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Jerzy Kosinski’s Fall From Grace: Investigating a Literary Smear Campaign
Celebrated everywhere from Elaine’s to the Oscars, the Polish-born anti-Communist was the toast of Manhattan’s elite—until a swirl of questions about whether he wrote his own books sank his reputation. Three decades after Kosinski’s untimely death, an editor who worked with him reveals the complicated truth. By Wayne Lawson November 16, 2023 A 1976 portrait…
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Ready Player One And More Books About Video Games Get Steep Discounts At Amazon
Ready Player One is among the most popular video game novels ever written, landing not just on the New York Times Best Seller list, but also getting a movie adaptation from Stephen Spielberg. If you haven’t read it or need a gift for the gamer of your family, consider picking it up while it’s on…
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‘A First Time for Everything’ Wins 2023 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature
Dan Santat’s middle grade graphic memoir received the prestigious honor at a ceremony where Oprah Winfrey spoke about 2021 School Librarian of the Year Amanda Jones and the power of diverse books. Dan Santat’s A First Time for Everything won the 2023 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. A clearly moved Santat accepted the award…
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Exclusive Cover Reveal: Annell López’s “I’ll Give You A Reason”
Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for Annell López’s debut short story collection, I’ll Give You a Reason, which will be published by Feminist Press on April 9th, 2024. López is the winner of the Louise Meriweather First Book Prize. The Ironbound is a large, multi-ethnic immigrant neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, filled…
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The 10 best books of 2023
div[data-qa=”article-image”] { max-width: 250px; padding-top: 24px; } .wpds-c-kiwQNE { padding-top: 0px; } ‘The Bee Sting,’ by Paul Murray Return to menu Murray’s novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, reads like an instant classic. In it, the gleaming facade of one Irish family — a successful car dealer, his legendarily beautiful wife and their two children…
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Searching for Love in All Its Manifestations Across Tehran
I’ve seen Salar Abdoh only a handful of times. The most noteworthy is in May 2017 when, hearing that I’d be spending vote day in the southernmost areas of Tehran interviewing working class Tehranis about their choice for president, he offered to give me a ride through some of those neighborhoods. Abdoh, whom I had…
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Lit Hub Daily: November 16, 2023
TODAY: In 1896, Joan Lindsay, the Australian author of Picnic at Hanging Rock, is born. “Why does the empathy we cultivate through literature often remain a performative gesture, confined to the realm of fiction and failing to take root in the real world?” Etaf Rum on reading and writing during crisis. | Lit Hub…
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Writing Practice: On Literature
‘Literature’ sounds reactionary, but might that change if it can take some cues from the dynamics of art shows? Marcel Proust, 1896. Photo: Otto Wegener I have this feeling that everyone dislikes literature. Not reading and not writing, both of those are practices that many people enjoy; but somehow when these two come together they…
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Best books of 2023
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Osip Mandelstam: A Biography by Ralph Dutli, translated by Ben Fowkes (Verso) This life of “legendary literary saint”, Osip Mandelstam, provides a timely reminder of both the long history of repression in Russia and the powerful role…
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Perspective | Some books are meant to be reread. Here are 22 I would turn to again.
Most books we read just once. Excepting students of popular culture, who cares about yesterday’s bestsellers? Our thrift stores are awash in unwanted copies of “The Da Vinci Code.” A few books, however, become lifelong companions, works we regularly turn to for comfort, solace, inspiration. Novelist Ruth Rendell once said that she reread Samuel Butler’s…
