Plus: Book banning is on the rise.
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Here is what's going on in the literary world this week. Please don't miss my colleague Elisabeth Egan's lovely appreciation of "Goodnight Moon," which turned 75 this month. It's not just about bunnies, of course: As she writes, "It's a blueprint for peace in a time of chaos." |
Speaking of chaos, at the moment, I'm juggling two books — Namwali Serpell's debut "The Old Drift," a recent favorite that I'm rereading, along with Michael Cunningham's "The Hours," ahead of the adaptation coming to the Metropolitan Opera. |
- It's Banned Books Week in the United States, which takes on a particular resonance this year: Attempts to ban books are accelerating across the country, according to the American Library Association. Separately, the free speech organization PEN America reported that advocacy groups are helping to drive those banning efforts in schools nationwide.
- Like many, Alexandra Horowitz adopted a dog during the pandemic, but as a canine researcher, she had an ulterior motive: the chance to watch a puppy's first year of life up close. Horowitz has turned those observations about her sweet, loving and enthusiastic new companion — who, admittedly, can be a "pain in the tuchus" — into "The Year of the Puppy."
- Spotify is making a bet on audiobooks: The streaming platform announced it would offer more than 300,000 titles on a pay-per-book model, including titles by best-selling authors such as Colleen Hoover, Michelle Obama and Stephen King.
- The poet Jenny Xie talks about her new collection, "The Rupture Tense," and how it was influenced by the past — not just her family's history, but China's, too.
- In our literary guide to Helsinki, the award-winning writer Pajtim Statovci shares his love of Finnish literature and the books that helped him, a child of immigrants, to find his voice.
- Fiction and poetry out today: "Less Is Lost," by Andrew Sean Greer; "Lucy By the Sea," by Elizabeth Strout; "The Book of Goose," by Yiyun Li; "The Complicities," by Stacey D'Erasmo; "A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding," by Amanda Svensson; "The Rupture Tense," by Jenny Xie.
- Nonfiction out today: "Black Skinhead," by Brandi Collins-Dexter; "We Are Proud Boys," by Andy Campbell; "You've Been Played," by Adrian Hon; "Lady Justice," by Dahlia Lithwick; "The Story of Russia," by Orlando Figes.
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- Dwight Garner reviews "Getting Lost," a diary by the French writer Annie Ernaux, which recounts her all-consuming Paris romance with a married Soviet diplomat. The sex scenes are torrid: This is a book about "being impaled by desire."
- And Alexandra Jacobs writes about Charlotte Van den Broeck's "Bold Ventures," an idiosyncratic tour of architectural misfires, dotted with some of the author's personal anxieties.
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That's all for now. Please stay in touch and let me know what you think — whether it's about this newsletter, our reviews, our Instagram or what you're reading. We on the Books desk read all of it, and I'll make every effort to write back. You can reach me at books@nytimes.com. |
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