Month: November 2024

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‘Wicked’ Adaptation Is in Theaters Now

Wicked, the untold story of the witches of Oz, stars Emmy, Grammy and Tony winning powerhouse Cynthia Erivo (Harriet, Broadway’s The Color Purple) as Elphaba, a young woman, misunderstood because of her unusual green skin, who has yet to discover her true power, and Grammy-winning, multi-platinum recording artist and global superstar Ariana Grande as Glinda, a popular young woman, gilded by privilege and ambition, who has yet to discover her true heart. Watch trailer

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Henry Taylor, Prize-Winning Poet With an Eye on Rural Life, Dies at 82

Henry Taylor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who drew on his upbringing in rural Northern Virginia — galloping on horseback, riding a combine through the fields — to write exquisitely crafted verses about wild places, the inevitability of change and what he called the “consequences of ignorant choices,” died Oct. 13 at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Read more

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The Best Music Books of 2024

There are enough great books about music each year to fill a library. It can be a lot to get through, so we selected a handful that we really love, including memoirs, history tomes, and more. Read more

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Winners of the National Book Award Announced

Percival Everett won the National Book Award for fiction on Wednesday for his novel “James,” a propulsive and slyly funny retelling of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the perspective of Huck’s companion, an enslaved man named James … The award for nonfiction was given to the anthropologist Jason De León for “Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling,” an immersive account of the nearly seven years he spent embedded with human smugglers on the U.S.-Mexico border. The book depicts traffickers as both victims and perpetrators of violence, often suffering from the same poverty as migrants. Read more

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Richard Flanagan Wins Baillie Gifford Nonfiction Prize With ‘Astonishing’ Question 7

Richard Flanagan’s Question 7 has been named winner of the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction, making the Australian writer the first person to have won both this award and the Booker prize for fiction. Part-memoir, part-novel, part-history, Question 7 charts Flanagan’s attempt to understand his parents and Tasmania, where he is from. Read more

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People Can’t Tell the Difference Between Human and AI Poetry – and Even Prefer the Latter

According to a new paper in Nature Scientific Reports, non-expert readers of poetry cannot distinguish poetry written by AI from that written by canonical poets. Moreover, general readers tend to prefer poetry written by AI – at least until they are told it is written by a machine. Read more

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