More than 300 bookstores have opened in the past couple of years — a revival that is meeting a demand for “real recommendations from real people.” Read more
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Month: July 2022
Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty
Talty’s prose is flawless throughout; he writes with a straightforward leanness that will likely appeal to admirers of Thom Jones or Denis Johnson. But his style is all his own, as is his immense sense of compassion. Night of the Living Rez is a stunning look at a family navigating their lives through crisis — it’s a shockingly strong debut, sure, but it’s also a masterwork by a major talent. Read more
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New Reality TV Show Aims to Discover America’s Next Great Author
America’s Next Great Author is dedicated to including writers who aren’t normally given a seat at the table in mainstream publishing. Contestants don’t have to be graduates of elite MFA programs that basically guarantee an open door to the book business. Read more
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Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman
The book’s real strength is its ability to evocatively raise profound questions about humanity’s relationship with and responsibility to animals and the larger environment in the course of its often (darkly) comic action … A dire warning, sick joke, and perceptive critique of a species of very questionable intelligence: humanity. Read more
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The Norwegian library with unreadable books
Some of the world’s most celebrated authors have written manuscripts that won’t be published for a century – why? Richard Fisher visits the Future Library in Oslo to find out. Read more
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Belfast poet Michael Longley wins €250,000 Feltrinelli Poetry Prize
Longley has become one of the most successful poets Northern Ireland has ever produced. His trophy cabinet includes the Whitbread Poetry Award, the TS Eliot Prize and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Read more
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Maddie Mortimer wins the Desmond Elliott prize for Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies
The ‘sprawling and ambitious’ debut centres on the author’s relationship with her mother, who died of cancer in 2010. Read more
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It’s 2022 and Two Books Are on Trial for ‘Obscenity’
The books at issue here are not obscene by any stretch of the imagination. And the Virginia statute that has enabled these proceedings is unconstitutional. Under the statute, the court has the authority to temporarily block all sale and distribution of the books anywhere in Virginia upon a mere finding of “probable obscenity.” And, if the court ultimately determines that the books are indeed obscene, anyone who sells or even lends the books in Virginia could face criminal prosecution, regardless of whether they had prior knowledge of the obscenity proceedings. This would impact all independent bookstores and other distributors in the state of Virginia, even if they have no knowledge that a book has been so much as challenged. Read more
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Author Jesmyn Ward wins Library of Congress fiction prize
The annual Prize for American Fiction honors an American literary writer whose body of work is “distinguished not only for its mastery of the art but also for its originality of thought and imagination.” Read more
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Alta’s Guide to Indie Bookstores in the Western US
Selected by Alta Journal contributors, editors, and readers, these independent bookstores serve their communities—one devoted customer at a time. Read more
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