This Is Not an Exorcism
Ivy Fang’s debut novel *This Is Not an Exorcism* follows Laurel Meng, a Chinese‑American con artist who pretends to be an exorcist to pay her mother’s mounting medical bills. When a client at a rural bed‑and‑breakfast claims her deceased son is haunting the property, Laurel’s scam spirals into a genuine supernatural nightmare. The story forces her to partner with a ghost to perform a real exorcism and uncover buried secrets. Fang mixes horror, dark humor, and themes of love, loss, and cultural displacement.
2026 Grand Prix De L’Imaginaire Shortlist
The 2026 Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire shortlist, honoring the best science‑fiction and fantasy published in France in 2025, was released today. It features five French novels, six translated foreign novels, short fiction, YA titles, and a dedicated translation prize. Winners...
Ruth Berman Named SFPA Grand Master
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association announced Ruth Berman as its 13th Grand Master, honoring her decades‑long impact on speculative poetry. Berman’s work spans premier genre magazines such as Asimov’s, Analog, and Weird Tales, and she has earned top...
The "Literacy Crisis" Is Older than the iPhone and AI. Dante Faced It, so Did Wordsworth. Crisis Is Writing's Natural...
Archaeologists Christian Bentz and Ewa Dutkiewicz uncovered a series of 22‑symbol engravings dating 43,000‑34,000 years ago in the Jura mountains, arguing they represent a pre‑written “protowriting” system. Statistical analysis shows the symbols follow regular patterns, suggesting they encoded data rather than...
Meet the ‘Literary King of Tulsa’ (Before He Moves to Seattle)
Jeff Martin founded the nonprofit Magic City Books in Tulsa in 2017, turning a modest corner shop into a cultural hub that hosts over 100 author events and six reading groups each year. Martin, who also serves as director of...
An Educator Explores Hinduism and Belonging in US Public Schools in New Book
Education scholar Indu Viswanathan’s new book, "Hindu at Heart: Education, Faith, and What It Means to Belong in America," will be released by Briarcliff Press on May 24. The work challenges a long‑standing Western "master narrative" that portrays Hinduism as...
Friday Link-O-Thon
Today’s Books roundup notes a 3.1% drop in U.S. print sales for Q1 2026, rising legal tensions as Penguin sues OpenAI over an AI‑generated German children’s book, and a cultural flashpoint with a Tennessee librarian fired for refusing to move over‑100...
Today’s Atlantic Trivia: The Sea
The Atlantic’s latest trivia spotlights Rachel Carson, who wrote three sea‑focused books between 1941 and 1955 before publishing the groundbreaking environmental classic Silent Spring in 1962. The piece also shares a striking fact that drying all ocean salt would create a...
Crystal City, Rakia Media and Nate Hopper to Develop 'Tiny T. Rex' Animated Series
Crystal City Entertainment, Rakia Media and veteran animation producer Nate Hopper have signed an agreement to develop the New York Times bestseller “Tiny T. Rex” into an animated television series. The children’s‑book franchise, created by author Jonathan Stutzman and illustrator Jay Fleck,...
Why Constance Debré Shed Marriage, Law and a French Political Dynasty to Write Novels
Constance Debré, a member of France’s storied Debré political dynasty, abandoned a promising legal career and a high‑profile marriage to become a novelist. After years practicing law and navigating the expectations of a powerful family, she experienced a personal crisis...
Joseph L. Green (1931–2026)
Joseph L. Green, a 95‑year‑old former NASA deputy chief of education, died on February 20, 2026. Over a 37‑year NASA career he helped shape space‑flight curricula before turning full‑time to science‑fiction writing. Since his first professional story in 1962, Green...
From Collapse to Comeback: How Fishers And Environmentalists Are Restoring Oceans
The book *Sea Change* showcases how catch‑share programs have turned collapsing fisheries into thriving ecosystems, centering on the Texas red snapper case. EDF Executive Director Amanda Leland describes catch shares as built‑in incentives that let fishers fish any time while...
