George R. R. Martin is releasing digitally-enhanced editions of his A Song of Ice and Fire series. A Game of Thrones: Enhanced Edition was released by Apple’s iBooks yesterday on the twentieth anniversary of its publication, and includes “interactive character maps ... detailed annotations, character journeys and timelines, family trees and and audio clips.” The rest of the series will be released over the next few months, and while the first enhanced edition includes an excerpt of the final book in the series, The Winds of Winter, Martin has yet to set a release date.
The National Book Foundation announced it’s “5 under 35” list of emerging authors. Honorees include Brit Bennett, whose book The Mothers was nominated by Jacqueline Woodson, and Yaa Gyasi, whose novel Homegoing was nominated by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The winners will meet in New York for a ceremony in November.
Rookie talks to New York Times Magazine staff writer Jenna Wortham. Wortham’s first job at the Times was as a tech business blogger. ”I wasn’t that interested in telecom, and infrastructure and earning sheets were a mystery to me. . . . The learning curve was steep, but it also turned out to be some the most fun years of my career.” Now, Wortham writes for the magazine and says that while most of her pieces are assigned, her criticism often comes from conversations. “I had a lot of support from great editors who would interrupt me mid-convo or mid-Gchat and say, ‘Hey, that’s a piece. Write it down.’”
PEN America has announced the newest additions to its board of trustees, including BuzzFeed culture editor Saeed Jones and A Little Life author Hanya Yanagihara.
After endorsing Hillary Clinton in an op-ed, The Arizona Republic has seen cancelled subscriptions and death threats. Editorial page director Phil Boas said the endorsement shouldn’t have been a surprise to regular readers—even though it was the first time the paper has chosen a Democrat—because they have published numerous negative articles about Trump in the past year: "The things he has done … making fun of disabled people and rolling back press freedoms. You know a guy who would do that and crush our freedoms in one area will do it in others as well."
