Teachers familiar with the instructional power of primary sources might also be interested in the opportunity to teach using authentic data and activities from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The recently updated Statistics in Schools program offers free activities and resources that can help you bring statistics into any K-12 classroom.

Statistics in Schools activities use real-life census data to help students understand statistical concepts and gain data analysis skills.

The geography, history, math and sociology activities were created by teachers and correspond with relevant education standards.

Visit census.gov/schools to explore the program and download activities you can start using in your classroom.

Sign Up and Learn More

The Library of Congress invites you and your students to join in a virtual program to celebrate El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children’s Day/Book Day), an official literacy celebration of the American Library Association.

Author, illustrator Lulu Delacre, will lead this bilingual celebration by reading and presenting her award-winning book, “Olinguito From A- Z !” in both English and Spanish.

“Olinguito From A- Z !” will take place on Thursday, April 27 at 10:30 AM EDT, and will be streamed live at this URL: https://youtu.be/vvSRinFRAQ8

We hope you enjoy the program!

In this one-day workshop for K-2 educators, Library of Congress education staff and our current Teacher in Residence, will model a variety of strategies for using primary sources to engage young learners, build critical thinking skills, and construct knowledge. This hands-on, collaborative session will feature maps, prints and photographs, historic audio and film recordings, and other resources from the Library’s collections, all of which are digitized and readily available to teachers after the session. Participants will learn about unique children’s books from the past and ways the Library is making them more accessible. In addition, a specialist from the Young Readers Center will explain resources and non-fiction books that support the K-2 learner.

Attendees will receive a personalized certificate for professional development hours.

Audience:  K- 2 educators interested in incorporating primary sources into their classroom instruction.

When: Saturday, May 6, 2017, from 9:00 am – 1:00 pm.

Where: Room 119 in the Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress, 10 First St. SE, Washington, DC 20540. (For directions, go here:  https://www.loc.gov/visit/directions/)

Deadline to apply: April 28, 2017

Questions? Please contact: teachinglcsummer@loc.gov

Interested in attending?  Please fill out the registration form on the page following and email it to teachinglcsummer@loc.gov

• K-2+Workshop+-+Application.docx

The deadline is rapidly approaching to apply for one of the five week-long Summer Teacher Institutes being held at the Library of Congress between June and August this year.  Educators will have until March 17 at midnight Pacific Time to apply online.

Held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., these unique professional development opportunities provide educators of all disciplines with a host of resources and strategies to successfully use primary sources with their students. Each session will focus on practical teaching strategies, with an emphasis on supporting student engagement, critical thinking, and construction of knowledge.

While practicing these core strategies, attendees will also explore some of the millions of digitized historical artifacts and documents available in the Library’s collections. They will meet library experts and conduct research to identify primary sources related to their teaching, with the goal of developing an activity to use with their students in the coming school year.  See what some of our previous Institute’s participants have to say about their experience!

Five week-long sessions will be offered this summer:

General Focus – open to K-12 educators across all content areas:

• June 19-23
• June 26-30
• July 10-14

Science, Technology, and Engineering Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach science, technology, or engineering, or collaborate with those who do:

• July 17-21

World War I Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach some aspect of WWI as part of their curriculum, or collaborate with those who do:

• July 31-August 4

Institute and course materials are provided at no cost. Participants will be responsible for transportation to and from Washington, D.C., and any required overnight accommodations.

Apply by March 17!  Note that a letter of recommendation will be required.  Learn more about the program and fill out the application here.

At your computer, sit and observe this picture for 60 seconds. 

Now describe what you see.  What do you notice first? What do you think is happening? Who do you suppose took the picture and for what purpose? Is there anything you wonder about?

Asking and responding to such questions is the cornerstone of students’ learning to think critically and construct their own knowledge. It is also the cornerstone of the Library of Congress’ Summer Teacher Institutes, where educators from across the United States learn how to use primary sources with their students, building skills in observing, reflecting, questioning, determining point of view and more.

The image you’ve just inspected is captioned: “A small French boy sitting next to his plan for a trench sector, constructed in miniature form. A U.S. soldier is touching an American flag sticking out of miniature sandbags.” It is one of the thousands of primary sources resources in the Library’s collections related to WWI.    

From July 31-August 4, the Library of Congress will host a special 5-day WWI-themed Summer Teacher Institute. The session is open to any K-12 educator interested in teaching with primary sources.  Tuition and materials for this special event are provided at no cost to participants; participants are responsible for transportation and housing. Applications are due on March 17, 2017. For more information and to apply, go here.

The WWI-themed Summer Teacher Institute coincides with a major new exhibit scheduled to open at the Library of Congress this spring:  Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I. 2017 is the 100 year anniversary of the United States’ entry into World War I.  As such, WWI Summer Teacher Institute attendees will receive a special tour of this exhibit, viewing hundreds of WWI artifacts, and talk with Library experts to bring them to life. 

The WWI Summer Teacher institute is one of five Summer Teacher Institutes being offered this summer, between June 19 and August 4.  Three of those institutes will be general for all educators, one will be on science, and the final one will focus on WWI.     If you are an educator interested in using primary sources with your students, we invite you to apply today!

The Library of Congress is now accepting applications for its week-long summer institutes for K-12 educators. Held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., this professional development opportunity provides educators of all disciplines with resources and strategies to effectively integrate primary sources into K-12 classroom teaching.  Each session will focus on pedagogy, with an emphasis on supporting student engagement, critical thinking, and construction of knowledge.

While practicing these teaching strategies, attendees will explore some of the millions of digitized historical artifacts and documents available in the Library’s collections.  They will also conduct research to identify primary sources and develop an activity related to their classroom content.

Five week-long sessions will be offered this summer:

General Focus – open to K-12 educators across all content areas:

• June 19-23
• June 26-30
• July 10-14

Science, Technology, and Engineering Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach science, technology, or engineering, or collaborate with those who do: 

• July 17-21

WWI Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach some aspect of WWI as part of their curriculum, or collaborate with those who do:

• July 31-August 4

The institute and course materials are provided at no cost. Participants will be responsible for transportation to and from Washington, D.C., and any required overnight accommodations.

Applications are due March 17 and require a letter of recommendation. Learn more and apply here:

Join reference specialist Abby Yochelson, of the Library of Congress Humanities and Social Sciences Division, as she discusses “Books Go to War: Armed Services Editions in World War II” based on the Library’s America Reads exhibition.

When the United States entered World War II in 1941, it opposed nations that had banned and burned books. In 1943, the Council on Books in Wartime, working with the War Department, began distributing pocket-size volumes to every theater of war. Approximately 123 million copies of 1,300 titles in every genre were printed and distributed. The program rescued from obscurity such now-classic books as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn became a national favorite.

Today, the books are loved by collectors, and the Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division has the only complete set. Join us to learn more about this fascinating collection. Register here .

Individuals requiring accommodations for this event are requested to submit a request at least five business days in advance by contacting (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Today’s Thanksgiving holiday has roots in a number of celebrations that occurred centuries ago in different regions of North America. Over time, the United States has come to observe a holiday that has taken many forms and has been observed in many different ways. Students can broaden their perspectives on Thanksgiving – a holiday that is “peculiar to the nation” – with our recently-updated Thanksgiving Primary Source Set.

In addition to exploring a variety of holiday traditions, students can also explore Thanksgiving proclamations and read Sarah Hale’s letter to President Lincoln lobbying for the day to become an official national holiday.

As with all of the Library’s Primary Source Sets, a Teacher’s Guide is available with background information, teaching ideas and additional resources.

Please direct questions to the Resources for Teachers Ask a Librarian page. 

On December 10, 2016, the Library of Congress will host a free, one-day workshop for K-12 educators interested in incorporating music-related primary sources into their classroom instruction.

In this hands-on, collaborative session, education and music specialists from the Library will model a variety of strategies for using music-related primary sources to engage students, build critical thinking skills, and construct knowledge. Through a series of inquiry-based classroom activities, educators will engage with historic audio files, sheet music, song sheets, prints and photographs, and other resources from the Library’s collections. Most of these items are digitized and will be freely available online for teachers to use with their students.

In addition to these activities, a reference specialist from the Library’s Music Division will lead a special program on using the Library’s music resources with K-12 students.

Certificates are available for teachers completing the workshop.

Additional Information:

Audience: K-12 music educators and teachers of other disciplines interested in incorporating music-related primary sources into their classroom instruction.

When: Saturday, December 10, 2016, from 9 am – 4:30 pm. Where: Whittall Pavilion, Ground Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress, 10 First St. SE, Washington, DC 20540 Directions here. The room will be open at 8:30 am. Attendees are encouraged to leave plenty of time for travel and to process through security.

How to register: Register online here! Apply now, as space is limited.

Questions?  Please contact: teachinglcsummer@loc.gov

Library Hosts Online Conference for Educators

As the new school year gets into full swing, the Library of Congress will bring teachers and education experts from across the nation together in its second annual online conference for educators. This free two-day event, “Discover and Explore with Library of Congress Primary Sources,” will be held October 25-26, from 4-8 p.m. EDT and will be open to K-12 educators from across all teaching disciplines. Last year’s event brought together more than 1,500 participants for the sessions.

Over the course of two days, there will be 15 one-hour sessions facilitated by Library specialists, instructional experts from the Library’s Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium and other recognized K-12 leaders. Session topics will range from assessments and literacy to historical newspapers and kindergarten historians, and all sessions will focus on the effective use of Library of Congress primary-source documents.

According to Lee Ann Potter, director of educational outreach at the Library, "Primary sources can capture student attention, and by analyzing them, students can engage with complex content, build their critical-thinking skills and create new knowledge. The Library’s online conference for educators will allow teachers to learn how to access Library of Congress resources and to discover new strategies for integrating primary sources into their instruction.”

Highlights of the conference:

• The keynote speaker will be the award-winning author Tonya Bolden, who will discuss her process of research for writing children’s books about historical figures.
• Library experts will include specialists from the Chronicling America historical newspaper archives, the historian of the Library of Congress, professionals from the educational outreach division, and more.
• Other presenters will include Joel Breakstone from Stanford University, Dan Rothstein of the Right Question Institute, and Kelly Schrum of the Center of History and New Media.

After the live online conference, the Library will make recordings of all sessions available to the public on its website for teachers, loc.gov/teachers/. Teachers will be able to earn up to 15 hours of CEU/PDU by participating or viewing online conference sessions, and certificates will be available for completing each session.

Register for the conference: www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/webinar/online-conference-2016.html?rssloc=eanft 

Interested educators can follow the preparations for the conference on Twitter at @TeachingLC and by following #LCTeachConf.

Library Hosts Online Conference for Educators

As the new school year gets into full swing, the Library of Congress will bring teachers and education experts from across the nation together in its second annual online conference for educators. This free two-day event, “Discover and Explore with Library of Congress Primary Sources,” will be held October 25-26, from 4-8 p.m. EDT and will be open to K-12 educators from across all teaching disciplines. Last year’s event brought together more than 1,500 participants for the sessions.

Over the course of two days, there will be 15 one-hour sessions facilitated by Library specialists, instructional experts from the Library’s Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium and other recognized K-12 leaders. Session topics will range from assessments and literacy to historical newspapers and kindergarten historians, and all sessions will focus on the effective use of Library of Congress primary-source documents.

According to Lee Ann Potter, director of educational outreach at the Library, "Primary sources can capture student attention, and by analyzing them, students can engage with complex content, build their critical-thinking skills and create new knowledge. The Library’s online conference for educators will allow teachers to learn how to access Library of Congress resources and to discover new strategies for integrating primary sources into their instruction.”

Highlights of the conference:

• The keynote speaker will be the award-winning author Tonya Bolden, who will discuss her process of research for writing children’s books about historical figures.
• Library experts will include specialists from the Chronicling America historical newspaper archives, the historian of the Library of Congress, professionals from the educational outreach division, and more.
• Other presenters will include Joel Breakstone from Stanford University, Dan Rothstein of the Right Question Institute, and Kelly Schrum of the Center of History and New Media.

After the live online conference, the Library will make recordings of all sessions available to the public on its website for teachers, loc.gov/teachers/. Teachers will be able to earn up to 15 hours of CEU/PDU by participating or viewing online conference sessions, and certificates will be available for completing each session.

Register for the conference: www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/webinar/online-conference-2016.html?rssloc=eanft 

Interested educators can follow the preparations for the conference on Twitter at @TeachingLC and by following #LCTeachConf.