Finding West Africa's Past to Make Sense of the Present
Adéwálé Májà-Pearce’s new book *Shine Your Eye* retraces a West African trek from Nigeria to Niger, confronting the region’s slave‑trade legacy, post‑colonial violence, and today’s security crises. He highlights how historical complicity in the Atlantic slave trade and French‑British decolonisation...
HAROLD GOLDBERG: FIVE THINGS I LEARNED WHILE WRITING THE SKINNY
Harold Goldberg releases debut novel "The Skinny," a gritty 1990s New York mystery narrated by Polish immigrant Stan Kaminski. The story intertwines class conflict, serial‑killer history, and video‑game storytelling techniques, drawing inspiration from Alan Wake and GTA. Goldberg rejected major‑publisher...
The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter by Brionni Nwosu
Brionni Nwusu’s debut, The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter, reimagines the Faustian bargain through a Black diaspora protagonist who gains immortality to document humanity’s beauty amid oppression. The novel weaves real historical figures into Nella’s centuries‑spanning adventures across...
Critical Role Continues the Mighty Nein Story in a Campaign 2 Sequel Novel
Critical Role is releasing a sequel novel, *The Mighty Nein — Children of Empire*, on November 10, 2026. Written by award‑nominated author Nibedita Sen, the book follows monk Beauregard Lionett and wizard Caleb Widogast as they return to the Dwendalian...
The Best Recent Poetry – Review Roundup
The Guardian’s roundup highlights two recent poetry collections that blend formal rigor with personal urgency. Jean Sprackland’s "Goyle, Chert, Mire" (45 unrhymed sonnets, £13 ≈ $16.5) situates the Blackdown Hills as a linguistic landscape, using restraint to echo illness‑induced collapse. Kim Moore’s...
‘Complex, Dangerous, Sexual Beings’: The Centuries-Old Origins of Current Fairy Fiction
Recent fantasy novels have revived the original, darker portrayal of fae, turning them from Victorian‑era, child‑friendly sprites into sexually charged, perilous beings. Neil Armstrong’s piece traces the fairy’s lineage from medieval folklore and Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" through the...
HarperCollins’ “Canadian Classics” Is an American Side Hustle
HarperCollins Canada announced a seven‑title "Canadian Classics" line debuting May 5, 2026, featuring recent works by authors such as Emma Donoghue and Heather O’Neill. The series is timed to coincide with HarperCollins' larger "American Classics" campaign, sharing the same designer,...
Spider-Man/Superman 2026 Crossover Exclusive — a Shocking New Team-Up Revealed
Marvel and DC are releasing a second Spider‑Man/Superman crossover issue on April 22, 2026, following the debut of Superman/Spider‑Man #1. The backup story pairs Ghost‑Spider (Spider‑Gwen) with Supergirl in a showdown against the DC villain Livewire, written by Stephanie Phillips...
The Age-Spanning Thrills of Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons Books
Arthur Ransome’s wartime reporting and alleged espionage ties infused his Swallows and Amazons series with a subtle undercurrent of intrigue. The books follow British children in the 1920s‑30s as they embark on sailing, camping and mystery‑driven adventures across lakes and...
Dylan Landis on How Writing Her Rainey Royal Series Saved Her Life
Dylan Landis reveals that writing her Rainey Royal series became a lifeline during a 2011 personal crisis that included breast cancer, family emergencies, and a strained marriage. By channeling daily anguish into the rebellious teen protagonist, she established a disciplined...
Using the Absurd: How Erasmus Challenges His Students
Desiderius Erasmus leveraged absurd humor in his *Colloquies* to make Latin instruction more engaging and cognitively demanding. By embedding jokes that range from simple wordplay to complex non‑sequitur dialogues, he turned grammar drills into memorable narratives. The work evolved from...
Review | Ali Smith Pairs Imagination with Urgency in Her Politically Charged New Novel, Glyph
Ali Smith’s latest novel *Glyph* acts as a thematic sibling to her 2024 work *Gliff*, using the concept of a glyph—a mark or sign—to explore how war, surveillance and artificial intelligence reshape language and memory. The story follows sisters Petra...
