By 20-year-old Aaron Yang's estimate, "he's now contacted around a thousand libraries and acquired untold numbers of pencils, stickers and awards." Is ... is this OK? Librarians are torn. - NPR
Ready to read? The shortlist for the international prize, which is for a book translated into English in Britain and Ireland, features a couple of authors who write in French. The list includes science fiction, memoir, and more. Chair of the judges for the shortlist, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, said, "This is a fantastically vigorous and vital aspect of the way...
"Unlike the cozy bookstore in your town, online booksellers don't choose each book they're offering. The role of curator — if it exists at all — has effectively been passed from seller to customer. Under this system, if a title attracts sufficiently convincing and public objections, that title is taken down from the website. … This feels like a...
In our pandemic world, casual conversation has been all but eliminated. The closest thing I get these days is saying “thank you” to a delivery person or greeting a grocery store clerk. Even then, I’m hesitant to linger—every unnecessary moment with a stranger feels taboo, every breath a hazard. And, now, in the absence of chit-chat, I feel isolated...
In that era, a Grammar was second only to a Bible as a necessary object in a God-fearing household. While the Bible provided moral instruction, the Grammar, as a guide to correct linguistic behavior, might shore up confidence and help one get ahead in the world. A pageant of pedants, both male and female, squabbled for their share of...
Novels started out long in the 18th and 19th centuries, got shorter in the early 20th century, and really started bulking up (especially genre fiction) after 1991. What's more, readers love novellas all over Latin America and in South Korea and they appear regularly in continental Europe, but you almost never see new novellas published in the Anglosphere. Why?...
Amid a move for educational “prioritization,” Howard University is dissolving its classics department. Tenured faculty will be dispersed to other departments, where their courses can still be taught. But the university has sent a disturbing message by abolishing the department. - Washington Post
"In July 1941, Richard Wright, then America's leading Black author, began writing the novel he felt was his masterpiece. Written 'at white heat,' … The Man Who Lived Underground was drafted in just six frenzied months. … Following a crushing rejection from Wright's publisher and a truncated publication as a short story, the novel was shelved for eighty years...
Tyler Gillespie, author of The Thing About Florida: Exploring a Misunderstood State and Florida Man: Poems, traces the course of this icon of the weird from the old website Fark.com ("We Don't Make the News. We Mock It"), looks at the long history of Florida Man/Woman-type stories (e.g., "Edna May's recipe for being a successful wife to the ultra-rich"...
"In the marketplace of books, it can be hard to find that next, necessary book. I keep a list of what to read next – lots of people do. But what is offered to me? Mostly big books from big names, published in editions up into the millions of copies (Michelle Obama’s initial print run for Becoming was 3.4...
Four party-affiliated organizations, including the Republican National Committee, collectively spent more than $1 million during the past election cycle mass-purchasing books written by GOP candidates, elected officials and personalities, according to Federal Election Commission expenditure reports. The purchases helped turn several volumes into bestsellers. - Washington Post
“It’s not really polite to tell other writers they’re bad writers, because they tend to fling it back to you. In response, I would say he’s a clunky, self-indulgent writer … His books are all very long and baggy. They’re about his interpretation of Dylan songs … and it’s incredibly boring.” - The Guardian
One of the big literary events of last week? The cover reveal for Sally Rooney's new novel. "In recent years, book cover design has taken on a higher profile, and we may be seeing a new heyday for book design. It was Rooney’s 2018 novel Normal People that Arter believes signalled the shift towards the book cover as a 'cultural phenomenon...
Michael McClure's final editor, Garrett Caples: "As any editor can tell you, turning a manuscript into a book is an affair in itself. Michael’s poetry is not easy to lay out. It’s always centered on the page, but only sometimes dead-centered, where you can just press a button and you’re fine. Often enough, he centered by hand and eye,...
But the prizes are numerous, and many American writers won prizes in many other categories and genres, including poetry, history, current interest (where Isabel Wilkerson's Caste took top place), mystery, horror, and more. A full list is at the link. - Los Angeles Times
