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News, Notes, Talk

In memory of Michael Seidenberg, owner of Brazenhead Books.

For years, I had been hearing about a secret bookstore on the Upper East Side, run by the owner out of his apartment. I thought that you could show up only in the company of a regular attendee. (I would Read more >

By David Burr Gerrard

Here are some good facts about Barbara Cartland, who wrote 723 novels.

On this day in 1901, Dame Barbara Cartland was born. She lived to 98, and in that time wrote 723 novels (mostly romance), which sold more than 750 million copies combined. She is the Guinness World Record-holder for most books Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Naomi Wolf responds to continued criticism of her delayed book.

After her book Outrages was indefinitely delayed by its publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, over factual mistakes, Naomi Wolf is moving forward on damage control while responding sharply to some critics. In a May interview with the BBC’s Matthew Sweet, Wolf Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Are there any actual guilty pleasures on this Politico reading list from DC “heavy hitters”?  

Noted politics-as-sport website Politico has put together a collection of bedside-table reading recommendations from 40 “political heavy hitters,” asking them for serious reads and guilty pleasures. First of all, are there any actual guilty pleasures on this list of books Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Lesley Nneka Arimah has won the 2019 Caine Prize—read her prizewinning story, "Skinned."

Nigerian writer Lesley Nneka Arimah, author of What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, has won the massively prestigious 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story “Skinned,” which was originally published in McSweeney’s Quarterly Read more >

By Emily Temple

New Books Tuesday: Your weekly guide to what’s publishing today, fiction and nonfiction.

Every week, a new crop of great new books hit the shelves. If we could read them all, we would, but since time is finite and so is the human capacity for page-turning, here are a few of the ones Read more >

By Emily Temple

Finally! Michael Mann's Heat novel is just around the corner...

Have you ever sat down on the couch, alone, at 2AM on a Tuesday to re-watch Heat—Michael Mann’s critically-aclaimed cat-and-mouse crime flick about a grizzled LA detective (Al Pacino) on the trail of a crew of bank robbers led by Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

How many books should you bring on your summer vacation?

This is a question as timeless as it is vexing, particularly if your work life is book-adjacent. Book critic extraordinaire Kate Tuttle claims to have finally pulled it off, citing a 6-to-5 books-to-days ratio (to the shock and admiration of Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

After 4,000 miles and 5,000 book giveaways, Poetry to the People is back home.

On June 28, the Poetry to the People tour wrapped up its 4,000 mile round-trip journey from Brooklyn to New Orleans and back. It was exhausting and exhilarating. There’s nothing like putting a free book into the hands of someone Read more >

By Rob Spillman

Dani Shapiro's bestselling memoir Inheritance to be adapted into a film

Good news, memoir fans: Variety reports that Dani Shapiro’s bestselling memoir Inheritance will be adapted into a feature by Killer Films, with Cami Delavigne (the co-writer of Blue Valentine) on board to write the script. The memoir centers on Shapiro’s Read more >

By Emily Temple

How did Walmart end up promoting Hitler's Mein Kampf?

Union-busting retail behemoth Walmart has come under fire this week for prominently featuring Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf in a sponsored Facebook post. According to Business Insider, the since-deleted post featured an oil painting of history’s greatest monster underneath a message Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

How Jeff and Ann VanderMeer picked stories for their new Big Book of Classic Fantasy.

Imagine being ushered into a vast and palatial room on a sumptuous estate to rival Versailles… and before you, across a golden table, lies a smorgasbord of delights. A banquet fit for a king, a queen, or even an emperor. Read more >

By Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer

The Chicago Review of Books gets a new editor-in-chief. (Congratulations, Amy Brady!)

Earlier today, the Chicago Review of Books founding editor, Adam Morgan, announced on Twitter that he is stepping down as editor-in-chief. After 3 years and 850+ reviews and interviews, I’m taking a step back from the @ChicagoRevBooks and naming the wonderful Read more >

By Katie Yee

Actually good news: translation publisher Deep Vellum is expanding.

Oh hey, this is good news for books, and friends of books! Deep Vellum, the Dallas-based nonprofit publisher of literary translations (and also a bookstore!), has acquired the backlists of two other indie publishers: Phoneme Media and A Strange Object. Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

New Books Tuesday: Your weekly guide to what’s publishing today, fiction and nonfiction

Every week, a new crop of great new books hit the shelves. If we could read them all, we would, but since time is finite and so is the human capacity for page-turning, here are a few of the ones Read more >

By Emily Temple

Re-Enter Sandman: Neil Gaiman's beloved series will finally be a (very expensive) Netflix show

For real this time, folks. Yes, more than three years after New Line dashed the hopes of millions by trying and failing to adapt Gaiman’s insanely popular horror fantasy comic book series for the big screen, Netlix has inked a Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway failed Scout.

The Shubert Theatre was a sea of chinos and button downs. I was surrounded by law school graduation presents. Behind me, an older gentleman was lecturing his young son on the importance of what he would he be watching. This Read more >

By Ellen Ricks

Your weekly deal memo: Eimear McBride, Rebecca Dinerstein Knight, & 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 >

By Emily Temple

Michael Chabon is the new showrunner for Star Trek: Picard.

Michael Chabon has been named the showrunner of Star Trek: Picard on CBS All Access (for the unacquainted, CBS All Access is a streaming service my husband pays for so he can watch the show The Good Fight, which—like Star Trek: Picard—is only Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Colson Whitehead is the first novelist to grace the cover of TIME since 2010

This week, Colson Whitehead is on the cover of TIME, with an accompanying profile, written by Mitchell S. Jackson, and the cover line “America’s Storyteller.” He is the first novelist to be featured on the cover of the weekly magazine Read more >

By Emily Temple