A self-described “picture writer,” he wrote and illustrated more than 70 books for young children, selling more than 170 million copies. Read more
Robert Macfarlane on Roger Deakin and the Origins of Wild Swimming
To Roger Deakin, water was a miraculous substance. It was curative and restorative, it was beautiful in its flow, it was a lens through which he often viewed the world, and it was a medium of imagination and reflection. “All water,” he scribbled in a notebook, “river, sea, pond, lake, holds memory and the space to think.” Read more
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A Lost Bronte Library Surfaces
A trove of manuscripts acquired from the Bronte family in the 19th century, all but unseen for the past century, will be auctioned at Sotheby’s. Read more
China to try Australian writer on espionage charges
Yang has been held since arriving in China in January 2019 and has had no access to family and only limited contact with his legal representation, according to Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne. Read more
Damon Young’s “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker” wins Thurber Prize
Young, 42, of Pittsburgh co-founded and was editor-in-chief of “Very Smart Brothas;” he announced his departure from the website earlier this month. He is a columnist for GQ and has been published in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Time Magazine, Ebony and Jezebel magazines. Young describes himself as a “writer, critic, humorist, satirist and professional Black person.”
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If you can bear to read one pandemic dystopia in 2021, this should probably be it
Jim Shepard has earned a cult following for refashioning history’s horrors. “Phase Six,” about a future pandemic, is his timeliest novel yet. Read more
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John Steinbeck’s estate urged to let the world read his shunned werewolf novel
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
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
