Books & Literature

Benjamin Franklin, forty-­six years old in June 1752, strode into a field just north of the burgeoning village of Philadelphia. He had told no one other than his twenty-­two-­year-­old son about his plan to demonstrate the connection between lightning and elec­tricity, both of which were then considered mysterious and terrifying. The Franklins carried only a […]

I keep a list of doppelgänger stories. Some are like Dostoevsky’s eerie The Double, where it’s not totally clear if the double exists in real life or is a frenzied hallucination of the troubled main character. Article continues after advertisement In others, the original brings a menacing double into being, as in Hans Christian Andersen’s

This is the first post I’m writing, late, after the election result. I won’t devote much to how that feels, or what to do. I will say that poems, as Audre Lorde famously wrote, “formulate the implications of ourselves, what we feel within and dare make real (or bring action into accordance with), our fears,

The thing to realize the soonest is that you’re not raising a miniature version of yourself. Article continues after advertisement It’s an inevitable epiphany, and perhaps it hits when they want to quit dance class, or when they prove hopeless at piano. God forbid you’re in thirty years of denial. But for me it was

The following is from Tom Newlands’ Only Here, Only Now. Newlands is a multiply neurodivergent Scottish writer. He is a recipient of the London Writer’s Award for Literary Fiction, a Creative Future Writer’s Award and a Creative Future/TLC Next Up Award. He was one of eleven writers selected for New Writing North’s “A Writing Chance,”

November 13, 2024, 12:52pm EveryLibrary, a non-profit dedicated to supporting public and school libraries across the country via local grassroots organizing, has been tracking anti-library legislation since 2012. Between the onslaught of book bans and censorship petitions, they’ve naturally had a busy few years. But last week was another bellwether. On Tuesday night, the PAC

November 13, 2024, 12:46pm The Common’s annual Author Postcard Auction is back for its eleventh year! The Postcard Auction offers the chance to bid on a hand-written, personalized postcard just for you, from a ton of great authors, musicians, and more: Tony Kushner, Joy Williams, Julian Barnes, Andrew Sean Greer, Kelly Link, Rebecca Makkai, Jennifer Egan,

November 13, 2024, 10:19am Jeff Sharlet, author of The Undertow, and one of our very best (and bravest) writers engaging with American fascism as it actually exists on the ground, has done the ugly work of reading Pete Hegseth’s book, The War on Warriors. Yes, the very same Hegseth who hangs out on weekends with

November 13, 2024, 10:07am Lend us your ears, readers. Today, our friends at Libfro.fm have released a list of the year’s bestselling audiobooks. Data was based on reporting from more than 3,000 independent bookstores. Cake-taking titles span the genre gamut, from romance to mystery to literary reportage. Without further ado, here are the top ten

The Best of the Literary Internet, Every Day TODAY: In 1913, Marcel Proust‘s Swann’s Way, volume one of In Search of Lost Time, is published by Éditions Grasset in Paris.  “My personality is more indebted to The Simpsons than any other book or movie or album or show or art thing.” Meet the 2024 National Book