Writing About a Pet Frog Is Trivial? Anne Fadiman Disagrees.
Anne Fadiman’s new collection, "Frog and Other Essays," uses seemingly trivial subjects—like a dead pet frog or an old printer—to explore larger human themes. She credits Harvard Magazine mentors for honing her sentence‑level craft and stresses the familiar essay’s power...
Rachel Carson Has Known the Ocean
In 1937 Rachel Carson’s lyrical essay "Undersea" appeared in The Atlantic, marking the debut of her public science writing. The piece showcased her ability to translate marine biology into vivid, accessible prose, earning praise from editor Edward Weeks. Its success...
In Your Spare Time: Ursula K. Le Guin Podcast Brings Her Entire Blog to Your Ears
Reactor Magazine announced the launch of *In Your Spare Time*, a new podcast that converts every post from Ursula K. Le Guin’s 2010‑2017 blog into a standalone episode. Each entry is read by a different guest—ranging from bestselling authors to...
Books Our Editors Loved This Week
The New York Times Book Review released its weekly "5 New Books We Love" list on April 2, 2026, highlighting a curated selection of recent titles across literary fiction, nonfiction, thrillers, romance, and mystery. The editors emphasize the ability for...
Dreams and Nightmares: Diane Hoh’s The Wish
Diane Hoh’s 1993 teen horror novel *The Wish* follows Salem University students who encounter a vintage fortune‑telling machine called The Wizard. When friends make wishes, they are granted in twisted, violent ways—disfiguring a face and crippling a leg. The machine’s...
Podcast | Helle Helle
Granta’s latest podcast episode features acclaimed Danish author Helle Helle, whose novels and short‑story collections have been translated into twenty‑four languages. Her newest English‑language novel, they, was released this year, and six of her short stories will appear in the upcoming...
Reading the Republic | Review of T.M. Krishna’s We, the People of India
Renowned Carnatic vocalist and scholar T.M. Krishna’s new book, *We the People of India: Decoding a Nation’s Symbols*, revisits India’s flag, emblem, motto, anthem, and constitutional preamble, tracing their origins from ancient Ashokan motifs to the Constituent Assembly debates. The...
Who Was Pehr, the Swedish Hunting Dog?
The Yale Press book *Noble Beasts* examines 18th‑century French hunting art, centering on Jean‑Baptiste Oudry’s 1740 portrait of Pehr, a Swedish basset hound owned by envoy Carl Gustav Tessell. The vertical canvas, gifted to Tessell, highlighted the dog’s vitality while...
Five Dalit Stories that Changed How I Read
Siddhesh Gautam highlights five Dalit books that reshaped his reading, ranging from rural Andhra short stories to a Santhal Adivasi collection and a Hindi banking autobiography. The works confront caste oppression through food, fragmented narratives, and stark portrayals of landlessness,...
Les Liaisons Dangereuses Brilliantly Displays the Power of Emotions
The National Theatre’s new production of *Les Liaisons Dangereuses* reimagines Laclos’s 1782 scandalous novel with a modern theatrical language. Lead actors Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner use choreography and shifting lighting to portray the psychological decline of their aristocratic manipulators....
Words, Words, Words
Marjorie Garber’s new book *A Treacherous Secret Agent* reveals how writers and performers used literary allusions to subvert the anti‑communist investigations of the Red Scare. By tracing testimonies from J. Robert Oppenheimer, Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson and others, she shows...
A Bubbly Ambivalence. . .
The Paris Review released its monthly "Bubbly Ambivalence" roundup, featuring curated excerpts from a range of upcoming books, from Chelsey Minnis’s experimental poetry to Patrick Radden Keefe’s biography of the Aga Khan. Editors pulled passages directly from galley proofs, giving...
Blackie Lawless Reveals the Title of His Upcoming Memoir
Rock veteran Blackie Lawless announced his forthcoming memoir, titled "Tales From the Square Mile," after five years of research. The book will examine the Hollywood neighborhood where he lived and its ripple effects on the broader music industry. Lawless says...
