As the New York Times points out, a number of recently published dystopian novels suddenly “seem more like grim prophecy than science fiction.”
“Name a writer or publication you disagree with but still read…” Vox interviews Roxane Gay.
In a review of the documentary I Am Not Your Negro, Colm Toibin celebrates the work of James Baldwin, “the finest essayist and prose-stylist of his generation.” The essay opens with an anecdote about the recently deceased New York Review of Books editor Robert Silvers, who, working at Harper’s in the 1960s, became concerned that an essay by Baldwin had not yet arrived. Baldwin could not be reached by phone, so Silvers decided, as devoted editors sometimes do, to visit the writer at his apartment…
Former R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe is working on a series of books about his life. The first, a photo-based autobiography, is due out later this year.
Brooklyn magazine has posted photos from this year’s National Book Critics Circle Awards.
At the New Yorker, Christine Smallwood talks to Laura Kipnis about consent, totalitarianism, and her new book, Unwanted Advances. Kipnis says that she’s still trying to understand the many sides of the issue, including the harassment she has experienced herself. Once, an unnamed man who was well-known in the field of cultural studies threw his drink on her and bit her leg. “Now it’s become sort of a fond memory,” she recalls. “I should have said he flirtatiously threw a drink on me. I actually had to go upstairs and dry my hair.”
For months, it was unclear whether or not Bob Dylan would accept his Nobel Prize at all. Then, at the public ceremony, Patti Smith received it for him. Now, Dylan has finally accepted the award in person, at a secret ceremony in Stockholm.