Years before becoming one of America’s most celebrated authors, John Steinbeck wrote at least three novels which were never published. Two of them were destroyed by the young writer as he struggled to make his name, but a third – a full-length mystery werewolf story entitled Murder at Full Moon – has survived unseen in an archive ever since being rejected for publication in 1930. Read more
Author: GR
Italy honors poet Dante with tomb readings 700 years after his death
Italy is honoring one of its most divine poets, Dante, on the 700th anniversary of his death with concerts and exhibits all over the country — as well as evening readings at his tomb. Read more
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77 Strange, Funny, and Magnificent Book Titles You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
The humorous literary award known as the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year has been running since 1978, with past winners including Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality (1986) by Glenn C. Ellenbogen, The Joy of Waterboiling (2018) by Achse Verlag and The Dirt Hole and its Variations by Charles L. Dobbins (2019). But we can go back centuries earlier to find their ancestors. The following are some of the more curious lurking in the corners of library catalogues. Read more
An afternoon inside a bookstore was as glorious as ever. Here’s what I bought.
Wherever I travel, it has long been my custom to check out the local secondhand bookstores. I carry a pocket flashlight for scanning dark shelves and shadowy alcoves, methodically pull out any hardback with a faded spine to verify the title, and never use a cellphone to compare prices with online listings. If I want a book, I’m not going to nickel-and-dime a brick-and-mortar shop, especially when so many of them are struggling. Read more
Sentenced by Algorithm
Is it fair for a judge to increase a defendant’s prison time on the basis of an algorithmic score that predicts the likelihood that he will commit future crimes? Many states now say yes, even when the algorithms they use for this purpose have a high error rate, a secret design, and a demonstrable racial bias. The former federal judge Katherine Forrest, in her short but incisive When Machines Can Be Judge, Jury, and Executioner, says this is both unfair and irrational. Read more
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Valeria Luiselli has won the world’s richest prize for a novel written in English.
Today at the opening of the International Literature Festival Dublin, Dublin’s Lord Mayor Hazel Chu announced that Valeria Luiselli has won the 2021 Dublin Literary Award for Lost Children Archive, her first English-language novel. At €100,000, the award is the world’s largest prize for a single novel published in English. Read more
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His book helped expose Tulsa’s massacre of Black citizens. Now he’s helping find their graves
“The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice” recounts the events that began May 31, 1921, but its main focus is on the century that followed: the long-lasting trauma; efforts to rebuild and to finally confront the past; and most recently the fight for reparations and the search for bodies. Read more
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Cuomo Set to Receive $5.1 Million From Pandemic Book Deal
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was expected to earn more than $5 million from his book about leading New York during the coronavirus pandemic, according to figures released by his office on Monday, as investigators continued to look into his use of state resources to write and promote the book. Read more
John le Carré Fans Are Getting One More Novel
Viking plans to release “Silverview,” a spy novel set in an English seaside town, nearly a year after the famed writer’s death. Read more
How Humans Gained an ‘Extra Life’
Starting in the second half of the 19th century, the average life span began to climb rapidly, giving humans not just extra life, but an extra life. In rich countries, life expectancy at birth hit 40 by 1880, 50 by 1900, 60 by 1930, 70 by 1960, and 80 by 2010. The rest of the world is catching up. Global life expectancy in 2019 was 72.6 years, higher than that of any country, rich or poor, in 1950. People in the shortest-lived countries today will, on average, outlive those of your grandparents’ generation. Read more
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