For his second-year project, Juan Felipe Herrera—the 21st Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry—invites you and your students to collaborate with him to write a story entitled, “The Technicolor Adventures of Catalina Neon.”

If you are an elementary school librarian and love inspiring your students not only to read but also to write, we hope you—with your second and third graders—will participate in this exciting online project!

 The project launches with an introductory chapter and prompt written by Herrera and illustrated by artist Juana Medina. The prompt is posted on the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center’s www.read.gov website. We ask that you and your second or third grade students read the prompt, talk about it, imagine what could happen next, and collaboratively write the next chapter of Catalina’s adventure.

You will be able to electronically submit your class’s chapter to the Library of Congress.  From the chapters submitted, one will be selected, shared, and illustrated—and you and your class will again be invited to write the next chapter of the adventure. 

The narrative poem will contain six chapters, all guided by input from librarians and students. This process will continue five times until June 2017, when Herrera and Medina will post the final chapter.

The Technicolor Adventures of Catalina Neon" is co-presented by the Library’s Educational Outreach Division and the Publishing Office. To view the project, visit www.read.gov/catalinaneon.

We are excited to announce that on Monday, August 1, 2016, the Library of Congress will host a STEM Challenge Teacher Workshop from 8:30-12:30, in room 100 of the Library’s Adams Building. 

Presented by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and E-Line Media, this workshop is designed to help teachers spark interest in STEM learning among their students by tapping into their natural passion for playing and making video games. 

Use this link to register for this free workshop. 

• 160222.STEM+Challenge+Teacher+Workshops.pdf

Dear Fellow Educators,

Knowing that you are making plans for the coming school year now, we wanted to tell you about an exciting opportunity that you may want to include—a project that the Library of Congress will officially be announcing in a few weeks.

For his second-year project, Juan Felipe Herrera—the 21st Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry—wishes to write a story in collaboration with you and your students entitled, “The Technicolor Adventures of Catalina Neon.”

If you are an elementary school librarian and love inspiring your students not only to read but also to write, we hope you—with your second and third graders—will participate in this exciting online project!

In September 2016, Herrera and artist Juana Medina will post an illustrated prompt which will introduce the fictitious character, Catalina Neon. The prompt will be posted on the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center’s website. We ask that you and your second or third grade students read the prompt, talk about it, imagine what could happen next, and collaboratively write the next chapter of Catalina’s adventure.

You will be able to electronically submit your class’s chapter to the Library of Congress. From the chapters submitted, one will be selected, shared, and illustrated—and you and your class will again be invited to write the next chapter of the adventure. This process will continue five times until June 2017, when Herrera and Medina will post the final chapter.

About the project, Juan Felipe Herrera said, “I am so super-thrilled to be working with you in the Neon near future and your amazing Neoni students (yes, that's their new name once they join up with Catalina Neon!).” Herrera went on to say, “Imagine a Neoni-writing nation creating an original children's book, together with Juana Medina's art downloads and you at the center of the Neon table (really!). All this is my dream: to write with the new sparkly word-artists of our time and to have it all online for the whole planet! Become part of the creative heart of our incredible Library of Congress. I just can't wait to Neon with you.”

During the course of this adventure, you and your students may get really excited about writing chapters that follow the ones that are selected and posted by the Library—but you may also be inspired to keep writing the story that you begin with your first chapter. That’s okay too! This initiative is intended to inspire writing and collaboration, creativity and sharing.

Stay tuned for more details to come and enjoy the rest of your summer!

Sincerely,

Lee Ann Potter

Director of Educational Outreach

Free One-Day Teacher Workshops at The Library of Congress Inspired by the Exhibition, Jacob Riis: Revealing “How the Other Half Lives”

Join Library of Congress education specialists on Thursday, July 7, or Friday, August 5, for a one-day workshop inspired by the exhibition, Jacob Riis: Revealing “How the Other Half Lives.” Through collaborative onsite activities, discover teaching strategies for using digitized primary sources—including historic newspapers, photographs, and maps—related to themes of communication and social reform from the Gilded Age to the dawn of the Progressive Era.

Click here for details and to register. Space is limited.

Primary sources support the study of many disciplines, including both history and geography. One way to help students think about primary sources geographically is to focus them on the five themes of geography: location, place, movement, region, and human-environmental interaction. The latest edition of The TPS Journal, an online publication created by the Library of Congress Educational Outreach Division in collaboration with the TPS Educational Consortium, explores how the five themes of geography can be applied to analyzing primary sources, providing students with multiple perspectives and contributing to greater understanding of a topic.

The TPS Journal: Historical and Geographic Thinking contains a full discussion of primary source analysis focused on the five themes of geography, as well as sample lesson plans, additional resources from the Library of Congress, current research on the topic, and more.

Want to see previous issues of the Journal? You can read them in the Journal Archives.

The Educational Outreach Division of the Library of Congress is seeking applications from current teachers or library/media specialists for an Early Elementary Teacher-in-Residence position during the 2016-17 school year:

Educational Outreach develops and delivers teaching materials and programs to make the Library’s unparalleled collections of primary sources visible, accessible, and easy for K-12 teachers to integrate into the classroom. Previous Teachers-in-Residence have led professional development workshops, developed teaching materials, conducted research in the Library’s collections, and led and supported projects to reach a diverse audience of educators nationwide. The Library is seeking applications from early elementary (K-2) teachers in order to better understand the unique needs of young learners when working with primary source materials.

Qualifications of successful candidates include:

• Knowledge of the Library’s digitized primary sources with experience using them in instruction with early learners,
• Leadership experience, especially in designing and delivering professional development,
• An innovative, flexible and collaborative work style, able to work on a team in an office environment,
• Excellent communication skills,
• The ability to live and work in the Washington, DC, metro area for the duration of the school year.

Deadline: Applications Due Tuesday, April 12th.

Additional information can be found here.

Library of Congress 2016 Summer Teacher Institutes –Teaching with Primary Sources

The Library of Congress is now accepting applications for its week-long summer institutes for K-12 educators. Held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., this professional development opportunity provides educators with tools and resources to effectively integrate primary sources into K-12 classroom teaching, with an emphasis on student engagement, critical thinking, and construction of knowledge.

The Library is offering five programs this summer.  Four of the programs are open to teachers and librarians across all content areas.  One focuses on primary sources in science, technology and engineering. During each five-day institute, participants work with Library education specialists and subject-matter experts to learn effective practices for using primary sources in the classroom, while exploring some of the millions of digitized historical artifacts and documents available on the Library’s website.

General Institutes – open to K-12 educators across all content areas:

• June 27-July 1
• July 11-15
• July 18-22
• July 25-29

Science, Technology, and Engineering Institute – recommended for K-12 educators who teach science, technology, or engineering, or collaborate with those who do: 

• June 20-24

Tuition and materials are provided at no cost. Participants will be responsible for transportation to and from Washington, D.C., and any required overnight accommodations.

Applications are due February 29 and require a letter of recommendation. Read more and apply now !

Immerse yourself in the practice of teaching with primary sources from the unparalleled collections of the Library of Congress this summer. Apply to attend one of the following week-long professional development programs for K-12 educators in the nation's capital:

• June 20-24
  (Science, Technology, and Engineering Focus)
• June 27 - July 1
• July 11-15
• July 18-22
• July 25-29

Each five-day institute provides educators with tools, resources, and strategies to effectively integrate primary sources into K-12 classrooms. Teachers and school librarians of all grade levels and curriculum areas are encouraged to apply to the open sessions, and educators who focus on science, technology, or engineering are invited to apply to the special focus week.

Tuition and materials are provided at no cost to participants. However, participants are responsible for transportation to and from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and any required overnight accommodations. Interested participants have the option of completing additional requirements (and paying a fee) to earn three graduate credits from George Mason University.

The deadline to submit an application is February 29, 2016.

Additional information and the application form can be found here!

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Click here for more information.

The LCPA What If… Science Fiction and Fantasy Forum and the Educational Outreach Team present:
Fascinating and Immersive: Strategies, Spaces, and Science Fiction

“Fascinating and immersive” are terms that both the Museum of Science Fiction and the Library’s Educational Outreach Team use to describe their approaches to Education. The team creating the Museum believes that science fiction presents an ideal device for sparking interest and spurring proficiency in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math)
and STEAM (including the arts) academic areas.

The Library’s Educational Outreach Team agrees—and believes that primary sources related to science and science fiction can inspire students and teachers to embark on lifelong journeys of discovery. Come learn how these two groups are working with science educators and students in compelling ways!

Come join us on Tuesday, May 12, 2015, 12:00 Noon in the Mumford Room, 6th Floor, Library of Congress Madison Building and learn how to use science fiction to spark kids' interest in science.

Contact Hope O’Keeffe at loke[at]loc.gov for more information.

If you were unable to join us for the Library of Congress free webinar  “Primary Sources from the World Digital Library” the recording is now available.

Participants engaged in a model primary source analysis, discussed strategies for incorporating primary sources into projects, and heard from Library experts about what the World Digital Library has to offer.

Recordings of previous webinars and information about upcoming webinars from the Library of Congress and can be found  here.

If you were unable to join us for the free webinar  “Building Literacy Skills and Teaching about the Civil Rights Movement with Primary Sources” from the Library of Congress and Teaching Tolerance the recording is now available.

During this webinar participants analyzed a map and explored the map’s context—the world in which it was created and not just the world that it shows. Education experts discussed the significance of maps, model thinking routines and highlighted items from the exhibition, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom.”

Recordings of previous webinars and information about upcoming webinars from the Library of Congress and Teaching Tolerance can be found on our webinar page.

The Library of Congress is now accepting applications for a Summer Teacher Institute for K-12 educators to be held in conjunction with its exhibit focusing on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the recent deposit of the Rosa Parks collection. The week-long program will focus on strategies for teaching with primary sources—photographs, manuscripts, oral histories, songs, and more from the Library’s collections.

Taking place August 3-7 at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., this professional development event will provide educators with tools and resources to effectively integrate primary sources into K-12 classroom teaching, with an emphasis on student engagement, critical thinking, and construction of knowledge. The Institute is open to teachers and school librarians across grade and content areas with teaching responsibilities related to civil rights. (Previous participants in a Library of Congress Summer Institute are not eligible.)

Tuition and materials are provided at no cost. Selected participants are responsible for transportation to and from Washington, D.C. and any required overnight accommodations.  However, through a special grant from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, Civil Rights Institute participants may be eligible for partial funding to support personal expenses incurred as a result of attending.  Selected participants will be notified of the availability of funds at the time they are notified of their acceptance to the Institute.

Applications are due March 24^th and require a letter of recommendation.  Read more about the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institutes and apply now!

Founder of Roaring Brook Press, and svp and publishing director of that imprint along with FSG Children’s and First Second Simon Boughton is leaving Macmillan Children’s after 13 years with the company. President and publisher of Putnam Children’s Jennifer Besser will take over the same position at Macmillan Children’s on October 30. President of Deseret...

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French book publisher La Martiniere Group (which also owns Abrams in the US) and French media company Media-Participations (which specializes in comics and graphic novels, but also publishes magazines, has a film/tv production arm, and a digital media group focused on videogames) announced Thursday that they are in merger discussions. Both companies are privately owned. Herve de...

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Scholastic reported fiscal first quarter sales through August 31, returning to a normal quarter after last year’s boost from the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Sales were $189 million — down from $283 million a year ago, but close to the $191 million in the same quarter two years ago. The company...

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Annie Proulx will receive the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the awards ceremony on November 15, honored “for her exceptional work and significant impact on American literature.” Actor Anne Hathaway (who starred in the film adaptation of Brokeback Mountain) will present the award. Proulx tells the AP, “I was astonished...

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Byrd Leavell has moved to UTA. Waxman Leavell Literary Agency will revert to its original name, Waxman Literary Agency. Azia Cheng has been promoted to ceo of Penguin Random House North Asia, reporting to Markus Dohle, effective immediately. She has been sales director there since 2008 and succeeds Helen Duan, who departed last month. The...

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A wave of big books landed last Tuesday, with Hillary Clinton’s What Happened registering the biggest opening week, topping Bookscan’s chart with just under 168,000 print copies sold across the outlets they track — which publisher Simon & Schuster notes is “the biggest first week sales recorded by any author for a hardcover nonfiction title...

