There’s a new book coming from Michelle Obama next season: titled The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times, it will offer her thoughts on handling difficult periods of change. “I’ve learned it’s okay to recognize that self-worth comes wrapped Read more >
The federal government’s civil suit to block the acquisition of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House is chugging along, with the trial set to begin on August 1. Exhibits to the joint pretrial motion, filed July 15, included lists Read more >
Today in extremely niche literary world factoids: in case you didn’t know (I did not) Zadie Smith has a younger brother named Ben Bailey Smith, an actor and standup who goes by Doc Brown, admires Taylor Swift’s writing ability, and Read more >
More than 200 unionized HarperCollins employees are on strike today following months of contract negotiations, which began in December 2021 and which, they say, have not yielded a fair agreement for workers. HarperCollins, based in New York City—where the median Read more >
Alice Dunbar Nelson was a poet, journalist, and activist. She also wrote plays, short stories, and edited a few anthologies. She was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance, and quite frankly, we don’t talk about her enough. In the Read more >
At a ceremony in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London last night, Kenyan writer Idza Luhumyo was awarded the 2022 Caine Prize for her short story, “Five Years Next Sunday.” Chosen out of 267 entries, “Five Years Next Sunday”—which Read more >
One of the best things about having an extensive personal library is the ability to lend books to my loved ones. Of course, “lend” is a stretch—they very rarely come back, probably because I have neglected to invest in a Read more >
I was 13 years old in a suburban mall Barnes & Noble, holding a copy of Please Don’t Kill the Freshman by Zoe Trope. The cover—featuring the silhouette of a young cheerleader whose stance seems sarcastic, her pom-poms flopping against Read more >
In the midst of a deluge of book bans across the country, Penguin Random House has erected billboards featuring quotes from books by LGBTQ authors in six cities—New York City, Chicago, Dallas, Orlando, Miami and Austin. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” Read more >
It must suck to be most days of the week. On most days of the week, new books do not come out. But TGIT: Thank goodness it’s Tuesday. * Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau (Del Rey) “…she deftly Read more >
Over the weekend—via a tweet from artist Amber Blade Jones, because the garbage bird website has its bright spots—I discovered Not/But, a comic strip that speaks directly to my self-defeating writer soul. Not/But is a series created by illustrator and Read more >
A handwritten letter from J.R.R. Tolkien is currently up for auction, with bidding beginning at $5,000, if you’ve got that kind of cash lying around. The letter, which is dated April 12, 1956, is a response to a fan, and Read more >
Well, we still have some nice things—or rather, dogs do. While walking through my neighborhood in Missoula recently (a neighborhood that features seven Little Free Libraries for humans, it should be said), I stumbled across a very cute sight: some good Read more >
As I write this, it’s 90 degrees in Brooklyn. The dog is thoroughly passed out under the desk. (He thinks it offers him shade, even though we’re inside.) The fans are oscillating, and I’m dreaming of a nice, cool pool: Read more >
Today, the Whiting Foundation announced the winners of its 2022 Literary Magazine Prizes, which honor “the most innovative and essential publications at the forefront of American literary culture.” The five winners were chosen—from an initial pool of more than eighty Read more >
On July 13, 1930, some six thousand people crammed themselves into London’s Royal Albert Hall. They had come to hear a missive from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the spiritualist, physician, and creator of Sherlock Holmes—who had, as it happens, died Read more >
Joy Harjo’s poem “Remember” is unforgettable; an invitation (or maybe a command) to acknowledge the interconnectedness of all life, it’s one of Harjo’s best-known poems and also one of her earliest. Now, Harjo, who recently served as US poet laureate Read more >
In a fairly predictable but nevertheless deeply sad turn of events, an Iowa town is without a library after the incessant complaints (and actual book theft) of a group of shitty, fear-mongering, right-wing assholes. According to reporting from Iowa Starting Read more >
Witches in novels, and in real life, are having a moment. While last summer was defined by the nap dress and Cottagecore, this year’s end to Roe V. Wade makes “goth witch” the only reasonable aesthetic to embrace. After all, Read more >
You might assume that the world of rare-book dealing is a sedate one, full of peaceful easy feeling, but you’d be wrong. Dead wrong. For every honorable merchant of literary antiquities, there’s a desperado with lyin’ eyes trying to sell Read more >
