Jefferson on Construction
And the Award for Lifetime Achievement Goes to
“His life’s work, and his stunning prose, teaches us to better understand political influence, American democracy, and the true power of biography.” The National Book Foundation just announced Robert Caro as this year’s recipient of the National Book Awards lifetime achievement medal. Definitely pair with this piece by our own Michael Bourne on Caro’s epic literary ambitions.
Citizen on the Stage
Claudia Rakine’s Citizen: An American Lyric, which won the Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and was included in our own list of “Nine Books for the Post-Ferguson Era,” has been adapted for the stage, and previews are beginning in Los Angeles. Graywolf, the independent press behind Citizen, The Empathy Exams and On Immunity: An Inoculation, has interviewed the playwright behind the adaptation about the project and his process. As he explains it, “what makes the book—and the theatre piece—unique is that they expose and illuminate the small, sometimes unintended, and unconscious acts of everyday racism. Subtle, insidious, soul-crushing.”
●
●
The Common’s Postcard Auction
Our friends at The Common have organized a Postcard Auction, and you have until May 20 to bid online. Users can bid on the chance to have well-known authors – such as Adam Johnson, Téa Obreht, Chris Ware, and Kiese Laymon – send handwritten postcards to the address of their choosing. Come on, now. This is your chance to get a handwritten note from an Orange Prize-winner.
Tuesday New Release Day: Irving, Morrison, Mantel, Colbert, Patchett
Time to dust off the old John Irving Recurring Themes Matrix because his new book In One Person is out today. Also out are Home by America’s last Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison and Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel’s hotly anticipated sequel to Booker- and Rooster-winning Wolf Hall. Also out is I Am a Pole, Stephen Colbert’s “children’s book” that was inspired by an epic visit from Maurice Sendak. Out in paperback is Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder.
●
●
Chabon and Waldman Go HBO
Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman are teaming with Darren Aronofsky on an HBO pilot, Hobgoblin.
●
●