"The assumption that 'a gay book' is necessarily a sexualized book, and therefore inappropriate for children, is baked into the language of 'Don’t Say Gay,'" the censorious, proudly homophobic Florida law that Republicans would like to pass and enforce everywhere. - The New Yorker
Will there be a montage of typing fingers? A poetry read-off in Iowa City? A "who navigated the workshop the best" scene in LA? Well: "The six finalists, locked together for a month, will face 'live-wire' challenges as they attempt to write an entire novel." - The Guardian (UK)
"He (has) revised and radically rewritten ... An Obedient Father, (which) he published 22 years earlier. Considerably shorter, with a very different ending but the same title, the novel ... reappears this month — more than 30 years after Sharma began it." - The New York Times Magazine
"English has always been a language that has looked ahead to the future. Forged multiply in the crucible of caste, class, gender, and ethnic politics, English has found roots in India as a language that erases itself in the hope of what it could be." - Los Angeles Review of Books
"Shelley's greatest gift was in the deftness with which he interwove the poetical and the political. Poetry had, for Shelley, of necessity to appropriate a political dimension. And politics required a poetical imagination. That was why ... 'poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world'." - The Observer (UK)
Ada Limón "assumes the role with two primary intentions: to use poetry to help people reclaim their humanity and to repair their relationship with the natural world. ... Instead of seeing nature as separate from humanity, she implores us to remember that 'we are nature too.'" - MSN (The Washington Post)
Many of them opened during the pandemic shutdown, such as The Salt Eaters Bookshop in L.A. County and Socialight Society in Lansing, Mich., oriented toward Black women; Pocket Books Shop in Lancaster, Pa., a "queer, feminist indie bookstore"; and Yu and Me Books in Manhattan's Chinatown. - The New York Times
Amy Duncan was editor and publisher, and her husband, Mark Davitt, managing editor, of The Record-Tribune in Indianola, Iowa, and when they heard that Gannett wanted to sell some of its smaller titles, they leapt at the chance. They're publishing in hard copy weekly and operating online daily. - NPR
"Bookstores, like wines, have different notes, different flavors, each one distinct. There are the musty, quirky ones with haphazard piles and dusty rows, usually with both used and new books. There are the small indie stores, quaint, cozy and scrappy." - The New York Times
In Joan Didion's essay about writing to find out what one thinks, she also wrote, "'The arrangement you want can be found in the picture in your mind. The picture dictates the arrangement.' This is a much stranger reason to write than to clarify an argument." - The Paris Review
Honestly, readers love them. "There’s something a little sexy about a well-executed negative review. ... A great pan does not just point out what’s missing from a book. It can fill those gaps with exhilarating, new conversations." - The Atlantic
Indie bookstores are positively booming - and they're more diverse than ever. This is a shock (a wonderful shock), considering that in the early days of the pandemic, "hundreds of small booksellers around the United States seemed doomed." - The New York Times
Many institutions have moved, or are on the verge of moving, significant portions of their collections off-site. Some are embarking on large-scale book de-accessioning projects, a process by which books are removed permanently from a collection. - The Walrus
