missing Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Lady Gaga's organization is publishing an anthology about kindness.

Boy do we need it. Lady Gaga and her organization, the Born This Way Foundation, have announced that they’ll be publishing an anthology later this year called Channel Kindness: Stories of Kindness and Community.  All of the anthology’s authors are contributors Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

In honor of Jack Kerouac's 98th birthday, let's look back at his time as a Gap model.

Chaos reigns throughout the world, but we should still take a moment to remember Jack Kerouac, Beat-turned-khaki icon, on his birthday. Gap was able to license the photos of Kerouac it used in the 1993 campaign when the feuding relatives Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Women racked up the prizes from the American Academy of Arts and Letters this year.

Yesterday, the American Academy of Arts and Letters announced that the winner of the $100,000 Christopher Lightfoot Walker Award is poet and essayist Leslie Marmon Silko, best known for her writings on her Laguna Pueblo heritage and for the vital Read more >

By Katie Yee

Digital readers are more likely to be writers than print-only readers, says a new report.

Sorry, typeset loyalists: A new report from the National Endowment for the Arts is making digital and audio readers look great. The report, based on responses to the 2017 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, shows that digital and Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Update: NYC public libraries are suspending all programs and closing to the public through March.

UPDATE: On Friday, March 13, the New York Public Library announced that all branches would be closing to the public, beginning on Saturday, March 14, through at least Tuesday, March 31. Have books out? Outdoor book drops will also be closed, Read more >

By Emily Temple

Americanah producer wins screen rights to Girl, Woman, Other.

Good news for fans of smart literary adaptations: it looks like Bernardine Evaristo’s Booker Prize-winner Girl, Woman, Other will soon be made into a prestige TV show by the producers of The Constant Gardner, The Little Friend and the upcoming Lupita Nyong’o-starring HBO adaptation Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Raymond Chandler originally wanted Cary Grant to Play Philip Marlowe.

Humphrey Bogart will go down in history as the actor most associated with the detective character Phillip Marlowe, but he wasn’t the first actor to play him, and he wasn’t author Raymond Chandler’s first preference. In 1944, the washed-up musical Read more >

By Olivia Rutigliano

This 1940s Dutch children's book depicts Hitler as a bug who eventually gets eaten.

Attending last week’s New York’s Antiquarian Book Fair, I came across an unusual children’s book: Kriebeltje de Boskabouter (in English: Tickle, the Forest-Gnome). One of the current listings at the rare books dealership Type Punch Matrix, this Dutch children’s paperback Read more >

By Olivia Rutigliano

The cutest feud on Twitter is between a parks department and library in Colorado.

A library just outside Denver was telling people to stay inside before it was cool—and, in the process, having a (pretty adorable) Twitter feud with its local parks department. Jefferson County Public Library dunks on the outdoors every chance it Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Got $200k to spare? Why not bid on this miniature, handwritten Harry Potter book?

Do you consider yourself a hard-core Potterhead? Did you defy your Veron Dursley-esque stepfather by joining the college Quidditch team? Did a rough breakup prompt an ill-advised dalliance with Snapism? Is your work commute enlivened by the dulcet tones of Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Here are the finalists for the 2020 Lambda Literary Awards!

For the past 32 years, the Lambda Literary Awards have been championing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender writers. Past recipients of these awards include Audre Lorde, Alison Bechdel, Roxane Gay, and Michael Cunningham. This year’s award ceremony will be held Read more >

By Katie Yee

A decades-old cookie was found in a centuries-old book.

Sometimes the most interesting thing about a story is what is left unsaid… or uneaten. A tweet by the Cambridge University Library Special Collections account has been circulating ever since one employee made an unusual find in a 1529 edition Read more >

By Aaron Robertson