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News, Notes, Talk

Lisa Lucas is stepping down as executive director of the National Book Foundation.

Lisa Lucas is stepping down as executive director of the National Book Foundation to become Senior Vice President & Publisher of Pantheon and Schocken Books. According to a press release from the NBF Lucas, who took over the ED role Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

A former Mueller prosecutor's upcoming book will cover "mistakes" the team made.

Andrew Weissmann, who served as a prosecutor for Robert Mueller during an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, is releasing a book this fall—and says it will include details on the investigation’s “mistakes.” Random House will publish Where Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Are these the top 50 thinkers of the Covid-19 era?

Every year, the UK’s Prospect releases a list of the top 50 thinkers in the world and this year is no different—except that 2020 is very different, and so this year’s list is explicitly branded as “the world’s top 50 thinkers for the Read more >

By Emily Temple

For your consideration: New fetishes from classic literature.

A recent advice-seeker in Slate’s Dear Prudence column wrote to ask Prudence (AKA Danny M. Lavery)’s opinion on their boyfriend’s expressed interest in some good old-fashioned Middlemarch role-play. “My boyfriend recently brought up the hypothetical idea of ‘solemn play’—someone who has Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Colson Whitehead is the youngest writer to win the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.

It’s been quite a year for Colson Whitehead! First, he won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (again) and then he received the Orwell Prize for political fiction. And now the Library of Congress is honoring him with their lifetime achievement prize. Read more >

By Katie Yee

20 new books to pick up from your local indies.

Oh, glorious day! Bookstores across the country are opening up again. (My local Greenlight is browsable as of this week—I’m not crying, you’re crying.) As you cross the threshold of your favorite local indie for the first time in months, you Read more >

By Katie Yee

Is Mira Nair’s BBC adaptation of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy the epic we need right now?

Probably, yes. Back when I had time to read for many hours a day I devoured Seth’s 1,300-page, 1993 epic of love, class, politics, and just about everything else, all of it set against post-partition India’s roiling transition from colonial Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Jane Austen's former home is now a (very stylish) Airbnb.

It has recently come to my attention that Jane Austen’s former Bath home is available to rent for your writing retreat/pandemic escape plan through Airbnb. You can sleep under the same roof (er, approximately) as the literary legend for a Read more >

By Emily Temple

Greenlight Bookstore is pledging to improve treatment of Black employees and customers.

The owners of Greenlight Bookstore, which has two Brooklyn locations, came forward this week to take responsibility for “negative experiences of Black customers and employees in our stores” with a commitment to improving. In an open letter published Wednesday, co-owners Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Celebrate Marcel Proust's birthday by baking these "very gay" madeleines.

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust, the man perennially in search of lost time, was born on this day in 1871. The ruminative frenchman is of course best known for his mammoth seven-volume novel À la recherche du temps perdu, Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Will sports action-adventure-thriller novels become a thing?

I am clearly a coastal elite out of touch with how people really read* because I did not know there’s a robust, overcrowded field of sports-themed romance novels. This is one of the things I learned in this feature at Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

This year's National Book Awards Ceremony will be held online.

The National Book Foundation has announced that this year’s National Book Awards events—including the 71st annual ceremony—will be held digitally, due to the ongoing, not-even-remotely-controlled, coronavirus pandemic. Lisa Lucas, the National Book Foundation’s Executive Director, said of the decision,”As a Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

All I want for Christmas is Mariah Carey's memoir.

It’s the audio version that I want. Wouldn’t you? Mariah Carey’s memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, is set to come out this fall. Carey herself will be reading the audiobook, which will feature occasional musical interludes. Carey’s career has had Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Francesca Marciano on the fitting last words of legendary composer Ennio Morricone.

“I, Ennio Morricone, am dead. This is an announcement for all my dear friends, too many to name here. There is a reason for this farewell, as it is my wish to have my funeral celebrated privately: I don’t want Read more >

By Francesca Marciano

Authors are canceling events at a Philadelphia library over its mistreatment of Black workers.

Authors including Colson Whitehead, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., and Adam Rutherford are cancelling events at the Free Library of Philadelphia over complaints from Black employees that they have been mistreated and undervalued there. An open letter from Black employees says Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Ready Player One is getting a part two.

Ernest Cline’s young adult novel Ready Player One was one of 2011’s biggest publishing success stories. Nearly ten years later, fans are getting another chance to visit the world of The Oasis. The sequel’s title? You guessed it: Ready Player Two. The first Read more >

By Aaron Robertson