Enjoying this year’s Year in Reading series? Learn about five easy (even free) ways you can support The Millions this holiday season and make special features like the Year in Reading possible.
How Can You Support The Millions?
Make the Canadians Face Off Against Everybody Else, Too
“Nurturing eventually becomes coddling, and now it’s time to encourage that work to take a bigger stage,” writes Jared Bland in his plea for the Griffin Poetry Prize to combine its two categories – Canadian and English-language – into one, global whole.
●
●
End of an Era
Fifteen years later, Salman Rushdie and John Le Carre have ended their feud.
2017 John Leonard Prize Finalists Announced
The finalists for the John Leonard Prize — for a first book in any genre — were announced by the National Book Critics Circle. This year’s finalists are Lesley Nneka Arimah‘s What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, Julie Buntin‘s Marlena, Zinzi Clemmons’ What We Lose, Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas, Carmen Maria Machado‘s Her Body and Other Parties, and Gabriel Tallent‘s My Absolute Darling. The winner will be announced in January. Pair with: Buntin’s 2017 Year in Reading entry.
The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance
(Reluctantly) Recommended Reading: On the surprising racism of children’s books.
●
●
Appearing Elsewhere
My piece in memory of novelist and rapier-tongued pundit Gore Vidal, who died Tuesday, appears on Prospero, the online arts & culture publication of The Economist.
Are Babies Racist?
Are critically acclaimed authors really terrible? Is feminism bad for women? New York Magazine runs down the greatest hits of what appears, in hindsight, to have been the Decade of Counterintuition (and, in the process, catalogues many of my personal bêtes noires).
It Never Leaves You
The English major is more than just a common course of study, friends. The English major is a way of life. (via Arts and Letters Daily)