'Stay Alive,' About Daily Life in Nazi Berlin, Shows How Easy It Is to Just Go Along
Ian Buruma’s new book *Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939‑1945* weaves diaries, memoirs and interviews to portray everyday life in Nazi‑ruled Berlin. It follows a cast of characters—from a Jewish guitarist to a teenage idealist and a covert resistance journalist—illustrating how ordinary...
An Expert's Guide to Alexander Calder: Six Must-Read Books on the US Sculptor
The Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris is hosting a major exhibition of nearly 300 Alexander Calder works, tracing the evolution of his iconic mobiles and broader practice. Curators Dieter Buchhart and Anna Karina Hofbauer paired the show with a curated...
Living Through the Civil War
George Templeton Strong, a 19th‑century New York lawyer, leveraged his Wall Street connections to become a leading civic figure during the Civil War. In 1861 he was appointed treasurer of the United States Sanitary Commission, which raised roughly $25 million (about...
Blood in the Game
Lee Clay Johnson’s *Bloodline* and Carl Hiaasen’s *Fever Beach* use dark humor to dissect America’s rising violence, corruption and environmental decay. Johnson follows a delusional ex‑car salesman in rural Tennessee who amputates his own hand to claim a mythic Confederate legacy, while Hiaasen...
The Throwaway Planet
The article traces plastic’s evolution from a wartime novelty to a global pollutant, noting that WWII accelerated synthetic polymer production for military gear. Today, plastics underpin a consumer culture that discards roughly one ton per person, accounting for over half...
The Painter’s Shadow World
Morgan Meis’s three‑book *Three Paintings Trilogy*—covering Peter Paul Rubens, Franz Marc and Joan Mitchell—posits that a painting functions as a "second world" or shadow realm distinct from life and death. He argues that artists shift in and out of this existential space, using the...
A Devotee of Deception
Domenico Starnone, the celebrated Italian novelist, has published his latest work, *The Old Man by the Sea*, a reflective memoir of an aging writer who values distance and linguistic precision over passion. The narrative follows an ex‑teacher narrator confronting his...
‘To Share Is Our Duty’
The newly released volume “The Uncollected Letters of Virginia Woolf” adds over 1,400 previously unpublished letters to the author’s corpus, bringing the total to more than 5,000 pieces of correspondence. Edited by long‑time Woolf scholars Stephen Barkway and the late...
Arpita Das: Who Does a LitFest Belong To?
India’s literature festival scene has exploded from metropolitan flagship events to dozens of small‑town gatherings. A recent Guardian headline change highlighted the debate over whether litfests are cultural boons or over‑hyped spectacles. While big festivals often showcase international writers in...
IPA Announces Shortlist for the 2026 Innovation Award
The International Publishers Association (IPA) unveiled the shortlist for its 2026 Innovation in Publishing Award, highlighting six nominees that span AI-driven platforms, inclusive literacy tools, and novel marketing solutions. The award, launched in 2022 and presented biennially, seeks projects that...
Exclusive Cover Reveal of “Notes to New Mothers” Edited by Rebecca Knight and Julie Buntin
Electric Literature announced the September 1 2026 release of *Notes to New Mothers*, a Norton‑published anthology edited by Rebecca Knight and Julie Buntin. The volume gathers 65 writers and artists, delivering 582 brief, candid reflections on early motherhood. The cover, a paper‑over‑board...
‘In a Room of One Thousand Buddhas’
Monica Sok, a Cambodian‑American poet, uses her debut collection A Nail the Evening Hangs On to confront the trauma of the Khmer Rouge genocide and critique U.S. foreign policy. The poem "In a Room of One Thousand Buddhas" weaves Buddhist...
James Sallis: What a Crime Fiction Master Leaves Behind
James Sallis, the prolific crime and science‑fiction author who died in January, is best known to mainstream audiences for the 2011 film “Drive,” adapted from his novella. While the movie cemented his cultural cachet, it also risked eclipsing his extensive...