Author Jocelyn Nicole Johnson taught art for decades before her first novel was published. My Monticello was easy to imagine, she says, "because it was me nudging forward from the very real fears I had after 12 August 2017." - The Guardian (UK)
Virginia Heffernan read them for us. "Loathsome characters bring out zestful writing, and authors who represent Trump as perilous to democracy ... could find that the danger the former president poses to America’s future is more cinematic than democracy itself." - The Atlantic
I've "come to see Keller’s mainstream image and story as a textbook example of “inspiration porn,” where disabled people’s lives are flattened into saccharine narratives about overcoming adversity, usually designed to make nondisabled people feel uplifted and grateful." - The New York Times
The Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library in Memphis hosts "financial literacy seminars, jazz concerts, cooking classes, and many other events — more than 7,000 at last count. You can check out books and movies, but also sewing machines, bicycle repair kits and laptop computers." - Smithsonian Magazine
It all started in the very first issue of The New York Daily Times on Sept. 18, 1851. In an article on Page 2 headlined “Snap-Shots at Books, Talk and Town,” the paper laid out its ambitious plans for covering books and the publishing industry. - The New York Times
The announcement comes seven months after high-profile editor Joshua Wolf Shenk was forced to resign after an indecent exposure incident on Zoom and multiple accusations of inappropriate behavior. The final issue will be February/March 2022. - AP
Perhaps surprisingly in 2021, that magazine is in Afrikaans: Huisgenoot ("Home Companion"), founded in 1916 to help form a national Afrikaner consciousness in the wake of the Anglo-Boer Wars. Yet Huisgenoot has changed immensely in the past century, just as its country has. - The Economist
Being handed control of the company, which is valued at $1.2 billion, has made Iole Lucchese, 55, one of the most powerful women in book publishing, and the stock provides her — the daughter of a construction worker and a homemaker — with significant wealth. - The New York Times
One reason, it must be said, is that a certain type of person wants to be seen as loving the book. (Yep, virtue-signaling.) Yet Middlemarch still matters because of its expert examination of one of life's fundamental features: disappointment. - The New Statesman
Hoping to shake off the last lingering shame from the disastrous UVA rape-case article, new editor Noah Shachtman and CEO Gus Wenner (Jann's son) plan to cast a critical eye not only on politics, but on the popular music stars that typically grace its cover. - The Washington Post
"Dial-a-Poem received more than a million calls before it lost funding and ended in 1971. There were complaints of indecency, claims that the poems incited violence. The FBI investigated." - The Guardian (UK)
Lively, who's 88: "When I started, publishers didn’t expect a breakthrough with a first or second book. They were prepared to stay with an author for a long time. They seem to be more driven by marketing now." - The Guardian (UK)
Solange's creative studio, Saint Heron, hired a community bookstore founder to "curate" the first 50 items in the library, which will be mailed to those who request them for a 45-day loan period. - Hyperallergic
"Earhart was one of the earliest aviators, a record-setter, a college professor and well ahead of her time as a champion for women’s rights. Yet she is also one of history’s more enigmatic figures." - Washington Post
