Other people can be baffling; these titles attempt to unravel a bit of their mystery. Read more
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Year: 2024
Can a Book Save Your Life?
The mega-bestselling author Matt Haig and the limits of the therapy novel. Read more
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Was the ‘Worst Novelist in History’ In on the Joke?
Over the course of her career, [Amanda McKittrick] Ros became better and better at writing badly, and her popularity soared as a result. In this regard, she bears comparison with the New York socialite and singer Florence Foster Jenkins (1868–1944), whose operatic warbling was so popular that tickets for her show at Carnegie Hall sold out within two hours. Perhaps Ros was living in a permanent state of cognitive dissonance, or perhaps she accepted the ridicule as consolation for her fame. A more intriguing possibility is that she was engaged in an elaborate form of trolling. Read more
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The Latest Adaptation of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ is a Grand, Robustly Entertaining Spectacle
Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte’s rollicking, expensive French blockbuster is a fittingly bold take on Dumas’s 1,300 page revenge-tale. Watch trailer
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Leonard Riggio, Who Built Barnes & Noble Into a Bookselling Empire, Dies at 83
Leonard Riggio, a brash, self-styled underdog who transformed the publishing industry by building Barnes & Noble into the country’s most powerful bookseller before his company was overtaken by the rise of Amazon.com, has died at age 83. Read more
How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World
In the spirit of Progressive Era muckrakers, Michel, an investigative journalist and author of American Kleptocracy, reveals the shamelessness, venality, and moral turpitude of those who work to influence federal legislators and the public in order to advance antidemocratic foreign interests. Read more
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Suspected Burglar Caught After Sitting Down With Book
A would-be burglar in Rome was caught after stopping to read a book on Greek mythology in the middle of a theft, Italian media reports. Read more
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How the Push to Diversify Publishing Fell Short
Lisa Lucas was among the big hires meant to shake up the industry. Her departure, alongside other prominent Black editors and executives, has led some to question publishers’ pledge to diversify. Read more
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Two Centuries After His Death, Why is Lord Byron Still Seductive?
“…the poet is mostly recalled in the context of the Byronic hero: a dark, brooding, sexy rebel, derived partly from Byron’s celebrity persona and also from his works, such as his autobiographical masterpiece, “Don Juan”. In England the bicentenary has been marked by new books and events. But many are also taking place abroad, in the countries that hosted his self-imposed exile. In Italy, where he wrote some of his greatest works, including “Don Juan”, he is claimed as something of a national poet. The Keats-Shelley House, at the foot of the Spanish Steps in Rome, is holding a year-long festival of readings, exhibitions and performances. Read more
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‘State of Paradise’ by Laura van den Berg
With exquisite prose, smart lines on every page, a building sense of growing strangeness tinged with dread, and surprises all the way to the end, State of Paradise might be van den Berg’s best novel so far — and that’s saying a lot. A narrative that constantly feels like its dancing on the border between fiction and nonfiction despite all the weirdness it contains, this book is at once an adventure and a treat, a deep study of Florida’s psychogeography and a creepy story about ghosts, missing people, cults, and technology. Don’t miss it. Read more
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