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The Writing Tool That Mark Twain, Agatha Christie and James Joyce All Swore By

A notebook is a record of both solitude and connection. It’s a place for making real the quiet, flickering thoughts that otherwise might pass unnoticed, where words and sketches can stumble and fail. In a notebook, failure is less consequential because it’s not failure at all; it’s a necessary part of the messiness of exploration, of letting the unknown and the uncertain find form. Read more

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Dorothy Allison, Author of ‘Bastard Out of Carolina,’ Dies at 75

Dorothy Allison, who wrote with lyrical, pungent wit about her working-class Southern upbringing — and about the incest and violence that shaped her — and whose acclaimed 1992 novel, “Bastard Out of Carolina,” based on her harrowing childhood, made her a literary star, died on Tuesday at her home in Guerneville, Calif., in Sonoma County. Read more

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Adaptation of ‘Say Nothing’ by Patrick Radden Keefe is Coming Soon to Hulu

FX’s limited series Say Nothing is a gripping story of murder and memory in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. The 9-episode series is based on the book by Patrick Radden Keefe. Spanning four decades, the series opens with the shocking disappearance of Jean McConville, a single mother of ten who was abducted from her home in 1972 and never seen alive again. Watch trailer

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25 Years of NYRB Classics

Since September 30, 1999, when New York Review Books Classics brought its first 10 titles into the world under the stewardship of founder and longtime editor Edwin Frank, the press has breathed new literary life into works spanning many and, along the way, invited a redefining of the word “classic” itself. Books by such canonical cornerstones as Dante, Balzac, and Stendhal find their place here, but so too do the stylish modernism of Robert Walser, the sociophilosophical experiments of Andrey Platonov, and the sideways histories of Iris Origo, authors whose positions as touchstones of American literary culture were earned more recently. Read more

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Adaptation of ‘Conclave’ by Robert Harris Is in Theaters Now

CONCLAVE follows one of the world’s most secretive and ancient events – selecting the new Pope. Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is tasked with running this covert process after the unexpected death of the beloved Pope. Once the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders have gathered from around the world and are locked together in the Vatican halls, Lawrence uncovers a trail of deep secrets left in the dead Pope’s wake, secrets which could shake the foundations of the Church. Watch trailer

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How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

A genteel lot of librarians, academicians, historians, and researchers, the civilians recruited to form the Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the CIA) in the early days of WWII had more experience lurking in library stacks than skulking around the grimy back alleys of foreign capitals. And yet it was precisely this expertise working among ephemera and archives that made them so attractive to those tasked with forming an intelligence-gathering organization that could provide information critical to winning the war. Read more

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