Anthropologist and Melville House author David Graeber‘s Debt: The First 5,000 Years should be required reading for anyone hoping to understand economic trends. The author’s book is so great and topical that it’s earned a profile in Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Debt and David Graeber
5 Women Under 35
For the first time ever, this year’s National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” winners are all women. Congrats to Molly Antopol (The UnAmericans), NoViolet Bulawayo (We Need New Names, which was also just shortlisted for The Booker Prize), Amanda Coplin (The Orchardist), Daisy Hildyard (Hunters in the Snow), and Merritt Tierce (Love Me Back).
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Man Middle School Was Rough, Huh?
“[B]eing twelve is its own psychosexual dystopian satire, and I was not in on the joke.” Abbey Fenbert writes for Catapult about Aldous Huxley‘s Brave New World, reading-while-tween, and being a seventh-grade book censor. See also: our own brave editor-in-chief, Lydia Kiesling, on reading Huxley a week after last November’s election.
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Zadie Smith wins The Moth Award
Last week Zadie Smith, acclaimed novelist and Year in Reading alum, was presented with The Moth Award for storytelling. She gave a charming acceptance speech, video of which can be found here, and we definitely recommend watching!
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HBO Turns Down The Corrections
HBO turned down the television adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, despite an all-star crew: Franzen himself adapted the novel to television, Noah Baumbach promised to direct the series, and Ewan McGregor and Maggie Gyllenhaal were cast as leads. Novelist A-J Aronstein can now breath a sigh of relief; they won’t be filming The Corrections at anyone’s house.