The post Sales Starts: Clinton Tops a Big Week for New Titles appeared first on Publishers Lunch.

The Whiting Foundation announced a new initiative to support small nonprofit literary magazines through a program of awards, matching grants, and organizational help. Director of literary programs Courtney Hodell says in the announcement, “When literary magazines suffer, literature feels it, and when they thrive, so do writers and readers. We hope to bring more attention...

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Shannon Jamieson Vazquez has joined Crooked Lane as senior acquisition editor. She continues to run SJV Editorial, and was previously an editor at Berkley. At Random House Children’s, Nancee Adams has joined as copy editor. She was previously was a freelance copy editor and proofreader. Bess Schelper has joined as associate copy editor. She was...

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The Kirkus Prize announced their award candidates in fiction, nonfiction, and children’s literature. The winners will be announced in a ceremony on November 2. In fiction, they nominate one Booker candidate (Hamid) and two NBA longlisted-authors (Machado and Ward). The only other point of overlap is children’s nominee Angie Thomas, also on the NBA longlist. The...

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Elizabeth Sheinkman will move to PFD as executive director of the books department and senior agent on October 5, and she will join the agency’s executive board. She has been at WME in London since 2012, moving over from Curtis Brown UK. Agency ceo Caroline Michel says in the announcement, “We are lucky to have...

The post People, Etc.: Sheinkman to PFD, and More appeared first on Publishers Lunch.

In interviews, Jennifer Egan used to spend a fair amount of time explaining what she wasn’t interested in doing with her writing. Verisimilitude was boring. The linear was “the weird scourge of writing prose”. Conventional narratives were absolutely not her bag. In the same conversations, she would sometimes refer to her time at the University of Pennsylvania, when she was “a literary theory nut”; such ideas, she insisted scarily, were with her still. All of which made it seem a safe bet that when she finally delivered a new book – it’s six years since the publication of her Pulitzer prize-winning fourth novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad, which came with a chapter in the form of a PowerPoint presentation – it would be every bit as formally daring as her last.

But, no. Reach for your smelling salts, Goon Squad fans. For her next trick, Egan has written a 400-page historical novel called Manhattan Beach. Set in New York during the Depression and the second world war – specifically, much of the action takes place in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, then the biggest builder and repairer of allied ships – it comes not only with a forward-moving plot, but with a thoroughly old-fashioned heroine: the kind of girl, brave and determined, with whom readers are almost duty bound to fall in love. A Victorian novel by any other name, its sensibility is, in other words, so thoroughly conventional, I can’t help but wonder: when, exactly, did its author start thinking verisimilitude and the linear might be interesting after all?

In the perfectly paced, middle-aged, middle-class drama that completes Jeffrey Eugenides’s first collection of short stories, a famous physics professor “watches his life implode” after an ill-advised one-night stand with a high school student who has a trick up her sleeve. We’ve already been treated to a country music radio consultant with a restraining order against his family, and a music teacher about to get a visit from the bailiff for defaulting on the payments for his clavichord. It’s fair to say that, in Fresh Complaint, men are well intentioned enough, but also pathetic and faintly absurd.

There are plenty of women in these stories, written over the past 22 years, but Eugenides is particularly adept at piercing the darker, unsaid inner thoughts of husbands and fathers. Charlie is, as he freely admits in Find the Bad Guy, a “defective husband” to a woman who only married him for a green card. He works out – too late – the key to a good relationship. “At breakfast you pass the jam. You ask: ‘How was your day?’ and pretend to care. Stuff like that really works.”

The famed former Greek finance minister has an 11-year-old daughter, Xenia, in Australia. Knowing she will have learned about the indigenous inhabitants of that continent, he starts this paternal polemic on capitalism by twisting a familiar fact, asking why Aboriginal Australians didn’t invade Britain.

This sets the tone for a provocative, challenging, yet non-patronising analysis of the global economy: what it is, how it came to be and why it can never be apolitical. By using ancient myths, contemporary culture and family stories, Varoufakis makes the text intimate and accessible.

Forty years ago, Chatwin’s debut book transformed travel writing. But just 12 years later, its author was dead. The Observer theatre critic, Chatwin’s editor for that book, reflects on a brief, brilliant career

‘Does anyone read Bruce Chatwin these days?” asked Blake Morrison, reviewing his letters seven years ago. Well, someone must: nearly 30 years after his death, all six of Chatwin’s books are still in print. But it is true that when the dominant writers of the 1970s and 1980s are discussed, Chatwin’s name is rarely among them. The penalty of once being fashionable is that you may come to be thought of as merely fashionable. Almost violently successful at first, his books are now less likely to be mentioned than the Moleskine notebooks in which he sketched and jotted.

Vintage’s 40th anniversary edition of In Patagonia is an invitation to look again at one of the most vivid but elusive writers of the late 20th century. Chatwin’s first book, it helped to change the idea of what travel writing could be. It appeared at a rich literary moment, when both reportage and the novel were beginning to fly high in new directions. I remember the time well – I edited In Patagonia and in doing so became friends with the author. Angela Carter and Ryszard Kapuściński, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie were already publishing; Julian Barnes was preparing to take off. In Patagonia was in a category of its own. It was clearly not a novel, but it flirted with fiction. A collage of histories, sketches, myths and memories, with short scenes glinting towards each other, without judgment, conclusion or, often, links. Chatwin said he was trying to make a cubist portrait. It is paradoxical, in content and in style. The syntax is snappy but the vocabulary is orchidaceous. It holds back from intimate revelation – “I don’t believe in becoming clean,” Chatwin announced – but is fuelled by autobiography, lit up by personal obsessions.

The historian’s breadth of reference is impressive in this study of networks and hierarchies – but his conclusions are underwhelming

Niall Ferguson is not the kind of historian who suffers from understatement. He writes big, muscular books with high-concept ideas that target current concerns through the prism of the past. They are pull-yourself-together warnings to the present by way of arresting historical precedent.

In The Great Degeneration (2013) he describes the collapse of the institutions on which the west made its success. His 2011 book Civilisation was subtitled, with a market eye on contemporary buzzwords, The Six Killer Apps of Western Power. His latest book, The Square and Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power, claims to be “a whole new way of looking at the world”.

If ever there was an English national literary treasure, he must be Edward Lear. In polls, including a recent one for National Poetry Day, The Owl and the Pussycat is often voted our favourite poem. Anyone who has ever doodled a limerick, of any tone or topic, pays homage to his genius. As well as timeless nonsense such as The Jumblies, there’s also his art – brilliantly studied paintings of exotic creatures in far-off lands; luminous desertscapes; antic sketches of men with birds in their beards – work that puts him in a class of his own as an important Victorian artist.

Edward Lear is one of those English one-offs who are treasured because they seem to suggest that there are no more important things to do than paint or write, and who embody a benign, provisional and above all amateur spirit. Lear himself, slyly complicit, summarised his place in the English cultural landscape with a teasing, encrypted self-description:

Eddie Ayres has a lifetime of musical experience but much of it was as Emma Ayres, and much of it was overshadowed by depression. In this book extract he explains how his path to salvation was teaching music in Afghanistan

I had a dream job, presenting classical music radio [for ABC Classic FM]. Easy. Don’t be late for work, sit in a studio, chat, press the right buttons, go to concerts, chat some more. And that’s what I did for nearly a decade. The job of a radio presenter, at least the way I see it, is to be calm, kind, entertaining. A friend to all. Being light and easy is fine if you feel like that, but if you don’t feel light and easy, what then?

Related: Is it really a win for queer rights if we exclude our most vulnerable to achieve it? | Allison Gallagher

In 1970 the writer spent a month in the south because it seemed to represent the future of America. And now that we are ‘living though the scariest of times’, she has decided to publish her notebooks

John and I were living on Franklin Avenue in Los Angeles. I had wanted to revisit the South, so we flew there for a month in 1970. The idea was to start in New Orleans and from there we had no plan. We went wherever the day took us. I seem to remember that John drove. I had not been back since 1942–43, when my father was stationed in Durham, North Carolina, but it did not seem to have changed that much. At the time, I had thought it might be a piece.

Not only was AA Milne’s life eclipsed by the creation of Pooh Bear, so was that of his son, writes the screenwriter of the new biopic, Goodbye Christopher Robin

As Quentin Crisp once pointed out in a lecture: if he were to bring a distinguished old Yorkshireman on stage, the audience might be perplexed; but if he brought a polished abstract sculpture with a hole in the middle, the audience would cry out, “Ah! Henry Moore!” So AA Milne’s long career as poet, playwright, polemicist, peace campaigner and novelist is completely eclipsed by four short children’s books which, as he put it in 1952, he created, “little thinking / All my years of pen-and-inking / Would be almost lost among / Those four trifles for the young”.

That “almost” is no longer needed. Pooh is one of a tiny handful of creations that are so enormously successful we forget the infelicity of their names: Boots, the Beatles, Star Wars, Winnie-the-Pooh. One of the great secrets of success is that, more often than not, it is not the kind of success you were hoping for. You want to be Hamlet but you’re hailed as a clown, and now you can never be any kind of Hamlet. You want to move on but your global hit exerts all the gravity of a planet and you are trapped in its orbit. Failure at least has the comfort of hope. Milne’s life story brilliantly illuminates what it feels like to be tested by huge, unlooked-for success.

^‘I can see that, as a body of writing, it is a rag-bag of styles and genres,” Michael Rosen once said of his work. “But does it matter? I’m not trying to hoodwink anyone. I’m not trying to gain membership to a Peerage of Poets. I write ‘Bits’ and ‘Stuff’.” As always, the future children’s laureate was being both modest and a little feisty. Still, it’s a good description of So They Call You Pisher! It’s a mishmash, at once merry and pensive, of personal memoir, a history of left politics in postwar England, a portal into a lost Jewish London and a portrait of the artist as a nervy young man.

Famous individuals flicker in and out of the narrative – among them Christopher Hitchens, Howard Marks and Clive James (the latter yelling, “I’ll fucking have you! You’re ruining everything I’ve ever worked for!” when Rosen fluffs lines at a student revue audition) – but at its heart are his parents Harold and Connie Rosen. Harold was a poet, a noted educationalist, author of Are You Still Circumcised? (1999), and treated by some contemporaries “as if he was a cross between Lenny Bruce and Isaiah Berlin”. He and Connie met at a Young Communist League meeting in 1936 and both fought against Oswald Mosley’s fascists in the battle of Cable Street that year.

Picasso wanted to marry her, Gore Vidal defended her, but most writers and artists she met were spiteful about her behind her back – and, explains Craig Brown, she didn’t really like them much either

She was drawn to bohemians, just as they were drawn to her. She liked the louche hours they kept, their smoking and drinking, their refusal to do the right thing. They, in turn, enjoyed the cachet of having a real-life princess on display. It didn’t really matter that she could be difficult. After all, being difficult was her party piece. If she happened to round off an evening with a display of her famous hauteur, then it gave them something to write about.

As for Princess Margaret, she never quite understood the stuff and nonsense to which she found herself drawn. Or perhaps she understood the stuff, but not the nonsense. “What is a bohemian? What does it mean?” she once asked a lady-in-waiting, in all innocence, shortly after her marriage to the fashionable photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones.

The Booker prizewinning novelist tries to fit in a couple of hours of writing a day, but she no longer feels guilty if she would rather be in the garden

What writing day? I am 84, for heaven’s sake. Which is not to say that I no longer write, simply that the concept of an ordered daily ritual is now out of reach. I look back – not with nostalgia, but with a kind of friendly interest – to those years when I would get to the desk by about half past nine and stay there till five or so, even if staring out of the window a good deal of the time.

Not that my working days were always like that. There were many other commitments: organisations to which I gave time, much travelling for bookish reasons. The desk days were jealously guarded. Looking at old diaries, I see that I am always complaining that I can’t get to the book that I am writing – too many other demands. One year, I left Heathrow 12 times. Well, no more of that. One of the pleasures of old age is the thought that I shall never see Heathrow again.

The Child in Time, starring Cumberbatch, kicks off a trio of adaptations that may make the author the most screen-friendly novelist of his generation

Three decades after it won the Whitbread prize, Ian McEwan’s The Child in Time has become a TV film. It will be screened this weekend in the coveted Sunday 9pm drama slot on BBC1, with Benedict Cumberbatch playing a children’s writer whose daughter vanishes on a shopping trip.

