Have you thanked a bodega cat today? Remember, they won’t be getting raises under the new administration. For 51% of New York City bipeds, however, it’s a pretty great week. Zohran Mamdani, the charming upstart, will be our new mayor. Read more >
I’m excited to be writing to you from here in Mayor-elect Mamdani’s New York City. After years of bad news and then worse news, and a lifetime of disappointing mayors, it’s a strange and pleasant feeling to wake up in Read more >
C. D. Rose has won this year’s Goldsmiths Prize for his novel We Live Here Now. Described in the press copy as “DeLillo meets Kafka,” the novel sounds absolutely wild—as befits a winner of the Goldsmiths Prize, which was launched in Read more >
On Tuesday, Helen Garner’s How to End a Story: Collected Diaries was announced as the 2025 winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction, which recognizes excellence in nonfiction from authors of any nationality published in English in the UK. Read more >
The Texas filmmaker Richard Linklater has built much of his legacy on homage. His love runs deep, but narrow. He cares especially for the layabouts, the cranks, and the iconoclasts. From masquerading hit-men to opportunistic funeral directors, from Orson Welles Read more >
It’s the first Tuesday of a new fall month, meaning the sheer number of books coming out is reaching a fever pitch. It’s harder than ever to choose which titles to highlight in such a season, but below you will Read more >
Happy Halloween! I haven’t seen enough fun literary costumes in real life or on social media—what are the book people going as this year? The closest I’m getting is my niece dressing up as a black cat this year, which Read more >
Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War by Lyndal Roper, an excellent new history of one of the largest popular uprisings before the French Revolution, won this year’s Cundill History Prize and its $75,000 prize. The award, which Read more >
First off—apologies, readers. I failed to report our nice things last Friday, so we have a combo week. Gratitude is abundant this Hallow’s Eve. So what’s been making us happy? In a word? Soups. Oliver Scialdone made a killer butternut Read more >
This Thursday brings bad news for book lovers. Baker & Taylor, one of the largest distributors for print library books in America, is closing down—and throwing the distribution pipeline into (at least) short term chaos as a result. As 404Media Read more >
It’s November, and I’m happy to be back with a new slew of book recommendations. I’ll be taking a step back from my weekly round-ups for the moment, but I’ll still be here at the end of each month to Read more >
The American government has revoked the visa of Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian author who won the 1986 Nobel Prize in literature, according to Al Jazeera. The writer received what he called a “rather curious love letter” from the American authorities, Read more >
Ted Geisel, the doctor best known for spreading the gospel of green eggs and ham, has a deep bench of classic kid’s books. Dr. Seuss gave us cats in hats and star-bellied sneetches. He gave some of us our first Read more >
Several charitable groups—among them the Ford, Hawthornden, Lannan, MacArthur, Mellon, and Poetry foundations—are teaming up to launch the Literary Arts Fund, an effort to give the “essential yet critically underfunded” lit world a much-needed boost. The program, which earmarks funds Read more >
The speed at which a New York fall flies by will never cease to astound me. Here we are, already in the last week of October, midway through a cherished, idyllic time in the city. And by that I mean, Read more >
Over 300 writers, scholars, and public intellectuals have pledged to not contribute to the New York Times’ Opinion section until three demands have been met. The demands address the anti-Palestinian bias in the paper’s op-ed pages, which have been a Read more >
One week before Halloween folks, so it’s getting to be crunch time for sorting out your costume. I tend to default to wearing a ye-olden-tymes powdered wig and my old rocker vest and going as “Old School Punk,” but I’ve Read more >
Netflix will be releasing a series from Jane Schoenbrun based on Charles Burns’ comic Black Hole, according to Deadline. The series doesn’t have a release date yet, but it’s hard to think of anyone better able to translate Burns’ vision Read more >
The Booker Prize Foundation is adding to its roster of rarefied literary recognitions. A new prize will recognize excellent fiction written for young readers—specifically, children ages eight to 12. As The Guardian reported this morning, the baby Booker will launch Read more >
Artists around the country are organizing events, making zines, and planning performances for next month’s Fall of Freedom, a “wave of creative resistance” in defiance of authoritarianism. And you’re invited to participate. The “decentralized, open-source initiative” is envisioned as a Read more >
