Today, NYC’s public library systems—The New York Public Library (which serves Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island), Brooklyn Public Library, and Queens Public Library—released their lists of the books New Yorkers checked out of the library the most in 2024. Read more >
The holidays are approaching, and, with them, the end of 2024. As we near December’s various holidays and the start of an unpredictable 2025, observant readers will doubtless see that there haven’t been as many new books to list here Read more >
For the next few months in New York City, book nerds with a penchant for esoterica can enjoy a special treat. The Grolier Club, “America’s oldest and largest society for bibliophiles and enthusiasts in the graphic arts,” is currently hosting Read more >
Press freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders released their 2024 round-up today and found that Israel’s genocidal assault made Palestine the deadliest place in the world to be a journalist this year, which they called “an unprecedented massacre.” RSF report found Read more >
In an example of what the next four years might look like—blue states preemptively protecting the rights and freedoms of their citizens against the authoritarian creep of federal policy—New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed into law the “Freedom to Read” Read more >
Joseph Earl Thomas won this year’s Center for Fiction First Novel Prize for his book God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer. Congratulations! The novel has made it onto several best-of-2024 lists, and has been praised as “a powerful examination of every Read more >
The national treasure Nikki Giovanni died yesterday from complications connected to lung cancer. She was 81. A decorated writer of poems, nonfiction, and children’s books, Giovanni was also a star of the Black Arts Movement. She was a devoted activist, Read more >
Image courtesy of UCLA’s website, but since AI-generated art can’t be copyrighted, maybe this acknowledgment doesn’t matter. UCLA announced the other day that “Comp Lit 2BW will be the first course in the UCLA College Division of Humanities to be Read more >
What do hard-boiled eggs, actors, aspirin, and railroad travel all have in common? They all incurred the ire of Raymond Chandler. How do I know this? Because last Friday, Doyle Auctioneers & Appraisers sponsored a sale of “the largest trove Read more >
Today, the Cave Canem Foundation announced the winner of the 2025 Cave Canem Prize: the poet and evolutionary biologist Brandon Kilbourne. Kilbourne will receive a cash prize of $10,000, and his manuscript will be published by Graywolf Press. Formed to Read more >
Since its establishment in 1972, the Whiting Foundation has been dispensing awards, grants, and all manner of support for both individual writers and arts institutions. Today, the literary arts organization has two big things to celebrate: the announcement of its Read more >
As the middle of December approaches, and as the wheel of the year nears the end of its long turn, it’s difficult not to reflect on what this year has meant, and what the year to come will look like. Read more >
Image from The Strand Workers Union’s Instagram The Strand Workers Union went on strike over the weekend, walking out on Saturday over demands for better pay. The union, which represents around 100 unionized workers as part of UAW Local 2179, Read more >
In the narrowest win in the award’s history, the 2024 Bookseller’s Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year goes to The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and the Geography of Desire, a study of the mysterious and endangered Read more >
Every so often here in the Bookverse, someone hitches up their britches and pronounces criticism “dead.” They lament a media ecosystem driven by publicists, and actual or perceived reader scarcity. They yearn for the good old days, when your Normans Read more >
The earliest known writing by Franz Kafka is about to be available for bidding at the auction house Bonhams. Kafka, who would go on to write surreal and absurd books later in his life, signed a short note in the Read more >
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