This transmission launches an unofficial festival of McEwan adaptations: Dominic Cooke’s On Chesil Beach (in which I play a minor role) will be shown at the London film festival next month before a general release next year, soon followed by Richard Eyre’s movie of The Children Act.

A hugely successful series is a hard act to follow. Those of us who loved Cressida Cowell’s brilliant How to Train Your Dragon books about Hiccup, his dragon Toothless and the Viking world they live in might have felt a little concerned when they came to an end in 2015. What would she do next?

I am pleased to report that The Wizards of Once – the first book in a new middle grade series – is terrific. It introduces us to a new fantasy world, though its roots again lie deep in a familiar mulch of history and legend. Not the Norse myths this time, but a fantasia of ancient Britain, a land of dark, mysterious forests and powerful magic.

The plight of African asylum seekers in Europe is vividly drawn in this powerful, candid novel

Displacement has moved beyond a literary theme; for millions, it is reality. The notion of war has been overtaken by upheaval, which forces desperate people to flee without hope of a final destination, allowing history to repeat itself, relentlessly. This is the humanising lens through which Jenny Erpenbeck, Europe’s outstanding literary seer, views our world.

Previously she had looked to the layered history of her own country, Germany, in dazzling metaphysical fictions such as Visitation and The End of Days. As a Berliner born in the former East Germany in 1967, her early experience was dominated by living in a divided city within a fractured country; her work suggests that she believes human understanding resides in memory.

And if two glasses are good, only imagine the benefits that accrue to me from five

By my reckoning, I must be the healthiest person in the country. Brisk 10-minute walk a day? Tick. Two glasses of red wine every evening? Tick. (And if two glasses are good, only imagine the benefits that accrue to me from five.) Four cups of coffee a day? Tick. No smoking? Tick. No recreational drugs? Tick. Sunscreening? Tick. Statins? Tick. More than five hours’ sleep? Tick. More than six hours’ sleep? Tick. Emotional agility: as, for example, overcoming negative emotions by welcoming them with self-compassion? Tick. Porridge? Tick. Porridge and berries? Tick, tick. Cheese (I was once off it to avoid fat, now I’m on it again for protein, calcium and vitamins A and B12)? Tick. Not wearing Lycra? Tick. (I’m not sure whether I shouldn’t be wearing Lycra for health or for fashion reasons, so I’m not wearing it for both. In which case, make that another double tick.)

So why aren’t I feeling well? Could it be that some people are simply not fashioned to feel well no matter how many boxes they tick? There’s a presumption in the health industry that all any of us wants is to get ourselves into shape and live for ever. We are shepherded into blooming longevity, and before we are able to ask ourselves if we wouldn’t rather burn with Walter Pater’s “hard, gem-like flame” and then go out early, we find ourselves 110, unable to remember our name.

As he publishes his new novel, the Booker prize winner explains why he is looking back to an era before the Sexual Offences Act

As he was working on his sixth novel, Alan Hollinghurst, who describes himself as highly distractable during the throes of creation, found himself writing an introduction to Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald’s 1979 Booker prize-winning miniature masterpiece, and then reviewing Hermione Lee’s biography of the writer. “And so I read every word, and I fell very much under her spell, and was troubled by her example – why can’t I write a wonderful book which is 173 pages long, rather than 473 pages long? And I rather beat myself up about this, before facing up to the fact that actually I was writing a 400-and-something page book and just have to live with it. It is what I do. But I really envy that and long to write a short novel.”

Looking at his back catalogue, from his 1988 debut novel The Swimming-Pool Library to The Line of Beauty, which led him in Fitzgerald’s footsteps to the Booker podium in 2004 (accompanied by “Gay Sex Wins Booker” headlines from various predictable quarters), the emergence of a novella seems unlikely, although he tells me he’s attempting to fool himself that his next project – merely glimmers at the moment, although he has started a new notebook – is precisely that.

The American novelist on the books that changed his life, made him cry and the ones he wishes he’d written

The book that changed my life

To read is to have experiences; every book changes my life at least a little bit. The first time I can remember this happening was when I was 10, with a biography of Thomas Edison.

The Shipping News author joins previous winners of the National Book Foundation’s award such as Toni Morrison, Elmore Leonard and Norman Mailer

The Shipping News author Annie Proulx has been named as the latest recipient of one of the highest honours in US fiction, the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and praised for her “deep reverence for the beauty and complexities of rural America”.

The medal, which recognises “a lifetime of literary achievement”, has been awarded to authors including Elmore Leonard, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison and Judy Blume. Authors are put forward for the $10,000 (£7,300) honour by US literary experts, with the National Book Foundation’s board of directors making the final choice. Chair David Steinberger said that Proulx’s work was “widely loved and uniquely significant”, and that “her commitment to crafting compassionate, honest stories has left an indelible mark on literature and created a powerful and enduring legacy”.

Nikesh Shukla and literary agent Julia Kingsford have launched Kickstarter appeal to fund The Good Journal, with further plans for an affiliated agency

After selling more than 50,000 copies and being named the British public’s favourite book of 2016, the success of anthology The Good Immigrant has prompted the launch of a new literary journal to showcase British writers of colour.

The book’s editor, Nikesh Shukla, published the collection of essays on race and immigration after crowdfunding the project with support from big names such as JK Rowling and thousands of pledges from the public. Its success has, said Shukla, been so phenomenal that he and the literary agent Julia Kingsford are now looking to raise £40,000 on Kickstarter to publish a new quarterly, The Good Journal.

Ian Patterson’s The Plenty of Nothing, begun in the days leading up to her death, shares honours with best collection win for Sinéad Morrissey’s On Balance

Ian Patterson’s elegy for his late wife, the writer Jenny Diski, which he began writing in the days leading up to her death, has won the Forward prize for best single poem.

Novelist tells interviewer that avoiding Twitter and Instagram protects her ‘right to be wrong’, which would be inhibited by instant public reaction

Zadie Smith has spoken of how staying away from social media gives her “the right to be wrong” without fearing other people’s reactions, saying that if she knew readers’ reactions to her work, she wouldn’t be able to write.

At a live event with the New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino in New York, the British novelist said: “Because I’m not on Twitter, I’m not on Instagram, I’m not on the internet, I never hear people shouting at me.”

In Goodbye, Europe, a forthcoming collection of essays and stories, the Eurosceptic backbencher says ‘it was bold of the electorate to ignore the experts’

Jacob Rees-Mogg has contributed to a forthcoming literary anthology about Britain’s exit from the European Union, with the Eurosceptic backbencher’s unlikely voice joining those of authors including Ian Rankin, Sarah Perry and Lionel Shriver.

Publisher Orion has gathered 46 contributors for its collection Goodbye, Europe, out on 16 November. A mix of letters, fiction, illustrations and reminiscences, it is described by the publisher as an examination of “the political, emotional, historical, gastronomic and cultural influence of Europe on the United Kingdom”.

Psychologist Cordelia Fine’s dissection of the myths that sustain assumptions about sexual difference acclaimed by judges as ‘a cracking critique’

A book that rubbishes the idea of “fundamental” differences between men and women has become the 30th winner of the prestigious Royal Society prize for science book of the year.

Related: Testosterone Rex by Cordelia Fine review – the question of men’s and women’s brains

Essay describes the novelist’s strict isolation as he awaits judgment on charges condemned by PEN as punishment for his criticism of Turkish government

The prominent Turkish novelist Ahmet Altan has written an essay from his prison cell on the eve of his trial, describing his detention in a high-security jail where he is forbidden to send “even a two-line letter to my loved ones”.

Altan, the author of 10 acclaimed novels that have been translated around the world, as well as essays and journalism, was arrested last September following the attempted coup in Turkey in July 2016. Charges against him include “giving subliminal messages in favour of a coup on television”, “membership of a terrorist organisation” and “attempting to overthrow the government”. Altan faces a possible life sentence if he is found guilty of the charges.

Work by Will Eaves, Jenni Fagan, Cynan Jones, Benjamin Markovits and Helen Oyeyemi now in line for £15,000 annual prize

Judges for the BBC national short story award have announced a shortlist for 2017 that is “enduring, bold, humane and moving”, with work from five acclaimed writers now in line for the £15,000 award.

Will Eaves’s “quiet and horrifying” Murmur, about a gay academic who is convicted for gross indecency, was inspired by the real-life tragedy of Alan Turing. Eaves, a novelist, poet and former arts editor of the Times Literary Supplement, is one of the finalists for the prize, which has been won in the past by authors including Sarah Hall, Julian Gough and David Constantine. More than 600 stories were submitted, with judges unaware of the authors’ names until they made their selection.

The longlist for the biggest prize in American literature includes previous finalists as well as a host of debut authors

The longlist for the 2017 National Book award for fiction was announced on Friday, with 10 contenders vying for one of the highest honors in American literature.

The list includes two previous NBA honorees, including Jesmyn Ward, who won the fiction prize in 2011, and Jennifer Egan, who was a finalist in the category in 2001. This year’s list, which includes eight women and two men, features fiction of various kinds, including two short-story collections and a number of debut honorees. Six years ago, Jesmyn Ward won the award for her novel Salvage the Bones, about a fictitious Mississippi town affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Reconstruction of room where Discworld novels were written is centrepiece of show that proves as eclectic as author himself

The objects on display range from the cosy and nostalgic, such as Terry Pratchett’s Blue Peter badge, to the grand: a gleaming sword infused with shards of meteorite created by the author himself to commemorate his own knighthood.

Fans will, no doubt, love the vivid, original paintings of Pratchett’s beloved Discworld characters and the chance, for the first time, to peek inside a detailed reconstruction of his study, nicknamed The Chapel.

Francesca Sanna’s illustrated story, inspired by her meetings with refugees, ‘will move all readers, whatever their age’

From Julia Donaldson’s mouse who “took a stroll through the deep dark wood” to the classic Rosie’s Walk, the journey is an archetype of children’s literature. The Italian artist Francesca Sanna, however, who has won the 2017 Klaus Flugge prize for most exciting newcomer to children’s picture book illustration, chose a rather tougher trek for her debut title: that of a mother and her two children who are fleeing a war.

Sanna’s The Journey opens with an ordinary family playing on a beach by the city, using images that are redolent of classic fairytales, and simple text told from a child’s perspective. But “one day the war took my father”, and eventually the mother takes her children away to what she tells them will be a “safe place”. They face hurdles – an angry border guard, magnified to the size of a monster, turns them back; they hide in the forest; they cross the sea. “There is not much space and it rains every day, but we tell each other stories. Tales of terrible and dangerous monsters that hide beneath our boat ready to gobble us up if the boat capsizes!”

Hundreds of damning verdicts on memoir of 2016 presidential race, posted within hours of publication, have been removed by the online bookseller

Hundreds of one-star reviews of Hillary Clinton’s memoir What Happened, which appeared online within hours of the 512-page book’s publication, have been removed from Amazon.

What Happened, in which Clinton gives her account of the 2016 presidential campaign, was published on Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, there were more than 1,500 reviews of the memoir on Amazon.com, the majority either glowing or scathing.

Roald Dahl’s widow and biographer say first Charlie was black but writer was persuaded to make him white

Roald Dahl originally wanted the eponymous hero of his much-loved children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to be black, his widow has said.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme for Roald Dahl day on Wednesday, Liccy Dahl said: “His first Charlie that he wrote about was a little black boy.”

George Saunders, Fiona Mozley and Emily Fridlund are nominated for their first novels, alongside new books from Ali Smith and Paul Auster

American heavyweights Paul Auster and George Saunders are to go head to head for this year’s Man Booker prize, as major names make way for two new faces on the 2017 shortlist.

The judges, chaired by Baroness Lola Young, announced their shortlist of six titles on Wednesday morning. Alongside Auster and Saunders, the 29-year-old British debut novelist Fiona Mozley has secured a place in the final line-up, as did American first-timer Emily Fridlund.

New report follows recent evidence that a Bedford branch of Waterstones pays business rates 17 times higher than a nearby business unit of the web giant

The UK’s bookshops pay 11 times what Amazon does in corporation tax, according to a report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

The Bookselling Britain report was unveiled at the Booksellers Association’s annual conference in Birmingham on Tuesday, revealing that bookshops contribute an estimated £540m to the UK economy, and pay an estimated £131m in tax, including £12m in corporation tax. This equates to 91p per £100 of turnover, the report said, which is 11 times the 8p rate that Amazon pays, according to the CEBR. Amazon’s most recent accounts show that Amazon UK Services saw turnover rise to almost £1.5bn in 2016, while corporation tax payments dropped from £15.8m to £7.4m year on year.

