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Why Growing Parts of the Christian Right Are Convinced It’s the Apocalypse

If you peruse the list of recent releases in Christian publishing, you’ll get the sense that “the end times” are upon us. This summer saw the release of survival guides, books about current events, and prayer manuals all oriented around a rapture, a second coming of Christ, or an otherwise cataclysmic event at the hands of God. Read more

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Why Book Festivals Matter, Even in a Time of War

With the support of our digital partners Hay Festival, our 29th Lviv BookForum edition will be streamed live, free to the world. Acclaimed Ukrainian writers join international authors in the hybrid program, aiming to create a civic space for a free and tolerant exchange of ideas. Read more

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‘The English Understand Wool’ by Helen DeWitt

Part of a series of New Directions “storybooks” meant to be read in a single sitting, “The English Understand Wool” is a little gift to DeWitt’s (often ardent) readers and an inviting primer for readers new to her. DeWitt is one of our most ingenious writers, a master of the witty fable, and she pulls off her trick here through marvelous specificity of voice and a plot that hums like German machinery. Read more

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American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America’s Jack the Ripper

In his latest true-crime thriller, bestselling popular historian Stashower turns his attention to the so-called “Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run,” aka the “Cleveland Torso Murderer,” a still-unidentified maniac seemingly responsible for a dozen or more murders in Depression-era Cleveland. The author’s focus falls on the investigative role played by Eliot Ness, who was named the city’s safety director after his success in Chicago as the charismatic leader of a mob-busting brigade. Read more

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Winners of Dayton Literary Peace Prize Revealed

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers and Clint Smith are the winners of this year’s Dayton Literary Peace Prize, given annually to “writers whose work uses the power of literature to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding.” Read more

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Can This Quirky Naval Poetry Tradition Make a Comeback?

On every Naval watch shift, an officer records the workaday vital signs of the ship, which might include a chronology of the ship’s movements or particulars of its anchorage, the status of its power systems, vessels spotted nearby, and absentees or injuries onboard. For many ships, logs are held by the Navy for 30 years before moving to the National Archives. It’s generally a dry administrative document. But a long-standing Navy tradition holds that the first deck-log entry of the new year may be written in verse. It’s unclear when or why this tradition began; the earliest mentions date to 1926, according to the Navy, and seem to indicate the tradition was already established. The practice continued during subsequent decades: The New Year’s verse was once a popular enough element of Navy life that the official All Hands magazine and the independent Navy Times held annual contests to decide the best poems, and a Navy-trained astronaut even carried it to the International Space Station’s ship log in the first hours of 2001. Read more

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