I’m not sure how to feel about this one: poet Maya Angelou is going to be a Barbie. I have limited experience with Barbies, both in my own childhood and as a parent, and I find their weird, distorted physical Read more >
How’s that New Year’s resolution to read more going? Yeah, badly for me, too! I just got an HBO Max subscription, so you can imagine my nights awash in the Friends theme song (I find the show comforting—don’t @ me!) and Read more >
Earlier this year, we learned of the founding of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, which is the first English-language literary award to celebrate excellence in fiction by women writers in the United States and Canada. And today, the Carol Read more >
If you have ever wanted to own a typewriter that looks like a computer and has no paper and costs five hundred dollars, you’re in luck: the productivity tool company Astrohaus has created the Freewrite, a “distraction-free writing instrument.” According Read more >
Tessa Thompson is quite the force to be reckoned with. From her early films Mississippi Damned (2009) and Dear White People (2014) to her groundbreaking film Sylvie’s Love (2020), Thompson has proven herself an actor of tremendous talent and wit. Now, she is launching a Read more >
Cornering the market of people who are addicted to TikTok and take a scholarly interest in the rollicking old melodies of the high seas, British Library Publishing is set to rush-print a guide to sea shanties. If you know why Read more >
Though the looming threat of white supremacist violence is a good reason to dread Joe Biden’s inauguration, the roster of performers—including Tom Hanks, Lady Gaga, and Jennifer Lopez—is looking pretty good. Add to the list Amanda Gorman, the 22-year-old who Read more >
In 1979, Highsmith joined Roy Plomley on Desert Island Discs, the BBC Radio show in which famous people choose exactly what the name implies. Plomley, of course, starts out with a softball: “Miss Highsmith, could you endure prolonged loneliness?” Ah, Read more >
Less than a month on from the movie poster controversy (Cherrk!) that rocked the internet to its very core, the first trailer for Cherry—the Tom Holland-starring film adaptation of Nico Walker’s 2018 semi-autobiographical debut novel about an Iraq War veteran turned Read more >
Yesterday, Twitter became aware of the fact that Noah Baumbach is working on an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s hipster classic White Noise. And boy, does Twitter have feelings about it. According to Production Weekly, Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig will star, Read more >
You can keep your Avengers spin-offs and your Twilight retellings and your Star Wars origin stories. The only bloated cash-in franchise i’m interested in is the Hannibal Lecter Expanded Universe (or HLEU, to those of us who frequent the message Read more >
The PEN Award for Freedom of Expression recognizes and honors a writer’s significant contribution and commitment to free speech around the world despite the dangers of political persecution. Previous winners include Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich, Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, and Ugandan Read more >
Though it was published in the before-times, if you clear your mind, you may remember Elif Batuman’s New Yorker essay about Japan’s “Rent-a-Family Industry.” In the piece, “A Theory of Relativity,” Batuman reported on lonely singles in Japan renting actors to Read more >
…Frankenstein! According to Degree Query, which used information from the Open Syllabus Project to compile lists of the most commonly assigned books across disciplines, as well as compare what students at public versus Ivy League colleges are reading. At public Read more >
As the son of a Glaswegian I occasionally take a little pride in the goings on of the olde country, so I was pleased to see that Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon, in the midst of increasing restrictions due to Read more >
Some pleasant news! In honor of “Peace Train”s 50th anniversary, Yusuf/Cat Stevens has announced that the illustrated children’s book Peace Train, using the lyrics of the famous song, will be published May 11th via HarperCollins. It will be followed by Read more >
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