More and more of these events pay less and less attention to the form they are supposed to be about. Thank goodness for the Leeds event that lives up to the name

On the website of a recent comic con in Lancashire, the big draws were: a puppeteer who worked on Star Wars and The Dark Crystal; an actor who was in Space: 1999 and played the Stormtrooper in Star Wars who said: “These aren’t the droids we’re looking for”; a child actor who appeared in Game of Thrones. Oh, and Knight Rider’s car was there, as was The Simpsons school bus and Luke Skywalker’s Land Speeder. There was a gaming area. All of which, I hasten to add, sounds absolutely brilliant to a geek like me. And yet … this was a comic con, right? What became of the comics?

I find myself annoyed by the ever-growing number of comic cons that don’t seem to be about comics at all. The five comic creators named on the aforementioned con’s website were tucked away at the bottom: two from the Beano, one at Marvel, a Jack Kirby expert and the fifth who was more a fantasy illustrator than a comics artist. Again, all great – but isn’t it a bit disingenuous to continue to call these events comic cons?

The reader-chosen award has always been a turbulent affair, and this year’s storm has seen Ann O’Loughlin leave the competition

After a relatively quiet couple of years here on the Not the Booker, our old friend the Lord of Chaos has swooped down to add an extra bit of excitement and drama into this year’s competition.

Following on from my review of her novel The Ludlow Ladies’ Society, Ann O’Loughlin has decided to withdraw from the competition. She has asked us to post the following statement:

The Observer New Review offers you the chance to put your questions to the master storyteller

Next month sees the publication of Philip Pullman’s La Belle Sauvage, the long-awaited first volume of The Book of Dust, an epic fantasy trilogy intended to stand alongside his bestselling series, His Dark Materials.

Pullman devotees have waited 17 years for him to return to the magical world of Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, which have together sold more than 17.5m copies and been translated into 40 languages.

With feminism a dirty word for some, the suffragettes’ struggle to secure rights we take for granted is not only inspiring history – it’s a guide for other fights

When I was a teenager, I knew little about the suffragettes. I’d heard of Emmeline Pankhurst, and had a vague idea of women in silly hats hitting things with toffee hammers and going on hunger strikes, but that was about it. So when I started researching early feminism for a novel I was writing, I was astonished. The suffragettes were bloody amazing. They flew in dirigibles and got themselves posted to Downing Street. They wrote suffrage speeches, newspapers, novels and plays. They organised a woman’s peace congress in 1915, with representatives from all warring nations, and met world leaders including Woodrow Wilson to try to negotiate peace. The British government was so worried about their activity that it cancelled all North Sea shipping until the congress was over. Did you know about that? I didn’t.

It may be the case that today’s teenagers don’t know about it either: two years ago, the government announced that it was axing feminism from the politics A-level. While it reversed the decision a few months later after a public outcry, it is a worrying sign of how little women’s history is valued today.

The antic fairytale of billionaires and ‘badmashes’ is rooted in the details of a time that might sound remote, but it reads with startling immediacy

We live in unstable times. The truth shifts and eludes us. Reality is under assault. Even fiction is in a state of bewildering flux. In a fascinating interview last week, the novelist Attica Locke said: “When Trump was elected, I remember feeling: oh my God, overnight my book changed, and I didn’t alter a word.” Her book about murders carried out by the Aryan Brotherhood, she explained, had suddenly taken on new resonance. Meanwhile, dystopian science fiction has come to seem like a pale imitation of the Technicolor horrors of the new US regime. Classic novels, too, have taken on unexpected new shapes; I recently read Barnaby Rudge and was surprised to realise that this novel purporting to be about the Gordon riots of 1780 was actually a Brexit parable, warning against the dangers of demagogues and scapegoating outsiders. It even had stirring passages about the need for brave parliamentarians to stand up to the fury of the mob.

Related: Has Donald Trump ruined the dystopian novel? Let's hope not

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Where are the songs of spring? Think not of them... It’s autumn on Tips, Links And Suggestions and readers like Brooke Sherbrooke have been tailoring their choices accordingly:

A terse reflection on the power of guns, decommissioned or otherwise, is itself a small, loaded object

Origin of the Mimeo

What do guns when they are not in use?
In the dead of night they double and divide,
naming new owners, finding a new ruse.

After 50 years Iain Sinclair has lost his compulsion to write about the city. In the wake of terrorism and tragedy, he makes a final pilgrimage
• Read the top 10 non-fiction books about London here

A voice. “Are you on the street?” Reverberating footfall in the underpass. And an urgent call demanding acknowledgement. He hustled after me, swearing, smacking a fist into his open palm. We moved, pursuer and pursued, in steady bank holiday drizzle, down a slippery, stone-flagged ramp towards the laby-rinth of borough engineer Sidney Little’s reinforced concrete subterranea: a buried swimming pool, a vault to take cars away from the promenade, a marine walkway pressed against a wall of broken bottles. Like a reliquary for beachside drinking schools, the thirsty ones at the end of the land.

Panoramic sea windows, lacking glass, are set in expectation of invasions still to come. (Between 1940 and 1944, Little had a sideline, working with the Admiralty on the construction of a concrete Mulberry harbour for the D-day landings.) Hastings in the 1930s, in the borough engineer’s pomp, was a punt at the better way: sanctioned leisure time for all, seasonal tourism as a benefit. And smooth rail connections to the capital, the Smoke. Open roads, carving through the humped folds of the chalk downs, beneath the outlines of mythical giants, were celebrated in collectable posters by the finest artists and designers. Cars were not yet weapons of choice, primed for mindless assault on the crowd, those who are privileged to walk freely in the city.

Man Booker prize judge Colin Thubron has complained this week that star endorsements bully readers into admiring books, but it’s long been standard practice

Setting cats among pigeons has long been an unofficial part of the contract for judges of the Booker prize. Remember Chris Mullin’s insistence on “zip–along” novels, or, way back in 1992, AN Wilson’s condemnation of the prize itself as “essentially trivial”?

This year’s flurry of fur and feathers was provoked by a tirade from Colin Thubron on celebrity endorsements. Some blurbs, said the veteran travel writer, “almost blackmail” readers into feeling that “you’re either intellectually or morally incompetent if you don’t love this book or you’ve failed if you haven’t understood it”. Some people, he felt, “seem to earn their living … saying: ‘This is the most profound book of our generation.’”

From the new Blade Runner to Channel 4’s Electric Dreams, the insatiable hunger for ‘PKD’ stories on screen shows no sign of abating

With the Channel 4 series of dramas based on his short stories starting, Philip K Dick has cemented his reputation as one of the most adapted science fiction authors of the modern age.

The most famous big-screen outing of recent years was Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, released in 1982, the year the author died. But there has also been Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (and its 2012 remake); Minority Report (2002), with Tom Cruise; the Richard Linklater “rotoscoped” version of A Scanner Darkly, which overlayed animation on live-action footage of Keanu Reeves; and 2011’s The Adjustment Bureau.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks. One day, while strolling about in a dark wood, she happened upon a charming cottage. Actually it was more of a filthy den dug deep in the earth. Goldilocks knocked, but when no one answered, she crawled down into the den.

On the table in the den, she found three bowls of porridge.

As Hillary Clinton’s campaign postmortem hits shelves, here are some other great runners-up – from Mike Huckabee’s guns and gravy to Gary Hart’s waterborne monkey business

What happened? It’s the question we’ve all been asking since Donald Trump’s surprise ascent to the US presidency. It is also the title of Hillary Clinton’s new book, in which she looks back at her campaign and reveals what she thinks … happened. Some Democrats, Bernie Sanders included, have objected to the book, saying it is important to look forward and not back, but those of us still walking around incredulous will probably buy it seeking answers. Even if that answer is clarifying just how bad Clinton’s campaign was.

Clinton is not alone as a failed candidate in publishing a book dissecting events – she’s not even alone as a failed candidate of 2016 publishing a book. Here’s a list of some other titles written by hopefuls who never made it to the White House (or in some cases, the nomination):

‘We are a nest of singing birds,’ Johnson recently insisted to quash rumours of Brexit bust-ups. So why is the classicist foreign secretary now invoking the 18th-century writer Dr Johnson?

“No, we are a government working together,” Boris Johnson insisted post-jog to journalists in New York. “We are a nest of singing birds.” You could be forgiven for assuming that the classicist foreign secretary had reached for another Latin-lit allusion (Horace? Ovid?) to pooh-pooh the idea of continual Brexit bust-ups. In fact, the quote comes from Dr Johnson and has nothing to do with interpersonal harmony.

Quizzed by Boswell about his student days, the 18th-century Johnson noted how many poets had attended Pembroke College, Oxford, besides himself, adding “with a smile of sportive triumph, ‘Sir, we are a nest of singing birds’”. The original quote and its use are so bizarrely askew as to require imaginative inference about the workings of the bookish Borisonian subconscious: could he have referenced his namesake (despite the allusion making no sense) as a way of repressing the words he really wanted to use about the cabinet? John Webster after all came up with a much better known avian quotation (in The White Devil) in conjuring “a summer bird-cage in a garden” where “the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds within ... fear they shall never get out”. Or perhaps Boris was thinking of another literary allusion by another namesake: Catherine Johnson’s 2008 novel A Nest of Vipers.

It was deemed ‘juvenile trash’ when first published and, yes, the dwarves’ songs do irritate some – but ideas laid down in JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit shape fantasy to this day

The Hobbit, that retelling by Mr JRR Tolkien of the adventures of Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End, is celebrating its 80th birthday, albeit with no party of special magnificence nor, perhaps, much talk and excitement in Hobbiton or beyond.

But while the the book is not as venerable as its hero – Bilbo died aged 131, we are told in Lord of the Rings; hobbits live, on average, to the age of 96.8 years according to the wonderful number-crunching site lotrproject.com – it is still an anniversary worth noting.

An uncanny story about an outsider artist and the woman that he paints compulsively, delivers unsettling reflections on art and life

• The shortlist in full

One of the consolations of art is that it helps us make human connections. We can see something of ourselves (and something of the artist) in a painting, novel or piece of music. We can link into a wider network of like-minded souls, holding hands across the ages, sharing truths and emotions. And that’s a lovely thought. While I may feel alienated from many of my fellow citizens here in Brexitannia, I can at least comprehend something of Virgil’s sorrow for Dido, Van Gogh’s joy at the stars or Bruce Springsteen’s desire to bust the heck out of town …

The idea is appealing but Harriet Paige’s debut novel makes a convincing case that this is too simple and that there can be a disparity between an artist’s vision and the way we receive it.

Comedian and writer Robert Webb, star of Peep Show, discusses modern masculinity and his own boyhood in his new book ‘How Not to Be a Boy’

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Comedian Robert Webb has been a fixture on our screens for almost two decades, appearing alongside David Mitchell in their eponymous sketch show, on the bleak comedy Peep Show and in the new sitcom, Back.

As her days working as a nanny come to an end, Kate Young enjoys Nina Stibbe’s warm and witty book about nannying – and finds a meal to make

• Scroll down for the recipe

It’s a thing you can have in the summertime. One, because it’s chilled and, two, because you need seasonal tomatoes. But it’s very simple and easy to make (in the whizzer). I decided to make some using a recipe that came from the wife of the Spanish Ambassador (via Pippa), so bona fide. I couldn’t believe the amount of olive oil you were supposed to put in, so I only put half the amount, and it came out a bit thick.

Nunney tried a spoonful.

Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life, Nina Stibbe

The author of The Talented Ribkins explains how a century-old essay by civil rights campaigner WEB Du Bois inspired her story of 21st-century superpowers

At the dawn of the 20th century, the American sociologist and campaigner WEB Du Bois argued that African Americans needed more than industrial training to vanquish inequality in the wake of slavery, declaring: “The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.”

“The problem of education,” he wrote in a celebrated 1903 essay, “must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races.”

The American revolution was always a rhetorical as well as a political upheaval. The Founding Fathers transformed a mood of sullen opposition into a convulsion of revolutionary fury as much in print as on the field of battle. Thomas Jefferson’s catalyst for the conflict in the declaration of independence was a masterpiece of English prose.

