Liying Lin, the director of the Beijing Book Fair, shares her outlook for publishing in China. “From our standpoint, we see no evidence of a slowdown—far from it,” she says. “We’re seeing real energy in the sector and a hunger for new formats, new ideas and new content.” Children’s books are big, and so are some works in translation: bestsellers include Steve Jobs, Niall Ferguson, Thomas Picketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, and Jane Eyre.
Carlos Lozada, the book critic for the Washington Post, discusses the craft of reviewing.
Author Noam Cohen ponders what Jeff Bezos, Mark Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates are reading this summer: included on the list are books such as Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, Moises Naim’s End of Power, and David Deutsch’s Beginning of Infinity. “There are barely any novels on these lists, no poetry, and no literary criticism,” Cohen notes. “Instead, there is science, social science, psychology, and economics.”
Some Twitter posts have noted transphobia in Masha Gessen’s recently published New Yorker article about the Avital Ronell case at NYU.
Sumita Chakraborty offers a sustained analysis of the work of poet laureate Tracy K. Smith.
