Latest Books and literature News

Writer Leonardo Padura chronicles life in Cuba as his detective 'alter ego' solves gripping crimes

Apr. 23, 2024 01:18 AM EDT

HAVANA (AP) — His novels recount gruesome murders, thefts, scams, bribes and humiliating secrets. But those are not even the most important themes in the stories told by award-winning Cuban writer Leonardo Padura. For the last four decades, Padura, 68, has managed to turn his...

PEN America calls off awards ceremony amid criticism over its response to Israel-Hamas war

Apr. 22, 2024 15:37 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — Facing widespread unhappiness over its response to the Israel-Hamas war, the writers’ group PEN America has called off its annual awards ceremony. Dozens of nominees had dropped out of the event, which was to have taken place next week. PEN, a literary and free...

Book Review: Emily Henry is still the modern-day rom-com queen with 'Funny Story'

Apr. 22, 2024 11:01 AM EDT

“Funny Story” isn’t a funny story at all. But it is a good one. Emily Henry's new romance novel starts with dueling breakups that have rocked the two main characters’ worlds — and forced them to bond over their shared broken hearts. Daphne is a planner who is...

Has Salman Rushdie changed after his stabbing? Well, he feels about 25, the author tells AP

Apr. 19, 2024 15:48 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly two years after the knife attack that nearly killed him, Salman Rushdie appears both changed and very much the same. Interviewed this week at the Manhattan offices of his longtime publisher, Random House, he is thinner, paler, scarred and blind in his right...

US-Best-Sellers-Books-PW

Apr. 18, 2024 13:22 PM EDT

HARDCOVER FICTION 1. “The Women” by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s) 2. “The Familiar” by Leigh Bardugo (Flatiron) 3. “Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros (Red Tower) 4. “Toxic Prey” by John Sanford (Putnam) 5....

Book Review: 'Nothing But the Bones' is a compelling noir novel at a breakneck pace

Apr. 18, 2024 12:54 PM EDT

Nelson “Nails” McKenna isn’t very bright, stumbles over his words and often says what he’s thinking without realizing it. We first meet him as a boy reading a superhero comic on the banks of a river in his backcountry hometown in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia....

Palestinian American poet Fady Joudah receives $100,000 prize

Apr. 18, 2024 12:48 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — Fady Joudah, a Palestinian American poet who has said he writes for the future because “the present is demolished,” has received a $100,000 award from Poets & Writers. Joudah is this year's winner of the Jackson Poetry Prize, given to an American writer of...

US-Audiobooks-Top-10

Apr. 16, 2024 14:15 PM EDT

Nonfiction 1. Atomic Habits by James Clear, narrated by the author (Penguin Audio) 2. The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, narrated by Sean Pratt and the author (Penguin Audio) 3. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy, narrated by the author...

What Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse can tell us about the public domain and remix culture

Apr. 16, 2024 14:03 PM EDT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The giant stuffed bear, its face a twisted smile, lumbers across the screen. Menacing music swells. Shadows mask unknown threats. Christopher Robin begs for his life. And is that a sledgehammer about to pulverize a minor character's head? Thus unfolds the...

Salman Rushdie's 'Knife' is unflinching about his brutal stabbing and uncanny in its vital spirit

Apr. 16, 2024 13:26 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — In Salman Rushdie's first book since the 2022 stabbing that hospitalized him and left him blind in one eye, the author wastes no time reliving the day he thought might be his last. “At a quarter to eleven on August 12, 2022, on a sunny Friday morning in upstate...