Believe it or not, Fifty Shades of Grey was still the bestselling book of 2015. For a fascinating, in-depth look at what sold and what didn’t, head over to The Guardian. The disconnect between the retail top ten and the myriad year-end lists alone is worth the look.
Fifty Shades Again
A Flock of Pages
“Every one of these books is a herd of animals.” The Atlantic reports that a group of archaeologists and geneticists in the UK have used mere crumbs of parchment to study the DNA of several thousand-year-old illuminated manuscripts, the pages of which were made of cow and sheep skins.
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Duke to Publish Transgender Studies Journal
Duke University Press is set to begin publishing a transgender studies journal in 2014. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly will be “the first nonmedical journal dedicated to transgender studies.”
Williams on Writing
In an interview with Vice, Joy Williams explains that writing gives her “no happiness”. Pair with an interview with our own Hannah Gersen, who “would have stopped [writing] a long time ago” if she didn’t love it. You could also read Nick Ripatrazone’s recent article on fifty reasons to read Williams.
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Bellow’s Heir
As Nick Richardson notes for the London Review of Books, Saul Bellow’s son, Adam, has his hands full these days. When he’s not maintaining a site devoted to conservative “literature,” he’s extolling the virtues of conservative fiction writers you “probably have never heard of — and won’t, if the powers that rule the lit-crit, fanfic, and commercial publishing worlds have anything to say about it.”
DJ Eldest Immigrant Daughter
“The first boy to kiss your mother later raped women / when the war broke out. She remembers hearing this / from your uncle, then going to your bedroom and lying down on the floor. You were at school.” The poetry of Warsan Shire, Young Poet Laureate of London, does not mess around.
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