Aisha K. Finch’s book, Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba, has won the New York Public Library’s first Harriet Tubman Prize, which will be awarded next month at the Schomburg Center in Harlem.
A newly-discovered poem by Anne Frank will be up for auction later this month. Auctioneers expect that the twelve-line poem will sell for up to $55,000 due to the scarcity of handwritten work by Frank.
The Times talks to Bronx residents affected by the closing of Barnes & Noble, the last general interest bookstore in the borough. For some, the store served as an after-school destination for their kids, for others it was study space. One resident noted that even as developers have started eyeing waterfront properties for new construction, the general view of the Bronx hasn’t changed: “There is a preconceived concept that folks that live in the Bronx, they’re not interested in reading,” Bronx resident Claudette Mobley told the paper. “We are just as interested in knowledge and reading as anybody else. We just don’t have the access to the things that the rest of New Yorkers do.”
The Wall Street Journal surveys the book deals that are likely to come from both the current election cycle and the end of President Obama’s second term. Although possible books are in the works from various members of the administration—including Joe Biden, Janet Napolitano, and Eric Holder—“all eyes are on the president and first lady.”
The New York Times will open its paywall for the upcoming presidential election, starting on November 7 and ending on November 9.
Bloomberg Businessweek takes a long look at Tronc owner Michael Ferro, who is something of an enigma when it comes to media conglomerate owners. “He’s not as despised as Sam Zell, the real estate magnate and ex-owner of Tribune, and certainly not as respected as Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com founder and Washington Post owner,” Felix Gillette and Gerry Smith write. “The consensus seems to be that Ferro is ridiculous—a model-train-loving, celebrity-obsessed, self-described technologist who’s semi-fluent in Silicon Valley disrupter-speak.”
