MANY SPORTS can make plausible claims to be the world’s best pastime. But when it comes to spawning great literature, baseball stands alone. American libraries dedicate shelves upon shelves to the cerebral, languidly paced sport. The volumes they hold range from the earliest memoirs by players, like Christy Mathewson’s “Pitching in a Pinch” in 1912,…

Below, please find the shortlist finalists for the 36th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. — Samantha Allen, Senior Culture Editor Lesbian Fiction Big Swiss — Jen Beagin (Scribner)Biography of X — Catherine Lacey (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)Organ Meats — K-Ming Chang (One World)Our Hideous Progeny — C E McGill (HarperCollins Publishers)Pomegranate — Helen Elaine Lee (Atria…

1979’s “Sex and Rage” is essentially Babitz’s autobiography. The heroine Jacaranda Leven comes of age in southern California where she parties hard, is sexually free, and does things on her terms. It was an interesting time for women. As much as the majority of the U.S. was still hanging onto the puritanical ideals of the…

Growing up with a pair of hearing aids, it never occurred to me that deafness was an experience. Mostly it was a problem that I was taught to hide. When I started meeting other deaf people my own age, and learning British Sign Language, I began to see deafness from a new perspective. Books, when…

Award-winning Cardiff indie Candy Jar Books has acquired the rights to publish brand new books based on the classic children’s animation series The Raccoons. For children who grew up in the mid-’80s, early ’90s The Raccoons was required viewing. Mixing anarchic humour with great storytelling, this classic Canadian animation TV series focused on the exploits…

15 Literary Classics That Fail Modern Readers (Picture Credit – Instagram) Literary classics have long been admired for their artistic excellence and historical relevance, influencing the shape of global literature. However, as society evolves, certain classics may lose relevance with modern readers due to obsolete subjects, language obstacles, or shifts in cultural sensitivities. This article…

Singapore’s National Library Board (NLB) and fashion retailer Uniqlo have teamed up as part of the National Reading Movement to encourage more people to set aside more time for reading with exclusive t-shirt designs and a library wall at Uniqlo’s 51@AMK outlet.  The designs of the eight exclusive t-shirts were inspired by four Singapore Literature (Sing Lit) books…

The shortlist for one of Britain’s oldest book awards has been announced. The James Tait Black Memorial Prize’s 2024 shortlist has four novels in one category and six biographical works in a separate bracket. The winners of each category will receive a £10,000 award. American author Darryl Pinckney was last year’s winner in the biography…

Suzette Mayr’s The Sleeping Car Porter and Emma Donoghue’s Haven are among the six books shortlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award.  The €100,000 ($147,178 Cdn) prize annually recognizes the best work of fiction in English from anywhere in the world. It is the most valuable award in the world for a single work of fiction published in English. This year,…

Putting the words “fun” and “murder” next to each other in a conversation is a great way to give off the impression that you are gleefully maladjusted. But I’d wager if you tried it (the conversation starter, not the murder)—go ahead, show up at a party and say, “Isn’t murder fun?”—people would know just what…