She was honored for five essays, among them "Hanya's Boys," about how author Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life) tortures her gay male characters so that she can heal them, and "The Mixed Metaphor," about the trend of the mixed-race Asian character in American literature. - New York Magazine
For the first time, two winners split the fiction prize: Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, and Diaz's Trust. Also honored were Beverly Gage's J. Edgar Hoover biography G-Man, Jefferson Cowie's Freedom's Dominion, Hua Hsu's memoir Stay True, and Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa's His Name Is George Floyd. - AP
Sure. Here's a list of "a few unconventional work novels that remind us of the way things once were, offer alternatives to the way we approach our jobs and, perhaps, spur us onward to new horizons." - LitHub
"Generally, there is something subversive and inspiring about the people Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara chooses to immortalize (RuPaul! David Bowie!), which raises the question, what 'big dreams' did Prince Charles have as the lifelong successor to his mother’s empire and the £1 billion Duchy of Cornwall?" - LitHub
The Asian American bookstore was never just abou the books - the owners' vision was to create a place "that used books and reading and knowledge to create unity, and to be able to bring people more and more into the movement to change the world." - NPR
Asghar's When We Were Sisters "follows three orphaned Muslim-American siblings left to raise one another in the aftermath of their parents' death. The prize jury wrote that Asghar 'weaves narrative threads as exacting and spare as luminous poems.'" - NPR
"If we all know that the largest children’s publisher in the country, the one with the most access to schools, is capitulating behind closed doors and asking authors to change their works ... there’s no way you as a marginalized author can find an audience." - The New York Times
As we await Monday's prize announcements, here's a look back at Jennifer Egan, Colson Whitehead, Louise Erdrich, Colson Whitehead (again), Cormac McCarthy, Elizabeth Strout, Marilynne Robinson, and many more. - LitHub
In Missouri and Texas, state lawmakers have been considering laws that would remove funding from libraries that host drag queen story hours or don't block access to certain books; individual counties in some other states have gone through with such cuts. Many librarians fear things will get worse. - NPR
"Illinois lawmakers greenlighted a bill Wednesday that says libraries in the state must adopt an anti-book banning policy to receive state funding, in a vote that fissured along party lines. … Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he looks forward to signing it." - AP
Until the past year’s insipid Musk-related shenanigans, the platform functioned as an efficient information delivery system that made it unique among its social media rivals — and unique, for that matter, among the media organs that depended on it for readers and ideas. - N+1
As inflation persists, the country is roiled by protests against President Macron's pension reforms, and Fitch downgrades French bonds, Bruno Le Maire has drawn fury for spending his time writing sex fantasy — and hoots of ridicule for one sex scene in particular. - The Guardian
"I have never subscribed to the strained idea that the characteristics of one’s handwriting provides a subtle indicator of one’s personality... but I do think there is something visible that communicates an attitude, a willingness to show through muscular coordination and flair." - LitHub
"The best sales pitch is the threat of censorship. It draws attention to books that might otherwise have gone under the radar." What's more, "we tend to believe that when books are censored, they are obliterated or withdrawn from view. But more often they are edited to increase sales." - The Guardian
A push that began last summer to remove a few children's sexual education books from the southern Manitoba library system has since bubbled up into accusations its staff are pedophiles, as well as a campaign to defund the library — leaving some of its exhausted librarians considering quitting, the library's director says. - CBC
