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Jamaican Poet Jason Allen-Paisant’s ‘Self-Portrait as Othello’ Wins TS Eliot Prize

In Self-Portrait As Othello, Allen-Paisant draws a connection between Shakespeare’s Othello, a Moorish general who is often treated as an outsider in Venice, and the experiences of Black immigrants today. His poems move between Jamaica, Prague, Paris and Oxford among other places, and he weaves in lines of French, Jamaican patois, Italian and German. Read more

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Barnes & Noble Aims to Open 50 Stores in 2024

As well as opening new stores, Daunt said the business was also investing in its IT and distribution operations. The planned expansion follows a ‘very solid’ holiday season and ‘a good year’ for the chain, with a makeover of its membership program more than doubling the number of customers enrolled. It also comes as staff at five B&N stores have voted to unionise. Read more

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15 Literary Podcasts to Make You Laugh, Learn and Join Conversations About Books

Literary podcasts offer comfort and convenience. Most are free. They’re available across multiple platforms. And while you could curl up in bed and simply listen (as I often do), they’re designed to be experienced while you’re doing something else – whether that’s enduring a long commute, sweating it out at the gym or tidying the house. Read more

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Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa

Historian Grafton offers a superb account of the astrologers, alchemists, and sorcerers who practiced “natural magic” in Europe from the Middle Ages through early modernity. Grafton demonstrates that, while magical practice was already ubiquitous, what was innovative about these self-styled Learned Magicians was their belief that sorcery worked because of, and not despite, the rational laws of nature. Subjects include the historical Doctor Faustus, a “necromancer” whose exploits would become fodder for Marlowe and Goethe; the Renaissance humanist and reviver of Neoplatonist philosophy Marsilio Ficino; and the occultist and soldier Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. Read more

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What to Read If You Want to Reinvent Yourself

Changing oneself is harder than perky how-to guides and self-help books suggest. The genre is so popular because its titles briefly allow us to imagine that reinvention is a matter of performing specific actions, rather than an ongoing battle with our own recalcitrant nature. This is also precisely why their advice often doesn’t stick: The first step should be attempting to understand the self you’re trying to change. The books below, by contrast, are honest about the difficult emotional realities that accompany personal growth—discouragement, self-recrimination, fear of the unknown—and still offer hope. Read more

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Mickey Mouse, Long a Symbol in Copyright Wars, to Enter Public Domain

Mickey and Minnie will enter the public domain on Jan. 1. From then on, Disney will no longer enjoy an exclusive copyright over the earliest versions of the characters. Underground cartoonists, filmmakers, novelists, songwriters — whoever — will be free to do what they want with them. Read more

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