The International Booker goes to “the finest fiction from around the world” that has been translated into English. Six books are now in the running for the £50,000 award, which is split equally between author and translator, all of them displaying “an extraordinary amount of ingenuity and originality”, said chair of judges Lucy Hughes-Hallett. Read more
Looking For a Way to Mark Earth Day? Try These Movies, Songs, Books and More
When you come back inside after celebrating Earth with a walk or by planting some trees, check out these ways NPR’s Arts & Culture team has connected with our Mother Earth via the arts. Read more
Grammar-Nerd Heaven
A new exhibit showcases the surprisingly contentious history of English grammar books. Read more
Cuomo’s Pandemic Book Leads to an Investigation
The governor faces an investigation by the New York attorney general into whether he misused state resources to write his memoir “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic.” Read more
2021 Wolfson Prize Shortlist Announced
The shortlist for the Wolfson History Prize 2021, the UK’s most prestigious history writing prize, has been announced today, celebrating the best historical non-fiction titles from the past year. Read more
10 Essential Noir Novels
Willy Vlautin lists some of his favorite noir novels… Read more
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What Snoop Dogg’s Success Says About the Book Industry
Will the shifts brought on by the pandemic, favoring online retailers over bookstores and established authors over new ones, change publishing forever? Read more
In the Instagram age, you actually can judge a book by its cover
Last week’s big literary event was not the publication of a new book, the million-pound signing of a celebrity author or the announcement of a prestigious prize. Instead, it was the unveiling of a cover: the jacket of the forthcoming novel by Sally Rooney.
“It’s quite rare that a publisher will reveal a jacket and make such a big deal about who designed it, or even mention who designed it,” says Danny Arter, creative editor of The Bookseller, a magazine reporting on the publishing industry. But in recent years, book cover design has taken on a higher profile, and we may be seeing a new heyday for book design. Read more
Denis Donoghue, Humanist Literary Critic, Dies at 92
He wrote prodigiously while teaching, first in Dublin and then in New York, and often clashed with critics he considered too political. Read more
Agatha Christie’s Oxfordshire home is on sale for £2.75m
The mystery novel maven lived at Winterbrook House, on the banks of the River Thames in Oxfordshire, for upward of 40 years, from 1934 to her death in 1976, according to a news release from listing agent Savills. Read more
