Every week, the TBR pile grows a little bit more. It’s getting precarious. It’s taking up your whole nightstand. It’s threatening to crush you in your sleep. Well, what are you waiting for? Get cracking. Michael Eric Dyson, JAY-Z: Made Read more >
It doesn’t seem like editorializing is all that necessary around this cruel and dystopic idea—for-profit prison systems now seem as American as for-profit health care, for-profit education, and, uh, apple pie. But yes, West Virginia inmates will be getting free Read more >
It’s the New York Public Library’s 100 Best Books of the Year list! This one is noteworthy to me because it reflects, shall we say, a more direct engagement with people who read books outside of professional exigencies, who are Read more >
I’d like to salute the brave librarians at Willmar Public Library in Willmar, Minnesota who recently invited local kids to an afterhours shoot em up among the stacks, operating under the idea that if you get kids in the presence Read more >
Thanksgiving is this week, which can only mean one thing: we’ve entered high You’ve Got Mail season. I’ve seen the movie at least a dozen times, so when today I endeavored to find an exact quote—for a blog post about Read more >
For many of you, Thanksgiving represents an anxiety-laden series of conversational challenges. There you are, trapped at the table, trying to navigate the divergent political opinions of libertarian uncles and flat-tax cousins who can’t seem to resist owning you, a Read more >
Charlie Kaufman, the Oscar Award-winning screenwriter of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich, has written a novel! Antkind tells the story of a failed film critic who stumbles upon “an impossible movie”—a three-month-long (!) stop-motion (!!) Read more >
Acclaimed writers Jesmyn Ward, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Michael Ondaatje, Edwidge Danticat, and Kevin Young were among the speakers who shared memories of the late Toni Morrison at a three thousand strong celebration of her life and work in the Cathedral Church of Read more >
My personal form of astrology is to anxiously trawl Publishers Marketplace every week. No, wait, hear me out: it’s how I can tell the only future that matters: which books I will be reading a year and a half from now. Also, Read more >
The teaser for director Autumn de Wilde’s upcoming Emma adaptation combines many of the things I love to see in movies: sass against religious figures, meaningful eye contact during highly choreographed dance routines, people eating things while looking suspicious, and Read more >
The Charles Taylor Foundation, a charity organization that supports Canadian writers, gave a cheery explanation for why a literary prize it’s been co-sponsoring for two decades is coming to an end next year: they accomplished exactly what they’d set out to Read more >
Depending on who you are, this news that a doll museum will open in a formerly vacant library building is either kind of cool or will give you endless nightmares—that is, if you ever sleep again. I’m in the second Read more >
The 2019 National Book Awards—aka the Oscars for books—have officially been awarded! This year’s winners are as follows: Young People’s Literature: Martin W. Sandler for 1919, The Year That Changed America. * Poetry: Arthur Sze for Sight Lines. * Translation: Laszlo Read more >
Perhaps you’re already aware that tonight is the National Book Awards, AKA “the biggest night in books,” AKA book prom, AKA the night of a thousand tote bags (just kidding! It’s very fancy). Tonight’s event will be hosted by LeVar Read more >
Climate Emergency noun [C usually singular]: “A situation in which urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it” Before you say it, I know, and I am as appalled Read more >
The one-mile stretch of upscale London real estate known as “Billionaires Row” isn’t quite Savile. As Business Insider recently revealed, one of the properties in this neighborhood, at 9 The Bishops Avenue, was once the safe house of British-Indian author Read more >
If you like social networking but find that the traditional platforms aren’t metaphysical enough for your taste, have I got an app for you. Actually, has Czech poet Lukas Sedlacek got an app for you. It’s called Poetizer, and it’s Read more >
In honor of the great LeVar Burton—reader, actor, Renaissance man, and host of tonight’s 70th-Annual National Book Awards—here’s our GIF-based preview of how his night will probably go. * 6:30pm Enters with entourage. via GIPHY 6:35pm Inspects (and approves) the Read more >
In Publishers Weekly, Sally Lodge reports that HarperCollins Children’s Books will be launching a new imprint “devoted to publishing books by Native creators that introduce young Native protagonists and showcase the present and future of Indian Country.” Heartdrum is currently Read more >
Random House announced today that they’ve acquired the rights to a series of books based on the New York Times Magazine’s extraordinarily popular “1619 Project,” which interrogates received perspectives on four centuries of slavery in America through essays, stories, histories, Read more >
