Actor and comedian Michael Ian Black is working on a book about masculinity. A Better Man, which will be published by Algonquin Books in 2019, is “a radical plea for rethinking masculinity and teaching young men to give and receive love.”
At Slate, Lili Loofbourow looks at the ways men accused of misconduct use their public apologies to pardon themselves for their behavior, while disregarding the feelings of the women they’ve harmed. “If women have a hard time accepting apologies, or declaring a public reckoning over, it may not be because they’re vengeful grudge holders but because they’ve had little to do with the apology machine whose output—male epiphany, primarily—they are told they should accept,” she writes. “Women, in this arrangement, must be supreme apology catchers, grasping at any sorry volleyed into space, to no one in particular, for unspecified harms, on the assumption it was meant for them.”
The New Yorker collects the many poems, short stories, and essays contributed by Donald Hall over the last six decades.
The New York Times talks to Jonathan Franzen about seabirds, writing for television, and his declining book sales.
Russell Crowe will star as Roger Ailes in a Showtime limited series based on Gabriel Sherman’s book, The Loudest Voice in the Room.
Sean Spicer is working on a talk show. As the host of Sean Spicer’s Common Ground, the former press secretary hopes to meet with “some of the most interesting and thoughtful public figures for a drink and some lite conversation at a local pub or cafe”—a “relaxed atmosphere” that is “an ideal setting for Sean to get to know his guests as they discuss everything from the media to marriage.” According to the pitch, Spicer and his guests “might even tangle over the merits of making your bed or the value of a great point guard.”
