Louise Glück, an American poet whose searing, deeply personal work, often filtered through themes of classical mythology, religion and the natural world, won her practically every honor available, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and, in 2020, the Nobel Prize for Literature, died on Friday at her home in Cambridge, Mass. She was 80. Read more
Year: 2023
The Forgotten Poet at the Center of San Francisco’s Longest Obscenity Trial
Amid Reagan’s late-sixties crackdown on the California counterculture, a jury was tasked with deciding whether Lenore Kandel’s psychedelic sex poems had “redeeming social importance.” Read more
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Winners of the Kirkus Prize Announced
The Kirkus Prize, a leading literary award, has been awarded this year to authors Ariel Aberg-Riger, Héctor Tobar and James McBride. The prize selects winners in the categories of fiction, nonfiction and young reader’s literature from a pool of nearly 11,000 authors whose books appeared in Kirkus Reviews, the influential journal known for starred prepublication reviews. Read more
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John le Carré Documentary is Coming Soon
Academy Award-winning documentarian Errol Morris pulls back the curtain on the storied life and career of former British spy David Cornwell — better known as John le Carré, author of such classic espionage novels as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Constant Gardener. Watch trailer
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‘A Haunting on the Hill’ by Elizabeth Hand
‘A Haunting on the Hill,’ Elizabeth Hand’s remake of Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House,’ is a perfect blend of a classic work with a modern twist. Read more
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‘Monica’ by Daniel Clowes
Clowes strikes an irresistible balance of cultural criticism, philosophy, and pulp. The pacing and interconnection of the stories tease the reader along as narration and dialogue pop with insight and humor. Clowes’ art retains a classic comics aesthetic while delivering a thoroughly modern vibe. A timeless nugget of polished pulp. Read more
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Meet This Year’s MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ Recipients
A scientist who studies the airborne transmission of diseases, a master hula dancer and cultural preservationist, and the sitting U.S. poet laureate were among the 20 new recipients of the prestigious fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, known as “genius grants,” announced on Wednesday. Read more
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Norwegian Writer Jon Fosse Wins the Nobel Prize in Literature
The Norwegian novelist and playwright Jon Fosse has won the Nobel Prize for literature, the Swedish Academy announced on Thursday, for works that “give voice to the unsayable.” Read more
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‘Lou Reed: The King of New York’ by Will Hermes
…Hermes, a superb writer, does poetic justice to the complicated life of his difficult subject. As Hermes details, a raft of current singers claim debt to Reed, from Courtney Barnett and St. Vincent to Sharon Van Etten and Kurt Vile, as well as creatives in television, art, and fashion. Hermes offers a fresh and deep immersion in Reed’s world in all of its weird and wonderful, curmudgeonly glory, from Andy Warhol’s Factory and the Velvet Underground to days and nights of rock ’n’ roll decadence and his final moments surrounded by family and friends. Reed was influenced by many people over the years, including Delmore Schwartz and Bob Dylan, but none more so than his third wife, multimedia artist Laurie Anderson, who is a big part of this powerful story, this biographical magnum opus. Read more
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‘Julia’ by Sandra Newman is a Feminist Retelling of 1984
Though Newman sticks with the worldbuilding Orwell planned in 1949, not adding post-’84 developments like smartphones, home assistants, or the internet (though these actually do seem to play the surveillance role that Orwell assigned to the telescreens), she embroiders the edges of the original WWII-flavored vision with myriad amusing flourishes (and if you remember anything about 1984, you remember that amusing is not one of the adjectives that comes to mind). For example, though Julia is still a mechanic, working on the machines of Fiction, her first job at the Ministry of Truth was producing porno novels for proles, e.g., Inner Party Sinners: ‘My Telescreen is Broken, Comrade!’ Read more
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