Month: November 2021

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Here are this year’s World Fantasy Award winners

The winners of this year’s World Fantasy Awards were announced this weekend at the World Fantasy Convention in Montreal, Canada. Considered one of the most prestigious honors for fantasy and speculative fiction, the award celebrates writers and artists who published work during the previous calendar year. Previous winners include C.L. Polk, Emma Törzs, and Kij Johnson. Writers Megan Lindholm and Howard Waldrop were also honored at the convention with Lifetime Achievement Awards. Read more

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Is Superman Circumcised? favourite to win Oddest book title of the year

Six books are in the running for the 43rd prize, nominated by members of the book trade, with Curves for the Mathematically Curious up against Hats: A Very Unnatural History, The Life Cycle of Russian Things: From Fish Guts to Fabergé, and Miss, I Don’t Give a Shit: Engaging with Challenging Behaviour in Schools. Read more

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Young Senegalese author wins top French literature prize

A young Senegalese writer unknown to the general public was on Wednesday awarded the Prix Goncourt, France’s leading literature prize, for a novel exploring the destiny of a cursed African author. Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, 31, is the first sub-Saharan African to win the literary award. Read more

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The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

“…a scintillating story about a motley group of Native American booksellers haunted by the spirit of a customer … More than a gripping ghost story, this offers profound insights into the effects of the global pandemic and the collateral damage of systemic racism. It adds up to one of Erdrich’s most sprawling and illuminating works to date. Read more

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Justice Dept. Sues Penguin Random House Over Simon & Schuster Deal

The Biden administration on Tuesday sued to stop Penguin Random House, the largest publisher in the United States, from acquiring its rival Simon & Schuster, as part of a new drive in Washington against corporate consolidation. Read more

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Stephen Crane’s 150th Birthday

STEPHEN CRANE, born 150 years ago on this date, had a working life that lasted barely a decade, but he created an immense literary afterlife. His enthusiastic disciple Ernest Hemingway handed Crane’s stories to aspiring young writers seeking advice. Ralph Ellison said that Crane influenced not only Hemingway but also most modernist writers of the 20th century, including himself. Southern novelist Caroline Gordon conveyed her admiration for Crane to her protégé Flannery O’Connor. No American writer before Crane portrayed immediate perceptual and sensuous experience with such power. “He had great, great genius,” Henry James repeatedly said. For all the praise heaped on Crane’s idiosyncratic style, a question remains: How did he learn to write that way? Read more

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Why is Baseball the Most Literary of Sports?

The World Series is here. Even though it’s the (ugh) Braves vs. the (ugh) Astros, it’s still time to put on a ballcap, break out of a box of Cracker Jack, and head on out to the old ballgame… or least stream one online. Baseball has been known as America’s “national pastime” since the 1850s. While the sport may have been surpassed by football in the TV ratings, there’s still something about wooden bats, leather gloves, and grass-and-dirt diamonds that feels distinctly American. And distinctly literary. Read more

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