If there was to be a storm, there first had to be a lightning strike. The necessary explosion was ignited by a little book, attributed to an anonymous “Englishman”, and published by Robert Bell from a print shop on Third Street, Philadelphia, on 9 January 1776. The book was Common Sense, the bestselling American pamphlet of the 18th century. In no time at all, there were more than 120,000 copies in circulation, some 25 editions in 1776 alone, and its ideas were the talk of the eastern seaboard. “Who is the author of Common Sense?” asked the Philadelphia Evening Post. “He deserves a statue in gold.”

From octupuses that might be thinking with their arms to early humans’ blind obedience to gods, these are some of the best guides to the deep enigma inside ordinary life

What is consciousness? At first blush this question appears to be rather simple, but with further investigation, it quickly becomes much more complex. Consciousness is the most intimate of mental experiences, and yet the hardest to explain. It is the faculty that allows you to read this sentence, to remember yesterday’s events, to enjoy music and art, and to daydream about your plans for tomorrow. It provides your whole experience of the world and yet is mysteriously altered, or absent altogether, when you fall asleep at night.

For centuries, writers have argued about both the nature and purpose of consciousness, yet several rather basic questions remain unsettled. For example: at what stage does a foetus or newborn become conscious and able to understand the world that we, as adults, inhabit? Likewise, how does animal consciousness differ from ours and why do animals not respond as we do to music and art? What would it take to construct a machine that was conscious? And finally, could conditions like coma and the vegetative state harbour conscious minds within unresponsive bodies? These are some of the thorny questions I asked in my new book Into the Grey Zone, through the lens of a neuroscientist working at the border between life and death.

Author of Pimp State, Kat Banyard explains how researching her book revealed why we need to end the sex trade - and how to do it

Right now, a global push is under way for governments to not only tolerate but actively enable the sex trade. The call is clear: decriminalise brothel keepers, pimps and other “third parties”, allowing them to profiteer freely – and certainly don’t dampen demand for the trade. This is no mundane policy prescription. The stakes are immense.

How we respond will be a measure of how seriously we take violence against women and the inequality underpinning it. Because what we are being asked to do is accept and normalise industrialised sexual exploitation.

‘I didn’t sleep with Doris, codename Tulip. I made love to her as she passed me Soviet secrets’

What follows is a truthful account – in as much as any old spook is capable of being truthful – of my role in Operation Windfall mounted against the Stasi in the late 1950s and early 1960s that resulted in the deaths of Alec Leamas, the best secret agent I ever worked with, and the innocent Elizabeth Gold, for whom he gave his life. So it would probably help if you were to reread The Spy Who Came in from the Cold before starting on this.

You’re still with me, I see. No matter. If I have the nerve to completely rewrite one of the best cold war novels of all time, then chapeau! for joining in the fun. Chapeau. I can’t lose my French roots. My name is Pierre. Though you probably know me best as Peter Guillam, long time member of the Circus and one of George Smiley’s field men.

Artificial intelligence will probably be the most important agent of change in the 21st century. It will transform our economy, our culture, our politics and even our own bodies and minds in ways most people can hardly imagine. If you hear a scenario about the world in 2050 and it sounds like science fiction, it is probably wrong; but if you hear a scenario about the world in 2050 and it does not sound like science fiction, it is certainly wrong.

Technology is never deterministic: it can be used to create very different kinds of society. In the 20th century, trains, electricity and radio were used to fashion Nazi and communist dictatorships, but also to foster liberal democracies and free markets. In the 21st century, AI will open up an even wider spectrum of possibilities. Deciding which of these to realise may well be the most important choice humankind will have to make in the coming decades.

Reinhard Kleist’s graphic biography is full of visual delights, but the musician’s wit – crucial foil to his own myth-mongering – is less apparent

The cover already stakes out the franchise: Cave lopes towards us, a Marvel superdude crossed with a Reservoir Dogs gangster. Any moment, he may reach into a holster concealed in his jacket and … and what? Whip out the script of a lecture, ready to deliver edification to a bunch of grey-haired lit graduates? No, this graphic biography is not interested in that Nick Cave. It’s interested in the crazed outlaw who screams, “Hands up who wants to die!” and attacks the front row with a bloodspattered microphone stand.

Cave endorses the book, noting that it’s woven together from “half-truths and complete fabrications” but applauding its vision. “Closer to the truth than any biography, that’s for sure!” A typical example of the liberties Kleist takes is the scene where Tracy Pew, the bassist of Cave’s early 1980s band the Birthday Party, first dons his signature cowboy hat. In truth, it was given to him by a friend to wear in a music video. In Kleist’s version, Pew steals it from a liquor store when he and Cave go on a spree of shoplifting and destruction. No opportunity is spared to emphasise what bad seeds these young punks were.

Amis is sublime on JG Ballard, writes Anne Enright, but she is less convinced by his views on Islam, ‘foreigners’ and war

Some writers make poor critics because they can only ever describe themselves, so it is greatly to his credit that Martin Amis really does write about Nabokov in his essays about Nabokov, and about Roth in the pieces about Roth. His portrait of Iris Murdoch is more about her presence in life than on the page, and this gap allows in some other thing that is hard to identify – is it sorrow? “I knew Iris; I have respectfully kissed that cunning, bashful, secretive smile” – maybe it’s just Oxford.

His piece on JG Ballard is sublime for managing to illuminate the work of both writers at once, and should stand as a classic in any discussion about influence, but it is hard to see anyone other than Amis in a piece about Saul Bellow’s essays. This reads like a manifesto, a note to self. Bellow is “abnormally alive to social gradations”; a highbrow writer who nonetheless has “a reflexive grasp of the street, the machine, the law courts, the rackets”. He is a “rampant instinctivist”, whose “fictional and non-fictional voices intertwine and cross-pollinate”. Bellow had certain core principles: The writer must “resist the heavy influences” of people such as Flaubert and Marx as well as “the savage strength of the many”, because the imagination has an “eternal naiveté” that he cannot afford to lose.

A neuroscientist has found a revolutionary way of being cleverer, more attractive, slimmer, happier, healthier and of warding off cancer – a good night’s shut-eye

Awake at 4.30am the other morning, having been roused from sleep by my four-year-old son climbing into bed with my wife and me (a more or less nightly occurrence), I found myself sitting up and reading about the effects of insufficient sleep. It has been making me stupider, fatter, unhappier, poorer, sicker, worse at sex, as well as more likely to get cancer, Alzheimer’s and to die in a car crash. At the same time, my lack of sleep has been slowly but inexorably shrinking a) my chances of living into my mid 60s, b) my testicles.

Why We Sleep by the neuroscientist Matthew Walker – my ill-chosen small-hours reading material – is filled with startling information about the effects of suboptimal shut-eye levels. It’s not a book you should even be thinking about in bed, let alone reading. If it weren’t too unsettling to permit sleep in the first place, it would be the stuff of nightmares. The marginalia in my review copy, scrawled in the wavering hand of a man receiving dark intimations of his own terrible fate – “OMFG”; “This is extremely bad!” – might seem less appropriate to an affably written popular science book than to some kind of arcane Lovecraftian grimoire.

A searing indictment of the record of the former mayor of London, who emptied the public purse to produce ill-conceived ornaments

London’s former mayor Boris Johnson might now spend most of his time on planes, performing Brexit badinage around the world in his new pantomime role as foreign secretary, but his presence still looms large over the capital.

He is there in the east, in the inescapable form of the ArcelorMittal Orbit, a mangled £20m totem pole intended to make £1.2m a year for the upkeep of the Olympic park, but which has instead cost the taxpayer £10,000 a week to maintain. He trundles along the streets of London in the bulbous shape of the New Routemaster bus, an overheating, overpriced lump of nostalgia, whose famed back doors turned out to be faulty. He dangles across the Thames in the form of the Emirates Air Line, a novelty cable car ride presented as a crucial transport link, which has failed to attract regular commuters and loses an estimated £50,000 a week. And he is to be found all over the skyline, in the tens of tacky towers that sprouted across the capital during his tenure, stacks of empty investment units to fill his “housing” quota, without actually providing any homes.

About a decade ago something strange happened to me: slowly but surely, I fell in love with a dog. I say “fell in love”, because this seems the only available language with which to describe my feelings of intense protectiveness towards, sympathy with and joy in the presence of what even I could see was objectively a rather yappy little terrier. I’d grown up with dogs – both the family mutt, a depressed brown mongrel with the determining name Brownie, and the rather more sprightly creatures belonging to Alison, who looked after me and my brother while my mother was in her own brown study. Alison wasn’t just a pet owner – she was a hugely successful dog trainer, who worked for the Metropolitan Police as well as the Self family: her alsatian, Kate, came third one year at Crufts in the obedience trials. As for her human charges, I remember visiting Alison in her retirement, with my then wife, and her small sitting room being hung with photographs of the dogs she’d trained and owned. Alison talked about her life primarily with reference to them – and only incidentally to any humans she may have nurtured.

Until my own canine coup de foudre I’d tolerated and to some extent enjoyed dogs, but I’d viewed dog-obsessives such as Alison as emotionally warped: devoting their lives to domesticated animals because they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, expose themselves to the messy complexities of their wilder conspecifics. Yet at the climax of my terrier infatuation, I would have cheerfully smacked any human who dared to censure my beloved furry baby, and was at a loss to explain my feelings. A friend counselled me thus: “The thing about dogs is that they love us more than they love each other – and we love them more than we love each other.”

The purpose of a house, to state the obvious, starts with protection against the worst of the climate, which depending where you are in the world might be heat, cold, wet or wind. It will also be built, in times and places with no industrial materials, with whatever is near to hand, which is in turn a reflection of its environment: turf, mud, straw, reeds, paper, stone, brick, timber, animal hides, tree bark, snow. So a house, whose basic idea is much the same everywhere, becomes in the infinite varieties of its construction an index of climate and geology.

The idea of Habitat, a hefty, handsome tome edited by Sandra Piesik, is that, as environmental issues get more pressing, we should learn from the ways in which builders all over the world “create architecture without jeopardising the equilibrium of the world’s ecosystems”. “If we are to navigate successfully our changing relationship with our planet in the present age”, the book says, then we “must fully take into account the entire multifaceted treasury of traditional wisdom”.

AN Wilson writes with ‘Dickensian energy’ but seems determined to cast his subject in a bad light

“Darwin was wrong,” begins AN Wilson in this entertaining and maddening book. Thus having tossed a dead pigeon upon the picnic rug, he gleefully sets about ruining everybody’s lunch. The originator of “the single greatest idea anybody ever had” was, we are told, an intellectual thief, a morose hypochondriac, objectionably flatulent, obnoxiously ambitious and – worst of all – mistaken.

The author follows Darwin from boyhood bereavement to the deck of the Beagle, thence to the study and sickrooms of Down House and the publication of On the Origin of Species, evoking the epistemological hurly-burly of the mid-Victorian age in characteristically stylish prose. These are vividly peopled pages: here is the pious depressive Robert FitzRoy, captain of the Beagle, fretfully clutching his bible; here is Emma Darwin, who preferred her husband sickly to well. Episodes are narrated with Dickensian energy: the tubercular death of Annie Darwin is highly affecting; there’s comical verve in the scene of the Oxford debate at which “Soapy Sam” Wilberforce inquired of Thomas Henry Huxley if he was descended from an ape on the paternal or maternal line (a nearby lady fainted); and there is enjoyment to be had in watching Darwin scrutinise the sexual organs of barnacles, puzzling over their relevance to his nascent theory.

What on earth brought on Craig Brown’s intense interest in the Queen’s late sister, Princess Margaret? At the start of his naughty new book about her, he attributes it to Margaret’s Zelig-style appearance – ubiquitous, if not exactly chameleon-like – in just about every other memoir, biography and diary written in the second half of the 20th century. It is, he writes, like playing Where’s Wally? or a super snobby form of I-spy: everyone seems to have met this prickly and parenthetical figure at least once, from Kenneth Williams to Evelyn Waugh, Ken Tynan to Elizabeth Taylor – a fact all the weirder when you know that the same people were often frequently desperate to avoid her.

