She was honored for five essays, among them "Hanya's Boys," about how author Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life) tortures her gay male characters so that she can heal them, and "The Mixed Metaphor," about the trend of the mixed-race Asian character in American literature. - New York Magazine
For the first time, two winners split the fiction prize: Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, and Diaz's Trust. Also honored were Beverly Gage's J. Edgar Hoover biography G-Man, Jefferson Cowie's Freedom's Dominion, Hua Hsu's memoir Stay True, and Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa's His Name Is George Floyd. - AP
My research often focuses on how art and politics have intersected during the past few decades. With a whirlwind 40-year socio-political history this lens can be applied to the prize. - The Conversation
“Can we live without the phone for just one damn hour?” he asked. He went on to point out that the audience had paid money for a certain kind of experience, and that phones could wait. - Philadelphia Inquirer
His remark on Tuesday that he may transfer NPR's primary Twitter account with nearly 9 million followers to another entity is typical of how Musk has run the social media site. - NPR
The Beaux Arts Trio would go on to play more than 4,000 concerts throughout the world while recording virtually all the standard trio repertory. - Washington Post
Few audiences had ever heard a Black singer perform in an opera house when Ms. Bumbry was growing up in St. Louis in the 1930s and ’40s, the daughter of a railway clerk and a schoolteacher. - Washington Post
Raymond Chandler, in 1945, "described Hollywood as a cauldron of 'egos,' 'credit stealing' and 'self-promotion' where scribes were ruthlessly neglected, marginalized and stripped of respect; toiling at the mercy of producers, some of whom, he wrote, had 'the artistic integrity of slot machines.'" - Los Angeles Times
"Might they not unite over what they have in common? They all want sustainable communities and good design. Architects and the monarch also have a shared enemy: the sacrifice of positive architectural qualities to housebuilders’ pursuit of profit." - The Observer (UK)
"Remixing maypole dancing is just one of the myriad ways that English folk culture is currently having a reboot, thanks to a new wave of switched-on folkies diversifying the scene." - BBC
Dreyfuss: "No one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give in to the latest, most current idea of what morality is. What are we risking? Are we really risking hurting people’s feelings? You can’t legislate that. You have to let life be life." - The Guardian (UK)
Sure. Here's a list of "a few unconventional work novels that remind us of the way things once were, offer alternatives to the way we approach our jobs and, perhaps, spur us onward to new horizons." - LitHub
Thanks to the massivehit series The Glory and, of course, Squid Game, Netflix's Ted Sarandos has invested a lot of money into developing Korean shows that, he says, "are now at the heart of the global cultural zeitgeist.” - The New York Times
The genre of movie doesn't matter - the point is, this kind of movie is never going to sell at movie theatres. But it can grab you and keep you when it plays on streaming. - BBC
"What is consistently missing in the national conversation about book banning: the voices of those children and teenagers who see their experiences in print and finally realize they aren’t alone." - The New York Times