The most prolific man in letters, James Patterson, has bestowed upon 20 UK booksellers the Young Bookseller Special Achievement Award in recognition of their “talent and extraordinary contribution to the bookselling industry.” Bestselling author/philanthropist Patterson (whose has sold somewhere north Read more >
God, Metallica is getting dangerously close to grandad-rock* (Lars Ulrich is 55), but it’s obviously a very rock and roll thing to keep fathering kids until you die (what’s up Rod Stewart). And look, everyone knows that parenthood does weird Read more >
Beloved stage and screen actor, geriatric bank robber, and Norman Mailer hammerer Rip Torn passed away on Tuesday, after a long battle with genteel society. He was 88. There have been many wonderful Torn performances down through the years, from Wonder Boys">Read more >
James Patterson, a very rich author, is among those glad that billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein has been charged with sex trafficking. Patterson wrote a book about Epstein in 2016 called Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal that Undid Read more >
This summer, Litchfield County Auctions will be auctioning off hundreds of items from the estate of Philip Roth, including furniture, fixtures, loads of Chinese art and artifacts, and rather more sterling silver than you might expect, as found in his Read more >
For three nights in Manchester (July 12-14), as many as 300 people will file into a theatre space littered with cables and sound equipment. Seven islands will be placed throughout the audience, hosting seven of the world’s most celebrated authors: Read more >
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 >
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 >
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 >
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 >
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 >
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 >
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 >
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 >
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 >
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 >
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 >
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 >
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 >
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 >
