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Here's the longlist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction.

Last but certainly not least: it’s the time for fiction! The National Book Foundation has announced the ten books contending for this year’s National Book Award for Fiction. The award, created in 1950, is the most prestigious literary prize in the Read more >

By Rasheeda Saka

I spoke with a friend of Robert and Mabel Williams about Negroes With Guns and BLM.

“Why do I speak to you from exile? Because a Negro community in the South took up guns in self-defense against racist violence—and used them.” These are the opening lines of Robert F. Williams’ book Negroes With Guns (1962), the work Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Bryan Washington's Lot has won the NYPL's Young Lions Fiction Award.

Today, the New York Public Library announced the winner for this year’s Young Lions Fiction Award. The award—founded in 2001 by Ethan Hawke, Hannah McFarland, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, and Rick Moody—was created to honor a writer age 35 or younger Read more >

By Rasheeda Saka

Here's the longlist for this year's National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Today, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2020 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The National Book Awards, created in 1950, is the most prestigious literary prize in the United States, rewarding quality and cogent writing. This year’s Read more >

By Rasheeda Saka

An Australian bookstore will stop stocking books by J.K. Rowling.

Australia has spoken, and J.K. Rowling is out. Rabble Books & Games in Maylands, Australia, said earlier this week that the store would stop stocking her books due to this, this, or this, all of which, it’s not so wild Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Absolute snack Stanley Tucci is writing a memoir about his life as a foodie.

There are very few celebrities whose meals interest me. (Yes, I do hate Instagram, thank you.) But here’s one: Stanley Tucci, who announced today that he’s working on a memoir called Taste: My Life Through Food. Publisher Gallery Books described Read more >

By Emily Temple

Legendary jazz critic, playwright, and essayist Stanley Crouch has died.

Stanley Crouch, jazz critic, playwright, novelist, public intellectual, celebrated—and controversial—essayist, and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, died on Wednesday at the age of 74. “Mr. Crouch defied easy categorization,” wrote Sam Roberts in The New York Times. A former Black nationalist Read more >

By Emily Temple

The first volume of Barack Obama's memoir is getting a 3 million copy printing this November.

We’ve known for a while that Barack Obama would be coming out with a new memoir. Today his publisher confirmed that the book, A Promised Land, will be released soon after the November elections. The former president isn’t a stranger to Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

All the poets on the longlist for the National Book Award for Poetry are first timers.

And now, it’s the time for the poets! Today, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry. The National Book Awards, created in 1950, is the most prestigious literary prize in the United Read more >

By Rasheeda Saka

It's William Carlos Williams' birthday. Do yourself a favor and play this chaotic plum-based game.

Why yes, it’s the RPG of your dreams: You are seminal American modernist poet WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS. It is late at night and you are HUNGRY. Investigate the KITCHEN for something to EAT. Play it all out here. (You won’t Read more >

By Emily Temple

The newest remix of "Old Town Road" is... a children's book?

Lil Nas X has been riding off the success of last year’s single “Old Town Road” for a while now (a fact he commonly makes fun of himself). There was a time last summer when it felt like a new Read more >

By Julia Hass

There's a new Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney book coming next spring.

Here’s a moment of good news for your midweek slump: Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney is back. Several years after making her debut with The Nest—a novel that earned a seven-figure advance from Ecco and inspired a movie project, currently under development Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Here's the longlist for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

In more literary news, the National Book Foundation has just announced the longlist for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The longlist includes ten novels originally published in eight different languages: Arabic, German, Spanish, Persian, Tamil, Korean, Japanese, Read more >

By Rasheeda Saka

10 covers for Stephen King's It, ranked from least to most terrifying.

Stephen King’s It, the novel that birthed a million Coulrophobics (and, hopefully, far fewer underage sewer orgies), celebrates its 34th publication anniversary this week. King’s 1100-page opus of childhood horror—in which seven children in a small Maine town are terrorized by Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

The biggest-ever children's book deal is for a fantasy series about bloodthirsty unicorns.

The murderous unicorns are coming! A 28-year-old lawyer and debut children’s book author from England, Annabel Steadman, has landed what is reportedly the largest children’s book deal ever—a healthy seven figures—for a fantasy adventure series, Skandar and the Unicorn Thief. The Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Five fictional book clubs that are better than yours.

In the age of quarantine, book clubs are alive and well! A shocking number of my friends who had previously expressed very little interest in discussing books with me are now #bookstagram-posting fiends. (You know who you are!!) This minor Read more >

By Katie Yee