Among the shortlisted authors are Gayl Jones, Alejandro Varela, Imani Perry, Meghan O'Rourke, John Keene, Sharon Olds, Jenny Xie, Scholastique Mukasonga, Yoko Tawada, and Tommie Smith, one of the Black athletes who raised a fist on the medal stand at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. - NPR
"The other defining aspect of the collected works on Trump is that virtually nothing in any of them – none of the 'bombshells' or details about his character – seems to have substantially changed people's minds about him." - CNN
The news stories coming from the state have been mostly about bannings on a school district or city/county level. This past spring, Gov. De Santis signed a law requiring all Florida school to remove all books considered "pornographic" or "inappropriate." - Salon
The reading world is divided between those who care about covers (specifically paperback covers) and those who find this odder than worrying what packaging sausages come in. These are often the same people who can’t understand why anyone would keep a book they had already read. - Irish Times
Or, at least, some authors who should. "You would think that in this, post-Squid Games, post-BTS world, the Academy would attempt to reclaim relevance by reading and engaging with works outside their comfort zone, by reading outside of Europe and North America." - LitHub
One Irish writer says yes. "It is through the stories passed down by our ancestors that we can learn how best to live sustainably ... and how to navigate a world that presents existential threats on a daily basis." - Irish Times
For people who came of age in the '80s, the author says, "Slasher movies, Stephen King and Twin Peaks all got mixed with our reality, which was already full of the language of horror: the disappeared, the children of the dead, children of the lost generation." - The Guardian (UK)
The author of Little Fires Everywhere says that as she wrote during the Trump years, she "wanted to look at what had happened in the past, and the dark times in which we have dealt with authoritarianism, and to remember that we’ve gotten through it before." - The Guardian (UK)
Andrea Elliott: "The intensity of my reporting stems from a belief that well-told stories—those with depth and nuance—are the product of intimate knowledge. And that comes from being with people, day after day, deeply immersed in their lives." - LitHub
Tsitsi Dangarembga held a sign in 2020 that read, "We want better. Reform our institutions." On Thursday, she was "convicted of participating in a public gathering with intent to incite public violence," fined, and given a suspended sentence. - The Guardian (UK)
"Local bartenders, retirees, restaurant workers and marketing professionals joined other Pride-goers to create a buffer around the store's entrance. Someone started playing music from a mobile speaker, kicking off sporadic dancing under the early afternoon sun." The right-wingers ended up outnumbered 10-to-1. - The Guardian (Montana Free Press)
The problem arises because people use different words for the same thing. Your wallet is stolen, and you’re going to google what to do. But what term should you use? Police or support? Theft or security? Security, it turns out, is the answer, as you find out after time wasted in several futile guesses. - American Scholar
If anything, six years between the publication of the original text and its English translation is rather speedy, especially for a literary work whose author is not a known quantity in the United States. - LA Review of Books
Skim an Axios story, and it will fly past so quickly you’ll have no idea what it says. You have to read carefully to grasp its basic meaning. Then you have to waste even more time trying to figure out how much to discount for bullshit hype. - The New Republic
“Readings can afford to pay a living wage to its workers. This is a multi-store business that, until 2021, posted profits for 25 consecutive years, and which in the past year has spent considerable amounts of money opening both a new store branch and a warehouse, without consulting workers.” - The Guardian
