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An Update about the National Book Awards
The National Book Foundation is proud to champion the Longlisters, Finalists, and Winners of the 2023 National Book Awards for Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature. Our mission is to ensure books have a prominent place in our culture, and are central to national, and global, conversation. At this time of so…
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Israel-Hamas War Sows Disruption at the National Book Awards
Two sponsors have withdrawn from the event, planned for Wednesday, after learning that some of the authors involved are planning to make a political statement about the conflict. As the cultural fallout from the war in the Middle East continues, several finalists for the National Book Award plan to call for a cease-fire in Gaza…
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The 10 best science fiction and fantasy novels of 2023
People sometimes say that science fiction basks in optimism for a better future, while fantasy is about nostalgia for an imaginary past. But this year’s most notable fantasy books worked to uncover historical crimes, while science fiction warned of coming evils. The good news? The best sci-fi and fantasy books of 2023 will give you…
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The Heavy Metal Librarian Files: Favorite books and bands: Literature and lyrics are often intertwined
Working at the library, I often get asked questions about what I am currently reading or what books are my all-time favorites. The first question is always easiest to answer, because it is something happening now — usually something recently published and newly acquired by the library. But whenever I’m asked to reflect upon the…
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10 Books About Nonhuman Consciousness
These 10 books take the imaginability of other minds as their explicit subject. Their writers are curious about nonhuman consciousness: could language reproduce that as well? In order to imaginewhat animals, plants, or objects might be thinking, these writers try to think those thoughts themselves. They wonder: what is it like to be an elephant,…
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Book Review: Benjamin Taylor’s brief new biography of Willa Cather displays the devotion of a fan
Benjamin Taylor has a thing for Willa Cather. This year, the 150th anniversary of her birth, he has written a passionate love letter to her in the form of a brief but illuminating biography. “Chasing Bright Medusas” clocks in at just over 150 pages but it offers a fine introduction to one of the leading…
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The 10 best mystery novels of 2023
div[data-qa=”article-image”] { max-width: 250px; padding-top: 24px; } .wpds-c-kiwQNE { padding-top: 0px; } It was a great year for mystery readers, with notable books by longtime-favorite authors and a crop of new voices whose stories added depth and breadth to the genre. Here are 10 titles that stood out. ‘The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies,’ by…
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On the False Promise of Climate Fiction
Climate fiction is everywhere.The Guardian calls a roundup of climate fiction “stories to save the world.” The New Yorker asks if climate fiction can “wake us up to our climate reality?” A recent op-ed in the LA Times posits that climate fiction is a “surprising source of hope.” There is also a tenor to the…
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My Feral Shelf: On Building a Personal Library of Bad Behavior
In the wake of ongoing discussions about whether we can love monstrous writers, or whether we should even write monstrous characters, I have escaped into a personal library not of monsters, but of mischief. Over the last two years I have built what I call the feral shelf. It began in lockdown, when I was…
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40 Books to Understand Palestine
In the last 38 days, more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. Another 190 have been killed by Israeli army fire and settler violence in the West Bank. Tens of thousands of people have been severely wounded and traumatized. 1.7 million have been displaced. Throughout these weeks of mass death…
