Happy Halloween! I haven’t seen enough fun literary costumes in real life or on social media—what are the book people going as this year? The closest I’m getting is my niece dressing up as a black cat this year, which Read more >
Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War by Lyndal Roper, an excellent new history of one of the largest popular uprisings before the French Revolution, won this year’s Cundill History Prize and its $75,000 prize. The award, which Read more >
First off—apologies, readers. I failed to report our nice things last Friday, so we have a combo week. Gratitude is abundant this Hallow’s Eve. So what’s been making us happy? In a word? Soups. Oliver Scialdone made a killer butternut Read more >
This Thursday brings bad news for book lovers. Baker & Taylor, one of the largest distributors for print library books in America, is closing down—and throwing the distribution pipeline into (at least) short term chaos as a result. As 404Media Read more >
It’s November, and I’m happy to be back with a new slew of book recommendations. I’ll be taking a step back from my weekly round-ups for the moment, but I’ll still be here at the end of each month to Read more >
The American government has revoked the visa of Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian author who won the 1986 Nobel Prize in literature, according to Al Jazeera. The writer received what he called a “rather curious love letter” from the American authorities, Read more >
Ted Geisel, the doctor best known for spreading the gospel of green eggs and ham, has a deep bench of classic kid’s books. Dr. Seuss gave us cats in hats and star-bellied sneetches. He gave some of us our first Read more >
Several charitable groups—among them the Ford, Hawthornden, Lannan, MacArthur, Mellon, and Poetry foundations—are teaming up to launch the Literary Arts Fund, an effort to give the “essential yet critically underfunded” lit world a much-needed boost. The program, which earmarks funds Read more >
The speed at which a New York fall flies by will never cease to astound me. Here we are, already in the last week of October, midway through a cherished, idyllic time in the city. And by that I mean, Read more >
Over 300 writers, scholars, and public intellectuals have pledged to not contribute to the New York Times’ Opinion section until three demands have been met. The demands address the anti-Palestinian bias in the paper’s op-ed pages, which have been a Read more >
One week before Halloween folks, so it’s getting to be crunch time for sorting out your costume. I tend to default to wearing a ye-olden-tymes powdered wig and my old rocker vest and going as “Old School Punk,” but I’ve Read more >
Netflix will be releasing a series from Jane Schoenbrun based on Charles Burns’ comic Black Hole, according to Deadline. The series doesn’t have a release date yet, but it’s hard to think of anyone better able to translate Burns’ vision Read more >
The Booker Prize Foundation is adding to its roster of rarefied literary recognitions. A new prize will recognize excellent fiction written for young readers—specifically, children ages eight to 12. As The Guardian reported this morning, the baby Booker will launch Read more >
Artists around the country are organizing events, making zines, and planning performances for next month’s Fall of Freedom, a “wave of creative resistance” in defiance of authoritarianism. And you’re invited to participate. The “decentralized, open-source initiative” is envisioned as a Read more >
Heists are in the air. Paris is in a tizzy over recent smash and grabs at the Louvre and elsewhere. Stateside, Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, featuring the people’s boyfriend Josh O’Connor as a bumbling local art thief, is hitting theaters. Read more >
The annual John Dos Passos Prize for Literature honors the country’s most talented fiction writers for career-long contributions to the genre. First launched in 1980, the prize is the oldest literary award given by a Virginia college or university. And Read more >
Today, the Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation announced Vajra Chandrasekera’s Rakesfall as the winner of the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, which seeks to reward books that represent the legendary writer’s literary, moral, and aesthetic ideals: “realists Read more >
In (more) bad civil rights news, an Ohio third grade teacher lost a battle with the state last week when a district court dismissed her book ban lawsuit. Karen Cahall, who’s taught in the New Richmond Exempted Village School District Read more >
Another Tuesday, another great haul. Today we have a ton of hotly anticipated titles, such as Big Kiss, Bye-Bye by Claire-Louise Bennett, as well as The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers (check out the epic back cover of that Read more >
This weekend, the British Library issued a century-late apology to Oscar Wilde in the form of a brand new library card. The Irish poet-novelist-playwright was the toast of 19th-century Anglo letters. But in 1895, a ruthless public smear campaign hinging Read more >
