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Poet Catherine Barnett on loneliness and comedy; Oprah Winfrey to award Toni Morrison Center for Fiction’s lifetime achievement award; on having an identity outside of poetry; and other news.
A case against Banned Books Week; Flannery O’Connor’s reading list; Amazon and Nicole Kidman to adapt Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion; and other news.
Labor Day, a holiday honoring the American labor and trade union movements celebrated on the first Monday in September, is the marker of the unofficial end of summer. Oldfangled fashion etiquette dictates that it also marks the annual cutoff point for wearing certain items of clothing such as white shoes or white pants, along with patterns and materials including seersucker, eyelet, patchwork madras, linen, and canvas. Write a personal essay about a seasonal item that you’re either reluctant to let go of at the end of summer or eager to dig out from the depths of your closet storage for the beginning of fall. Explore how the seasonal clothing you wear is associated with the climate and traditions of your particular geographic region, as well as the emotional ties and memories linked to this annual transition.
Longlist for $75,000 Cundill History Prize announced; New York Review of Books contributors pen letter protesting Ian Buruma’s “forced resignation”; John Green’s surprise publicity campaign for his brother; and other news.
“Just keep going.” In this video from the 2017 Bay Area Book Festival, Literary Hub senior editor Emily Temple speaks to authors, including Michael Chabon, Vanessa Hua, Katie Kitamura, Paul Murray, Hannah Tinti, Ayelet Waldman, and Esmé Weijun Wang, about the best writing advice they have ever received.
Hilton Als on Tracy K. Smith’s poetry of desire; the Free Black Women’s Library; Hunter S. Thompson letters put up for auction; and other news.
Michelle Obama announces book tour; Yiyun Li on grief and fiction; German bookseller teams up with a butcher and baker; and other news.
Elizabeth Metzger on Max Ritvo’s last poems; Barnes & Noble opens new prototype store; Dutch theater company adapts A Little Life; and other news.
Ian Buruma out at New York Review of Books; Bob Woodward’s Fear is the fastest-selling book in Simon & Schuster’s history; New York Media to triple its book coverage; and other news.
“And it seemed as though in a little while the solution would be found, and then a new and glorious life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that they still had a long, long road before them, and that the most complicated and difficult part of it was only just beginning.” In “The Chekhov Sentence That Contains Almost All of Life” published in the Atlantic, Gary Shteyngart talks to Joe Fassler about this last line of Anton Chekhov’s 1899 short story “The Lady With the Dog,” and explains why he believes it expresses a universal truth about all human relationships. Find a favorite final sentence from a prose piece you have long appreciated and write a personal essay about why you find it particularly resonant. How has your reading of it evolved over the years, and what memories surface upon its recollection?
