Joelle Taylor has won the TS Eliot poetry prize for her look at butch lesbian counterculture in the 1990s, C+nto & Othered Poems, praised by judges as “a blazing book of rage and light”. Read more
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“Black Reconstruction,” published against a backdrop of violence and segregation, met with a vitriolic reception. White writers leveled sharp-tongued critiques. Black journalists assessed the work favorably but with reservations. Despite the early criticism, over time “Black Reconstruction” came to be recognized as a towering analysis of American culture and an important work of history. Nonetheless, the book’s contribution to the understanding of American racism is, nearly 90 years after its publication, still subject to stale objections that echo those heard when it first hit bookstore shelves. Read more
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Among the many works in this year’s public domain trove — now that their requisite 95-year period has ended under U.S. copyright law—are Felix Salten’s original “Bambi, a Life in the Woods” novel; titles by Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes and Dorothy Parker; classic silent films and Broadway songs; and about 400,000 pre-1923 sound recordings. Read more
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The book doesn’t feel speculative so much as inevitable, which is all the more horrifying. In fact, although the book isn’t billed as a horror novel, I felt consistently spooked while reading, disturbed but propelled on by Chan’s excellent pacing . Read more
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The 33rd ZORA! Festival, which runs through the month of January, is back to honor Zora Neale Hurston. Read more
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This week saw the announcement of this year’s Costa Book Awards, a set of annual literary awards which recognize and honor British and Irish writers of the English language. Each award comes with £5,000; the author of the Costa Book of the Year, picked from these winners and announced in late January, will receive an additional £30,000. Previous Book of the Year winners include Helen Macdonald and Hilary Mantel. Read more
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Today, the Robert B. Silvers Foundation announced the winners of the inaugural Silvers-Dudley Prizes, recognizing outstanding achievement in criticism and journalism. Named for Robert B. Silvers, a founding editor of the New York Review of Books, and his longtime partner, Lady Grace Dudley, the prizes have a total value of $135,000 and range from $10,000 to $30,000 each. Read more
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Filippo Bernardini, an Italian citizen who worked in publishing, was charged with wire fraud and identity theft for a scheme that prosecutors said affected hundreds of people over five or more years. Read more
This masterwork of suspense is as careful with its sharp takes as it is with the bread crumbs it slowly drops on the way to its stunning end. It operates perfectly on many levels, resulting in a must-read for true crime addicts and experimental fiction fans alike. Read more
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Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague have produced an indispensable and alarming ground-level record of how Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election played out in precincts and ballot-counting centers in key states. Read more
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