California runs on tech-driven gig labor, and its creepy, dehumanizing effects are everywhere, from lawsuits over working conditions at ride-share companies and horror stories about an algorithm-based work system to the literary lens of writers whose recent books have set Read more >
Stephen Colbert’s Tolkien fandom is well-established, but on last night’s Late Night, the host revealed that while he loves the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he thinks The Hobbit is a baby book for babies. Colbert showed a clip of his guest, Patton Oswalt, finishing Read more >
The PEN/Faulkner Foundation has just announced the longlist for their 2020 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In honor of the 40th anniversary of the award, which “honors the best published works of fiction by American citizens in a calendar year,” PEN/Faulkner Read more >
Here’s some welcome news on this dreary Friday morn: starting in 2022, the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, a new annual prize named after the beloved and prolific novelist who died in 2003, will award a whopping $150,000 for a Read more >
In today’s New York Times, filmmaker Brit Marling reflects on the problems with Strong Female Characters in our stories—which, while better than the weak, disposable female characters that so often populate film and literature (but film in particular), are still reflective Read more >
Is there a more British sentence than “Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes will write the screenplay for a new adaptation of The Wind in the Willows“? (Perhaps only “What’s all this, then?”) Fellowes also wrote the book for the West End musical Read more >
When I read Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead (2004) for the first time a couple of years ago, I felt grateful to have found a book that eschewed cynicism in favor of earnestness and sincerity. Graduate school was on my mind at the time. Read more >
From the fog of a so-far-extremely-cursed 2020, do you even remember 2019 anymore? The albino panda? 30 to 50 feral hogs? The US women’s national soccer team at the World Cup? What else even happened? Roxane Gay is here to Read more >
Edward Kamau Brathwaite, the Barbadian poet, literary critic, and historian hailed as one of the towering voices in postwar Caribbean literature, died on Tuesday at 89. Brathwaite received his university education at Harrison College in Barbados and Pembroke College at Read more >
Another February, another ham-fisted attempts by a brand to cash in on Black History Month! This time, it’s Barnes & Noble, which teamed up with Penguin Random House to create new diverse covers for classics (written by white authors, with Read more >
John Buffalo Mailer (yes, Buffalo), son of notorious wife-stabber and Gilmore Girls guest star Norman Mailer, will be partnering with Hivemind, Washington Place Productions, and Mailer-Tuchman Media to adapt his father’s most famous novel, The Naked and the Dead, into a Read more >
Emily Books, Emily Gould and Ruth Curry’s 9-year-old project to publish and re-distribute “transgressive writers of the past, present and future,” will shut down next month, the pair announced in a statement today. The project began as a service that Read more >
English is the official language of Nigeria, a diverse and polyglot nation of 190 million; as such, it’s about time that linguistic richness was recognized. Thus has the august Oxford English Dictionary added 29 Nigerian-English words to its 2020 edition. Read more >
Garth Greenwell, he of the very sexy novel, Cleanness, which is built from very powerful sentences, also happens to live in Iowa City. As such, he found himself out and a-caucus’ing last night, as evidenced by his delightful Twitter accounting Read more >
Every week, the TBR pile grows a little bit more. It’s getting precarious. It’s taking up your whole nightstand. It’s threatening to crush you in your sleep. Well, what are you waiting for? Get cracking. What are you reading this Read more >
Congratulations to author and activist Edwidge Danticat, winner of this year’s Vilcek Prize in Literature! The Vilcek Foundation Prizes are awarded annually to immigrants who have significantly impacted American culture and society. In 2020, the Vilcek Foundation is awarding prizes Read more >
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