Poet and critic Clive James will publish a sequel to his 2015 short-poem collection, Sentenced to Life. Written after a diagnosis of leukemia, his first book was a reflection on death. But James says that his upcoming book, Injury Time, will be much more upbeat. “When I wrote Sentenced to Life, everyone thought I was dying,” he told The Guardian. “But the new drugs are working and the danger now is that I’ll bore everyone to death.” Injury Time will be published by Picador in May.
Brooklyn Magazine talks to Roxane Gay about success, Twitter, and pulling her book from Simon & Schuster. Gay said that while it “sucks to pay back the advance” for her cancelled book, How to Be Heard, she has since received over twenty offers on the manuscript.
LitHub offers a literary guide to the Oscars, which will air this Sunday. Over half the nominees for Best Picture this year are based on novels, and Raoul Peck’s documentary on James Baldwin is up for Best Documentary.
For the first time in a decade, the New York Times has bought TV advertising time in order to launch a marketing campaign “centered around the Times’ pursuit of ‘The Truth.’” The thirty-second ad will run during Sunday’s Academy Awards broadcast.
Former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta is joining the Washington Post’s Opinions section as a columnist. In a press release, the paper said that Podesta “will provide commentary and analysis on the intersection of politics and policy, the Trump administration and the future of the Democratic Party.” The Post has also hired former Wall Street Journal reporter Devlin Barrett to cover law enforcement and national security.
USA Today is the most recent news outlet to offer a secure website for government whistleblowers. The newspaper decided to create the new system after President Trump said he planned to investigate recent leaks from his administration. “Investigative reporting is core to our mission,” said Chief Content Officer Joanne Lipman. “This tool will improve our ability to connect sources and journalists to better hold public officials and civic institutions accountable.”
In the Times’s “By the Book” column, Chelsea Clinton said that she doesn’t have a specific book that she recommends for the president—she just recommends he read any book at all. “In one of Pérez-Reverte’s Captain Alatriste novels,” she remembered, “one of the characters has a maxim: ‘Never trust a man who reads only one book.’”
