Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon are editing an anthology to commemorate the centennial of the American Civil Liberties Union. The still-untitled book—which includes essays and stories from Marlon James, Jesmyn Ward, Colson Whitehead, Hanya Yanagihara, and more—will be published by Simon & Schuster in 2020.
At Literary Hub, Michael Ondaatje lists the books that he continues to reread.
Tobias Carroll talks to Sergio De La Pava about rich people, football, and trying to write a topical novel. “The novel’s never going to be good at dealing with that kind of topicality,” De La Pava explained. “Events are constantly going to be feeding your ability to produce the work. What I’m looking for before I start the project is soil where things can grow. I’m looking for things like that, that are rich enough that for several years I’m going to be able to entertain myself, which is always my first goal.”
Journalist Ben Doherty reflects on the ways that fiction and storytelling have impacted his reporting and how he views the truth. “As communities, our stories unite us, bringing us together to belong to something larger than ourselves,” he writes. “They tell us who we are and what we value. They are the foundation stones of our identity, of how we understand our place in the world.”
Vanity Fair’s Joe Pompeo goes inside NBC to take a look at how executives are handling the news about Ronan Farrow’s upcoming book, Catch and Kill. News of the book has piqued employees’ curiosity about exactly why NBC decided to pass on Farrow’s Harvey Weinstein reporting and about just what Farrow will discuss. “The bottom line,” Pompeo writes, “is that it will bring an embarrassing episode back into the headlines regardless of what new insight Farrow reveals or how damaging it looks.”
