Fans in Nobel prizewinner’s favourite haunt of Key West hold their 40th competition on his birthday. Read more
Year: 2021
Court Battle Begins Over Putin Book
Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is not President Vladimir Putin’s “cashier” nor did he buy Chelsea FC as a vehicle to corrupt the West, his lawyer told England’s High Court in a defamation hearing over a book about Putin’s Russia. Read more
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The 2021 Booker Prize longlist announced
- A Passage North, Anuk Arudpragasam (Granta Books, Granta Publications)
- Second Place, Rachel Cusk, (Faber)
- The Promise, Damon Galgut, (Chatto & Windus, Vintage, PRH)
- The Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris (Tinder Press, Headline, Hachette Book Group)
- Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber)
- An Island, Karen Jennings (Holland House Books)
- A Town Called Solace, Mary Lawson (Chatto & Windus, Vintage, PRH)
- No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood (Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury Publishing)
- The Fortune Men, Nadifa Mohamed (Viking, Penguin General, PRH)
- Bewilderment, Richard Powers (Hutchinson Heinemann, PRH)
- China Room, Sunjeev Sahota (Harvill Secker, Vintage, PRH)
- Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead (Doubleday, Transworld Publishers, PRH)
- Light Perpetual, Francis Spufford (Faber)
Reese Witherspoon picks ‘The Paper Palace’ by Miranda Cowley Heller for July’s book club
Witherspoon’s take: “I was totally immersed in the fast-paced narrative that seamlessly wove together past and present. And all the beautiful details in this book are enough to pull at your heartstrings… every sentence is so vivid and luxurious you feel like you’re transported to a lakeside retreat in Cape Cod with a family you have known forever. I think you will love this one!” Read more
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Samuel French Names Heidi Schreck Honorary Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival Playwright
Established in 1975, the Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival aims to introduce the next generation of great playwrights. Writers internationally are invited to submit short works, which are traditionally performed in rep at an Off-Broadway venue. This year’s festival will be evaluated through readings only, with winners set to be announced August 12 at 4 PM ET at a free online event. Read more
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Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen Announce Co-Authored Book ‘Renegades: Born in the U.S.A.’
President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen will release a joint book, Renegades: Born in the U.S.A., on October 26th globally via Higher Ground/Penguin Random House. Read more
Poet Sylvia Plath’s Wedding Band And Other Prized Possessions Net $1 Million At Auction
Seemingly mundane items fetched large sums Wednesday, like a set of family recipes and a rolling pin, two serving trays and a drinking cup that sold for a collective $43,130. Read more
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Biden nominates surgeon, author Atul Gawande to senior job at USAID
U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday nominated writer, surgeon and public health expert Atul Gawande to lead global health development at the U.S. Agency for International Development, including for COVID-19, the White House said. Read more
Ishmael Reed Gets the Last Laugh
His brilliantly idiosyncratic fiction has travestied everyone from Moses to Lin-Manuel Miranda, and laid a foundation for the freewheeling genre experiments of writers such as Paul Beatty, Victor LaValle, and Colson Whitehead. Yet there’s always been more to Reed than subversion and caricature. Laughter, in his books, unearths legacies suppressed by prejudice, élitism, and mass-media coöptation. Read more
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Stephen King Gets into the Podcast Game With a Series Based on ‘Night Shift’
King has partnered with Audio Up Media, iHeart Media, and producer Lee Metzger (The Voice) to create Strawberry Spring, a new show based on a tale from his 1978 short story collection Night Shift. Read more
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