I stand in solidarity with the countless German workers and activists within institutions such as yours who are appalled by and fighting against the current climate of racism, censorship, rising authoritarianism and atrocity-denial. Free Palestine. –China Miéville   In a fiery open letter published earlier today, the award-winning British speculative fiction writer (and recent Keanu Reeves collaborator) China Miéville announced that he is rescinding his acceptance of the prestigious DAAD residency in Germany in protest of the institution’s willingness to be part of a “shameful ..read more

The New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center has announced its annual class of Fellows. Awarded annually, The Cullman fellowship entitles a gifted cadre of writers and academics to a year of funding, a private office, and research resources at the NYPL’s Schwarzman Building. Candidates are selected on the strength of their published work and a project proposal. Those “whose work will benefit directly from access to the collections” are favored. This year’s Fellows were selected from a pool of 620 applicants from 66 countries(!). They include a range of academics, independ ..read more

I’ve never really liked Valentine’s Day. Some of that is probably down to being a shy nerdy kid who couldn’t get a date to the Snow Dance—but, at the risk of sounding even more like Charlie Brown, the holiday is just so horribly commercial. It doesn’t really feel, to me, like it’s celebrating romance so much as it’s celebrating Hallmark and chocolates and outdated gender roles. Shortly after I met my wife Dani, who also isn’t hugely fond of the pageantry around Valentine’s Day, I chanced upon the opening story in Helen Oyeyemi’s collection What is Not Yours is Not Yours. Titled “Books and Ros ..read more

On waking last Friday to news that somewhere, some poets were being tortured, I spent some time trawling through album reviews. Music criticism has always fascinated me. On the one hand, there is something ineffable baked into the enterprise. (I get why some have compared music writing to dancing about architecture.) On the other, consider the singular literary form. A good critique can be a passionate beast, blending essay and poetry and off-the-cuff musing. A great critique can point you to a future favorite, or simply be fun to read on its own. Such waxing got me sad all over again about t ..read more

Lilacs, rain, a hint of bitter chocolate: Stella sniffed the air as she entered the small shop, enjoying the soft golden light that enfolded her. A bell pealed, an old-fashioned sound that gave her the oddest feeling, as if she had stepped off the Paris sidewalk and straight out of time. A curious old woman, whose beautifully manicured hands contrasted with her severe haircut and drab dress, was seated at a small oak table, wearing a smile that looked simultaneously reluctant and triumphant. Cat, Stella thought, canary. At the sight of Stella, the woman’s face lit up and she leapt from her se ..read more

TODAY: In 1861, Herbert Coleridge, first editor of what will become the Oxford English Dictionary, dies at 30 of tuberculosis; Frederick James Furnivall is appointed to succeed him.  Jane Smiley, Judi Dench, Amy Tan, and more! These 24 new books are out this week. | Lit Hub Reading Lists “My grandmother, who survived the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, never thought she’d live to see another war, especially started by Russia.” Sasha Vasilyuk on growing up in both Russia and Ukraine. | Lit Hub In Conversation Gabrielle Bellot on the failures of America’s two party system: “But America’s cu ..read more

In China we have a saying that reading a banned book on a snowy night is one of the true joys of life. From this, one can well imagine the kind of satisfaction that reading a banned book may bring—like candy locked up in a cabinet, it releases a sweet fragrance into solitary spaces. Whenever I travel abroad, I am invariably introduced as China’s most controversial and most censored author. I neither agree nor disagree with this characterization—I’m not bothered by it, but neither do I feel particularly honored by it. Authors should be very clear that being banned is not synonymous with artist ..read more

When I was at the old Vic, I had a number of walk-ons and understudy roles—one of which was in Henry VIII with Sir John Gielgud, Harry Andrews and Dame Edith Evans. That was the production when they famously all dried on the first night. All of them—John, Harry and Edith—in that long scene between Wolsey, Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. It must be written up somewhere because it was a horrific moment. –Judi Dench * Brendan O’Hea: What happened? Judi Dench: Nothing happened! That was the problem. [Laughs.] There was just a great long pause where nobody spoke.  BOH: Were you onstage wh ..read more

On March 20th, the date that the General Assembly of the United Nations declared the International Day of Happiness, the first new official assessment of global wellbeing in twelve years came out—and the United States, perhaps unsurprisingly, had dropped in its previous ranking of fifteen. It was no longer in the top twenty countries; now, it was ranked twenty-third, behind the United Arab Emirates (22) and Slovenia (21). Intriguingly, had the list only polled Americans over sixty, it might have appeared in the top ten; with Americans under thirty, however, the USA would have been ranked as l ..read more

Ah, another Tuesday in April, a month (apparently) of earthquakes and eclipses, thunderstorms and thunderous yells about filing taxes. (Or was that just me?) Whatever the month in 2024 may mean to you, this particular Tuesday signifies something special: a host of new books to check out. You’ll find novel work from big names, including Amy Tan’s reflections on birdwatching, a new novel from Jane Smiley about the wild life and times of a folk musician, Judi Dench and the actor Brendan O’Hea on Shakespeare, and a collection of essays spanning the career of Nell Irvin Painter. And you’ll also fi ..read more