For the first time, China has more than 100 incarcerated writers, and Israel and Russia entered the list of the 10 countries with the most imprisoned writers. Read more
Year: 2024
Pulitzer Prizes 2024: A Guide to the Winning Books and Finalists
Eighteen books were recognized as winners or finalists for the Pulitzer Prize on Monday, in the categories of history, memoir, poetry, general nonfiction, fiction and biography, which had two winners. Read more
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The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives
Fascinating stories about books and the people who made them. Read more
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Mystery Writers of America Celebrates 2024 Edgar Award Winners
Click to read the complete list of winners and honorees. Read more
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‘A Man in Full’ Debuts on Netflix
When Atlanta real estate mogul Charlie Croker faces sudden bankruptcy, political and business interests collide as Charlie defends his empire from those attempting to capitalize on his fall from grace. From writer & creator David E. Kelley and directors Regina King and Thomas Schlamme, A Man in Full is based on the New York Times bestselling novel by the late Tom Wolfe. Stars Jeff Daniels, Lucy Liu, and Diane Lane. Watch trailer
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Paul Auster, the Patron Saint of Literary Brooklyn, Dies at 77
Paul Auster, the prolific novelist, memoirist and screenwriter who rose to fame in the 1980s with his postmodern reanimation of the noir novel and who endured to become one of the signature New York writers of his generation, died of complications from lung cancer at his home in Brooklyn on Tuesday evening. He was 77. Read more
C.J. Sansom, Best-Selling Author of Historical Mysteries, Dies at 71
C.J. Sansom, who transported millions of readers to 16th-century England with his erudite, psychologically complex mystery novels about Matthew Shardlake, a hunchbacked lawyer turned investigator navigating political intrigue during the Tudor era, died April 27 at a hospice center near his longtime home in Brighton, England. Read more
The Essential Joan Didion
Didion was not really out to inspire us. She was looking at us and telling us what she saw, including our compulsion to weave myths for survival. Her distinctive prose and sharp eye were always tuned to an outsider’s frequency, even when she was actually an insider (as with most of her writing on Hollywood). Her essays are almost reflexively skeptical; she wrote with authority borne not so much from experience as from a refusal to give in to dogma. Read more
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A Novelist Who Finds Inspiration in Germany’s Tortured History
She became a writer because her country vanished overnight. Jenny Erpenbeck, now 57, was 22 in 1989, when the Berlin Wall cracked by accident, then collapsed. She was having a “girls’ evening out,” she said, so she had no idea what had happened until the next morning. When a professor discussed it in class, she said, it became real to her.
The country she knew, the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, remains a crucial setting for most of her striking, precise fiction. Her work, which has grown in acuity and emotional power, combines the complications of German and Soviet history with the lives of her characters, including those of her own family members, whose experiences echo with the past like contrapuntal music.
Her latest novel to be translated into English, “Kairos,” has been a breakthrough. It is now on the shortlist for the International Booker Prize and considered a favorite to win the award late next month. Read more
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Winners of the L.A. Times Book Prize Announced
The spotlight shined on great literature Friday night at the 44th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes ceremony at USC’s Bovard Auditorium, where winners took the stage to celebrate their honors and, in some cases, call attention to the free speech controversy unfolding on campus. A political undercurrent ran through the night’s speeches following the university’s cancellation of a commencement speech by pro-Palestinian valedictorian Asna Tabassum. Read more
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