But perhaps Brown’s obsession has another, more – how to put this? – Freudian source. He dishes up a Margaret-related encounter of his own. At school, he tells us, he had a friend called Michael, the second son of a lord and a nice, diffident chap to whose family houses – among them a castle in Yorkshire and a stately home in Norfolk – he was often invited to stay. It was in the hallway of their grandest place that the incident occurred. Asked to sign the visitors’ book, Brown leafed nosily through it, at which point he discovered a photograph of Margaret, posing in the same hallway in which he stood, resplendent in a blue frock and fixed smile. Beside her was Michael’s older brother, William, looking unremarkable save for one thing. The “downward trajectory” of the fabric of his trousers was, his pal couldn’t help but notice, being “sent askew by a bluff diagonal”. It seemed that at the moment the camera’s shutter clicked, poor William had been struggling to contain a teenage erection.

The sad clown is a trope as old as drama; think of Shakespeare’s melancholy fools, with their discarded pearls of wisdom, or the likes of Tony Hancock and Robin Williams, spreading laughter on stage or screen while private pain corroded their lives until it became unbearable. In recent years it’s been fashionable in standup comedy to use that pain as material, often with the intention of encouraging audiences to talk about difficult issues with an acknowledgment of the black humour they entail.

Since Simon Amstell started performing long-form standup 10 years ago, he’s made a virtue of holding his angst up to public scrutiny with an honesty that many performers shy away from, so it’s perhaps inevitable that a book should follow. Yet it’s hard to escape the sense that this particular book doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. He nods to this in the introduction, explaining that the original suggestion was to publish transcripts of his major standup shows. “And who for? For people who don’t like hearing standup out loud?”

No one ever looked as good on a bicycle as Jacques Anquetil. The first man to win the Tour de France five times – in 1957 and from 1961 to 1964 – seemed to have been manufactured in the same factory as the machines he rode, every ounce of superfluous weight pared away, streamlined to perfection and running on frictionless bearings. Frozen in motion by the still camera, he revealed an aesthetic perfection that would have brought a light to any sculptor’s eye.

On the first page of his slender memoir of devotion, Paul Fournel captures his subject’s essence: “Anquetil pedalled blond, with supple ankles; he pedalled on points, back bent, arms at right angles, head straining forwards … He was made to be seen alone on the road, silhouetted against the blue sky; nothing about him suggested the peloton, the crowd and the strength of being united. He was cycling beauty out on its own.”

There’s nothing careful about this memoir, which throws lots of blame around. But it misses how out of touch Clinton was

The announcement of an autopsy by Hillary Clinton of the 2016 election raised a distressing possibility: the defeated candidate was back. After 25 years in the public eye, she simply could not leave the political arena, and her campaign memoir would play prelude to the next phase, no matter how badly US politics needed new blood. We needn’t have worried. What Happened is quite different from Clinton’s careful, tedious autobiographies. Those books tried to sell a wise and relatable candidate to the public, while playing down controversies. Her new book is more gossipy, it is meaner, more entertaining and more wrong-headed than anything she or her speechwriters have written before.

The book begins with a recounting of Donald Trump’s inauguration, which she attended, smiling. I remember wanting a dose of whatever she was on. (The book does not reveal.) She recalls attending Trump’s wedding in 2005, back when he was just “like a lot of big-shot real estate guys in the city, only more flamboyant and self-promoting”. At the inauguration, she shakes hands with US Republican politician Jason Chaffetz, thinking he is the new White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus. When Chaffetz tweets the photo with a nasty caption, Clinton responds: “I came this close to tweeting back, ‘To be honest, thought you were Reince.’”

Saturday 18 July 1545 was fish day on the Mary Rose. The crew ate on the cramped gun deck, sitting wherever they could find room. Fish days were not popular, but on this Saturday the meal provided a welcome respite from frantic activity, as all 185 soldiers, 30 gunners and 200 mariners on board were readying the ship for war.

The next day the ship sank. A chance gust of wind caused the vessel, overloaded with artillery, to keel over. No more than 40 men survived, out of a crew of 415. In the face of the tragedy, Henry VIII is supposed to have exclaimed: “Oh my gentlemen! Oh my gallant men!” He could hear the cries of the drowning sailors as he watched from the shore in Portsmouth.

With neoliberalism in crisis, it’s time to emphasise the importance to people of belonging and co-operation, argues this optimistic call to action

That which is dangerous can also be thrilling. Many liberal democracies are engaged in something dangerous, as questions of identity, community and nationhood are being asked with a fresh urgency, with some of the answers turning out to be deeply disturbing. But is there also something thrilling going on? The capacity for democracy to throw up surprises, such as Britain’s 2017 general election result, is mesmerising. Brexit may be a famous act of economic self-harm, but something new will be born one way or the other. Still the danger persists and may be growing.

That this is happening now, as opposed to 10 or 20 years ago, is a direct consequence of the disintegration of the economic policy framework that has held sway in Britain, the US, the European commission and many multilateral institutions for much of the previous 40 years. That framework is often referred to as “neoliberalism”, even if the term irritates a certain class of pundit, for whom it is some sort of swearword without any clear referent. Its disintegration is producing conflicting sympathies, as many on the left come to realise the xenophobia that can be unleashed in the absence of stable market-based rules.

Francis O’Gorman’s new book centres on his belief that people in the 21st century are detaching themselves from the past to their detriment. He examines the ways we forget: the erasure of memory that comes with age, and the modern impulse to untether ourselves from the places we came from, orienting ourselves instead towards the future, with scant regard for history and its lessons.

O’Gorman (whose last published work was a history of worrying) writes with a crisp and elegant, if occasionally high-handed, tone. He explores the role of cultural memory in classical society and the west’s shifting relationship with history across the centuries. He looks at the emergence of a culture of forgetting, a desire to overwrite and wipe clean.

Beth is 21 and has done “lots of 100% TM certified grown up things like wash up my own plates in my own flat, rubber gloves and all”. She’s had a boyfriend and a baby, but she is also in prison. Her counsellor, Erika, has asked her to make a list of the good things in her life. Beth thinks this is “pretty retarded”. What if she can’t think of any? Erika assures her that she will. So Clare Fisher’s deeply involving debut novel sets up a framework for her character to reflect on her experience, as she begins to trawl her memories for positives in a life that hasn’t provided many obvious ones so far.

The novel is mostly written in the second person, addressed to Beth’s child, who we presume has been taken into care. Absent from her child’s life, she is repeating a cycle that began with her own mother’s abandonment of her. Her mother’s failure to show up for promised meetings is the focus of some heartbreaking moments early in the story, as Beth’s self-worth plummets and her sense of guilt intensifies.

Theroux kicks down the fourth wall to show how the troubles of early 20th-century Europe mirror our own

We live in a world made up of competing and contradictory stories: stories about origins and identity, the good and the bad, the future and the past. Although we can never be sure that any one of these stories represents the absolute or permanent truth, some are more believable and appealing than others. While some encourage hope and tolerance, others foster only anxiety, anger or despair. But what makes one kind of story, one version of reality, more successful than another? Why do some live and flourish, while others are ignored or disappear? In the era of Twitter storms and fake news these questions are more important and pressing than ever, and they lie at the core of Marcel Theroux’s ambitious, if idiosyncratic, new novel. As he tells us himself, in one of the novel’s several moments of disarming directness: “The thesis of this book is that we are trapped in stories but that we may be able to imagine our way to better ones. There are other stories than the ones we have collectively chosen. There are second chances and redemption.”

Theroux explores these big philosophical and historical questions through the life story of his protagonist Nicolas Notovitch. Notovitch, who is based on an actual historical figure, is born into a Jewish family in Crimea in the late 19th century, but at 17 abandons them and his Jewish heritage and begins a process of life-long reinvention, becoming first a journalist, then a propagandist, a spy, a revisionist biblical scholar, and finally the owner of a Parisian department store. He represents a modern cosmopolitanism that is open-minded and free-wheeling but also, on more than one occasion, morally vague. For Notovich the price of his escape from tradition is a kind of perpetual uncertainty; he is a man who is never entirely sure of himself, and whose story is, as a result, never exactly fixed. In stark opposition to Notovich, Theroux gives us, as the villain of the piece, Pierre Rachkovsky, the head of the tsarist secret service in Paris, a Machiavellian bon viveur who is both immensely charming and entirely cynical. Whereas Notovitch inhabits a world of “honest confusion”, uncertainty, fluidity and relativism, Rachkovsky trades in Steve Bannon-esque absolutes. His mission is to observe and undermine the anarchists and revolutionaries who threaten tsarist rule, and his prime method is the stoking up of violent antisemitism. If the revolutionaries’ story is about freedom, hope and progress, the reactionary narrative articulated by Rachkovsky is about fear and control: “We say that the world is what it is,” he explains to Nicholas. “There is order and disorder. Those are real. Freedom and liberty are empty words.”

It’s one of the defining – and in hindsight humiliating – images of the 20th century: Neville Chamberlain stepping off the plane from Munich in September 1938 clutching a paper signed by Hitler and, later that day, declaring “peace for our time”.

The Munich agreement came against a backdrop of ultimatums from power-hungry leaders, devious negotiations and – unknown at the time – a conspiracy to overthrow Hitler with a plot straight from a spy drama. The perfect setting, then, for another thrilling historical novel from Robert Harris.

Patrick McGrath’s ninth novel is a story in which nothing is ever quite as it seems: characters confound those closest to them with shocking secrets; supernatural hauntings morph into real-world horror; and the dead haunt the living in ways more disturbing than a ghost story.

Set in London’s theatreland in 1947, the wardrobe mistress of the title is newly widowed Joan Grice. Her husband, Charlie – “Gricey” – had been a famous actor, and their psychologically fragile daughter, Vera, is following in his footsteps.

Comparisons have been drawn between Salman Rushdie’s latest novel, F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. All three are tales involving great wealth and a great downfall, and all three share a narrator who is not the protagonist, who is peripheral to the action, but yearns to be part of it. Rushdie’s René Unterlinden, the twentysomething son of Belgian academics, lives in the same New York garden square as Nero Golden and his three sons and watches their world with growing fascination. In a book replete with filmic references, this setting owes more than a nod to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window.

At the centre of the novel is the story of Nero, whose often silent presence flows like a great river off which branch the stories of his three sons. The Goldens pitch up one day out of the blue, take up residence in a house maintained as an anonymous holding, and refuse to reveal anything of their origins. René, a would-be film-maker, decides they are the perfect subject for a film, a “mockumentary” as he puts it, in which he is free to imagine what is going on when he isn’t there. It’s an ingenious conceit, which gives Rushdie much greater scope as a writer than if he restricted himself (and us) to René’s viewpoint. It also mirrors the way we all see our neighbours, with only partial access to their lives; what we cannot see, we amuse ourselves by imagining.

Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson planned 10 instalments in his Millennium series before his untimely death. The three novels he did write, beginning with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, had energy, spectacular violence and superb plotting. Larsson’s weird, sometimes clunky prose style was forgiven because there was real chemistry – empathy, even – between his two stars, the computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and the journalist Mikael Blomkvist. The series made a fortune and, as no good deed goes unpunished, it has been turned into a franchise.

The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye is the second instalment to be written by the Swedish biographer and novelist David Lagercrantz, translated by George Goulding. The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2015) sold very well and this new outing has been published with full blockbuster treatment.

A chance encounter in a Dublin pub leads a middle-aged man to relive his past in a devastating novel with a shocking twist

Smile – classic Roddy Doyle, but with a shocking twist – opens with the 54-year-old narrator, Victor, alone in a Dublin pub. He doesn’t share a home with Rachel, the woman he calls his wife, but is vague about why. He feels out of place. When he says, “Good man; thanks very much” to the guy pulling his pint, he immediately tells us “the words felt great and a bit forbidden. I hadn’t earned the right to slip into the rhythm of a middle-aged Dub.”

Why not? Unease grows when a former classmate who might be called Eddie Fitzpatrick – at least that’s how Victor thinks he remembers him – accosts him in the pub, raising uncomfortable memories of the Christian Brothers school they went to. They’re the same age and their fathers died in the same month; people in the bar take Fitzpatrick for Victor’s brother or his cousin.

Old age marks a rendezvous with reality that provokes timeless questions. At the end of John le Carré’s new novel, his greatest creation, George Smiley, observes that “an old spy in his dotage seeks the truth of ages”.

As he approaches 86, David Cornwell, AKA John le Carré, still has to make a necessary rapprochement with his divided self, his past and its achievements. There are, no doubt, obscure and unreconciled regrets, obsessions and disappointments. But if you are lucky, as Cornwell has been, to retain your joie de vivre and your marbles, this final reckoning offers the resolution of an inner conflict. Le Carré has always loved German literature, and he knows his Heidegger: “Every man is born as many men, and dies as a single one.”

