Yesterday a picture of a Harry Potter book, opened to a page of writing about wands, Death Eaters, and Voldemort, had a brief moment in the social media sun.
This post contains spoilers to Kristen Roupenian’s “Cat Person.”
Best-books-of-the-year lists are a way for editors to promote the books they loved the most, but it’s easy to forget such lists are subjective. One way to get a view of what the industry thinks as a whole is to look at the lists in aggregate. That’s why we combined 21 of 2017’s best-books roundups into one master list.
The British author Kazuo Ishiguro is a subtle creator. He won the Nobel prize in literature this year for the quiet, unknowable dread he imbues in his characters, whose emotions and ideas are often brimming just below consciousness, and barely acknowledged.
The US’s tidal wave of sexual assault reckonings has come for one of the literary world’s most prominent tastemakers.
One of the biggest breakout books of the year in the US is about an unarmed black teenager killed by the police. A school district in Texas thinks the language in the book could be too mature for its students.
Bill Gates is branching out.
In late August, Hurricane Harvey swept through homes and businesses in and around Houston, Texas. As the city works to repair the estimated $80 billion in damage, the tiniest members of its community are recovering, too.
Barnes & Noble is having a meh quarter. But the US bookselling chain has come up with a great new plan to reinvigorate its stores and customers: books.
When it comes to making a buck or a pound, the beneficiaries of the Harry Potter franchise leave no magical stone unturned. But the universe of the beloved wizarding series, with its spin-off play, textbook, and movies, has gotten so big, gatekeepers are starting to make mistakes about its own lore. Now fake news about wizards has infiltrated the Harry Potter canon.
So you’ve been asked to speak publicly. Feel free to sweat profusely, rifle through some $10 vocab words, pick out what you’ll wear, sweat some more. But first: Ask how much time you have to speak.
The high art of garden design has come to a browser tab near you.
Anthony Scaramucci is not a man of few words. The verbal exuberance of the former White House director of communications is precisely what the country was talking about days before he got fired (paywall) in July.
For the next six weeks, Americans will be stuffing themselves into a stupor, making their lists (then checking them twice) and caving in to consumption. To make it through a season that somehow demands both extreme productivity and wine-soaked lethargy, consider adding one more item to your list: a short story collection.
In a new short story from beloved fiction writer Margaret Atwood, aliens arrive on Earth and discuss this strange species called “human” with a friendly Canadian mushroom.
In the current moment, the United States is a nation of poetry readers. Kind of.
People think of reading as the introvert’s hobby: A quiet activity for a person who likes quiet, save for the voices in their head. But in the 5,000 or so years humans have been writing, reading as we conceive it, an asocial solo activity with a book, is a relatively new form of leisure.
“Uncle Joe” Biden is no joke. In a poignant new memoir, the much-memed former US vice president is a man bursting with grief as he tries to help run the country.
You work up the courage to ask your boss for something over Slack. Or you tap out a 150-word, point-by-point counter to the last point that friend you’re fighting with made over text. You iterate, edit, and then finally, when you have all the words right, hit “send.”
“I never thought that a Russia book could actually be long-listed or short-listed for the National Book Award,” said journalist Masha Gessen. “But of course things have…um…changed.”
Over the past two years, a platitudinous book of poems unexpectedly became one of the bestselling books in the US. Now it has its very own parody, which has itself, improbably, become a top seller on Amazon.
A new book critical of the Chinese government’s influence in Australia won’t make it to shelves for the time being–because, says the author, of the Chinese government’s influence in Australia.
A visit to the world’s largest art museum, the Louvre in Paris, can be daunting as hell. Istanbul’s archaeology museums? Plan on several days, at least, to take them all in. As for New York City’s Metropolitan Museum—where to even start?
After at least five years of rumors, Louis C.K. admits he abused his power and forced women to watch him masturbate.
