Posted on

How—and Why—America Criminalizes Poverty

Court fines and fees have been a part of the American court system since the beginning. Civil rights icon Rosa Parks, for instance, was fined $10, plus an additional $4 in court costs, when she was cited for a municipal ordinance violation in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 for sitting on a bus reserved for whites. After the Great Recession, lawmakers increasingly turned to fines and fees to fund court services and other elements of government. “Over time, lawmakers started to use the courts as a piggy bank,” Foster said. “The results are truly staggering.” Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)

Posted on

101 Greatest Screenplays of the 21st Century

“As voted upon by the members of the Writers Guilds West and East, the list of the 101 Greatest Screenplays of the 21st Century (so far) is both a celebration of the great writers and screenplays of the last 21 years and a study of how writing for the screen has evolved and diversified since the 20th Century.” Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)

Posted on

Unbound reprints 70,000 copies of TikTok hit Cain’s Jawbone

Authored by the Observer’s first cryptic crossword setter, Cain’s Jawbone was first published by Gollancz in 1934, under the pen name Torquemada. It was written with the 100 pages deliberately out of order, inviting readers to solve the murder mystery by re-ordering them. Only three people are thought to have solved the puzzle, including British comedy writer John Finnemore, who received £1,000 from the press after it reissued the book in 2019 and launched a competition. Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)

Posted on

Marjoleine Kars wins 2021 Cundill History Prize

Marjoleine Kars has been named winner of the 2021 Cundill History Prize for Blood on the River: a Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast (The New Press). Kars accessed a previously untapped Dutch archive to reveal the little-known story of a 1763 slave rebellion in Berbice, a Dutch colony in present-day Guyana. Drawing on nearly 900 interrogation transcripts – extremely rare verbatim accounts from suspected rebels, bystanders, and witnesses – she is able to provide a unique day-by-day account of the revolt, in the words of both colonists and, crucially, the slaves themselves. Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)

Posted on

Top 10 novels about novelists

Writers writing about writers: the fact that there’s a lot of it about should perhaps come as no surprise. From the likes of Jack Torrance in The Shining to Paul Morris in Sabine Durrant’s Lie With Me, writers in fiction are often skewered: preening, blocked, dejected creatures who’ll receive their comeuppance – or salvation – one way or another. Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)