Young adolescence is vividly captured in this sober novel about relationships and the price of maturity

David Copperfield, Jane Eyre and Huckleberry Finn all employed a voice that was then new to fiction: that of a powerless child indicting power misused. It is a compelling tactic, used by contemporary novelists so often that I’ve wondered whether adults are allowed to tell stories any more. It’s a risky tactic, too; for if we see innocence and wisdom only in children, and all adults as wicked and uncaring, the indictment is not of reparable wrongs and misdeeds but of maturity itself.

In The Burning Girl, American novelist Claire Messud, whose previous books include The Emperor’s Children and The Woman Upstairs, avoids such sentimental cynicism. Her story of a childhood friendship, recounted in the voice of a girl of 16 or 17, does not demonise adulthood or dismiss maturity as valueless; but neither does it say that growing up is going to help much. These children are not merciless judges of their parents, or vice versa. There is a good deal of sympathetic understanding on both sides. The problem, perhaps, is not so much power misused by adults against the helpless as a general powerlessness.

Two young Israeli former soldiers find parallels with home when living in the US

Still in his 30s, the brilliant American novelist Joshua Cohen has already published several novels, books of short stories and a masterpiece, Witz (2010), which is basically two-thirds David Foster Wallace to one third Philip Roth, but somehow adds up to considerably more than the sum of its parts. Moving Kings, his latest novel, combines the same ingredients, but perhaps adds up to rather less.

The book begins as the story of David King, the middle-aged proprietor of King’s Moving in the New York Tri-state area: “David King the Moving King Will Move Your Mothertrucking Everything”. David is a kind of Jewish Tony Soprano, entirely vivid, his politics “aspirational, inferior: he was in favour of contacts, contracts, the right not to diet, and the right to jump lines at dessert stations”. David has got a lot of baggage – literally and metaphorically (David King = King, David, King David, yes?). The son of Holocaust survivors, he is divorced from his wife Bonnie, and his daughter Tammy has decided that Israel is a “criminal regime”: “What I learned at NYU was just how psycho Jews are,” she tells him.

Everyday life and inherited stories combine in a parable about present-day Turkey

Orhan Pamuk has written better than most contemporary novelists about the relationship between east and west. His great book Istanbul: Memories of a City mingles history, personal reminiscence and political analysis to produce a panorama of the city that is also a map of the world – at once clearly drawn and poetically evocative. Much the same goes for his novels. While they explore separations, they look for elements that unite.

The Red-Haired Woman, translated by Ekin Oklap, is driven by the same obsessions, but develops them in suggestive new directions. While establishing a link “between the nature of a civilisation and its approach to notions of parricide and filicide”, it blends the close observation of details with the broad brushstrokes usually associated with myth-making and fables.

A bittersweet debut short story collection from the Shanghai-born poet and essayist gives voice to young female narrators

“Am I still the sourest girl you know?” asks Christina, protagonist of the two stories that bookend Shanghai-born American writer Jenny Zhang’s moving and energetic debut collection. Zhang (right) is a young poet and essayist, and Sour Heart is the first title acquired by Lena Dunham for her Lenny imprint at Random House in the US. In Zhang’s stories, young female narrators – sour and sweet, wild and wilful – bear witness to the journeys of their families, who have left China to establish new lives in the US. “Will she be sour too? I pointed at her belly. Will she become one of us?” Christina asks her eight-months pregnant mother, who replies, “That’s the dream, sourheart.”

Sour girl, tartberry, sour grape, sour apple, sourheart: these are the fond epithets given to Christina, a little girl who, like her mother, loves only the tartest of fruits, gleefully puckering her mouth to suck their juices. This sourness is a point of pride, a family resemblance that binds the two of them; difference is recast as uniqueness – an ability to appreciate those special qualities misunderstood by others. They move from cramped apartment to cramped apartment, across the boroughs of New York. Lucky breaks here and there land them on the clean floors of relatives or friends of friends; other times, there are five families to a wall-to-wall mattressed room. “E flat,” they call their home in Bushwick, “because we loved the sound of E flat on the piano and we liked recasting our world in a more beautiful, melodious light.”

Worlds collide when a young wizard meets a warrior princess in this charmingly illustrated adventure from the author of How to Train Your Dragon

It’s a self-assured author who decides to write a children’s novel about the adventures of a “young boy wizard” in a world of magic, but then Cressida Cowell has reasons to be confident: 8m copies sold of her How to Train Your Dragon books, a film franchise and a spin-off series for TV.

As with the Viking world of Dragon, the eagerly awaited The Wizards of Once is set in the ancient past and our two heroes are scrappy kids struggling with that timeless issue of failing to live up to parental expectations. In place of dragons, there are sprites, deep-thinking giants, ogres and snow cats living in an enchanted wildwood.

A ramble in the woods proves transformative in this award-winning celebratory tale

Anyone keen to pass on a love of the great outdoors will welcome the latest picture book from Italian-French talent Beatrice Alemagna, about a child lured away from technology to find fun in a forest. Using a beautiful earthy palette and intricate lines, loops and curls, the author/illustrator evokes a woodland world so full of textures and sights you can almost feel the shafts of sunlight on your back.

It’s a wet day and, in a scene familiar to most parents, a mum (herself glued to a laptop, presumably working) snaps at her offspring to do something other than play computer games all day. The child, whose gender seems ambiguous (great for little readers who can decide for themselves), skulks off into the woods in a neon orange raincoat that dazzles against the foliage – the child is outdoors and out of place. But, having lost the computer console, the child grows captivated by the forest’s sensuous delights – from stroking slimy snails to slurping icy rainwater.

Frances Hardinge’s 2015 novel The Lie Tree became the first children’s book to win the Costa book of the year award since Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass, introducing her distinctive voice to a new audience. Hardinge’s latest book is a deliciously strange and uncompromising mystery set in the English civil war. Makepeace is an illegitimate daughter of the aristocratic Fellmotte family and shares their supernatural hereditary gift: the capacity to be possessed by ghosts. Unbeknown to them, the wild, brutish spirit of a bear already resides in Makepeace, and may be her only defence against the Fellmottes’ terrible plans for her. She escapes into a countryside divided by war in a complex tangle of plots, spies and intrigue.

Spiky and curious, resourceful and brave, Makepeace is a typically unique Hardinge heroine who finds strength in the very things that make her different. She may only be 12 years old when the novel begins but, as with The Lie Tree, this won’t stop adult readers from finding much to savour in the rich, sophisticated prose that bristles with menace and the unexpected. The story is at its best behind the oppressive walls of ancestral home Grizehayes and in the bewitching synergy between girl and bear. The pace flags a little as Makepeace and her strange jumble of ghosts traverse the war-ridden land, but this is really the most minor of gripes; Hardinge’s tale of ghosts, puritans and shaping your own destiny is an unmissable, hypnotic treat.

This month, lucky eight-plus readers can plunge into the green wilds of Katherine Rundell’s marvellous new novel, The Explorer (Bloomsbury). Stranded in the Amazon rainforest, Fred, Lila, Max and Con overcome their initial terror to adapt to the uncompromising fierceness and beauty of their surroundings, gradually shedding the constraints of home – and discovering much more than they expected. Hannah Horn’s delicate line drawings encroach, vine-like, on Rundell’s dangerous, intoxicating pages in this love-song to the natural world and those who find release in it. This is essential reading for lovers of Eva Ibbotson.

Also for eight plus comes a Newbery medal-winner by Kelly Barnhill, The Girl Who Drank The Moon (Piccadilly) – a poignant, humorous fantasy with glints of Margaret Mahy, Neil Gaiman and Robin McKinley. It features a village that sacrifices its children and a witch who saves them, a swamp monster who speaks in mellifluous poetry and a girl growing up perilously powerful, without knowing why. This is a gorgeously stratified and satisfying novel, full of archetypal, bone-deep fairytale resonances.

In a publishing first, Paul Russell uses his own experience to bring the disease out of the shadows for young readers

From the earliest fairytales warning of the dangers of talking to strangers in the woods, to Roald Dahl’s moral messages about selfishness and greed, stories for children have been useful devices to broach difficult subjects. Now a new picture book tackles an issue largely overlooked by children’s literature, yet which affects an increasing number of families: what happens when a grandparent has dementia?

Grandma Forgets, by Paul Russell, tells the story of a little girl dealing with her grandmother’s illness, touching on the cruelty of a condition that robs sufferers of their memories. In the story, Grandma does not recognise family members, forgets how to play their games and frequently loses Dad’s keys.

Frances Hardinge’s last novel, The Lie Tree, won the overall Costa book award in 2015; the only other children’s book to have done so is Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass, in 2001. Hardinge is at the forefront of children’s fiction, with a rich, unusual taste for language, an eye for the striking and apt image and stories that reveal a staunch defence of the weak and the oppressed. What is more, she combines a subtle, intellectual approach with plots that swoop and soar.

Her darkly splendid new book is a worthy follow-up to The Lie Tree, set just before the start of the English civil war. Hardinge has always been interested in splits and doubles; in how a character, apparently good, can be only a sliver away from being bad; in how perceptions and opinions shift according to perspective and situation. Her heroine in Cuckoo Song was a fairy changeling, unaware that she had been created and placed into the family that she thought hers; Faith in The Lie Tree must fight against the strictures placed on women in the 19th century, while unpicking a web of falsehoods around her scientist father.

In our series Beauty and the books, the actor – who has been cast opposite Jennifer Aniston – talks about why she keeps going back to young adult fiction

It’s been a huge year for the 25-year-old Australian actor Danielle Macdonald. Now living in Los Angeles, she was home in June to promote her first lead in a feature film – Sundance’s heartwarming hip-hop hit Patti Cake$ – when her next role was announced: another title character, this time opposite Jennifer Aniston.

The film is an adaptation of Julie Murphy’s coming-of-age book Dumplin’, about a plus-size teen who wants to be a beauty queen. Aniston will play her mother. “The first time I saw [Aniston] I was like, ‘I was watching Friends on the plane – and now I’m here,’” Macdonald told Guardian Australia. “It’s weird. It’s always weird.”

The prolific children’s author discussed his opinions on Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn and what the education system can do to encourage children’s creativity

12.51pm BST

That’s all, folks

Au revoir – sorry to not answer all your questions, I'm on the Jeremy Vine show in a minute!

12.50pm BST

Cleggalike asks:

Did you dislike Watford grammar school as much as I did?

No, I did not dislike Watford Grammar School! I found it challenging because I came from quite an easygoing co-ed grammar school, and Watford seemed very academic, high-flying, and very aware of its status in Watford and nationally. I found all that a bit overwhelming to start off with – I've written about this in my memoir, out today! – but by the time I finished I am happy to say I benefitted massively from the intensity of the teaching, and there are great chunks of it I have never forgotten. However, I don't think we benefit from schools unless there is something in our background which enables us to access what they offer. I know that's a kind of circular argument, but in my case, my parents were very argumentative and ideological. They exposed everything and anything to a kind of cross-examination. At the time, I didn't realise that what this was doing was enabling me to treat education as if what was on offer were possible views of the world and knowledge, rather than fixed facts that I had to learn. The learning was part of a process, not a process in itself. This meant that most of the time when I was assimilating knowledge, I was doing a running commentary on the knowledge itself. Comparing and contrasting it with alternate views. This was an incredible gift that my parents gave me and it meant that I was never intimidated by knowledge or culture of any kind, and more than that, I have never felt that some kind of knowledge or culture was beneath me, or of lower status. There was an incredible democracy about what they gave me. So yes, I thank Watford for putting in my way Voltaire's Candide, Anthony and Cleopatra, Garibaldi and the 1000, and indeed rugby, as taught by someone who had been an England A team player! But I'm also glad I was ready to absorb it.

It’s Too Late Now, being republished after 70 years, reveals a writer frustrated at the eclipse of his work for adults by runaway success of children’s books

Winnie-the-Pooh may have secured a place in the hearts of children worldwide and made his creator a millionaire, but author AA Milne resented the way the bear of little brain undermined his reputation as a serious writer.

The revelation appears in his 1939 memoir It’s Too Late Now, which is to be republished on 21 September, 70 years after it went out of print and ahead of the release of a biopic about his son, Goodbye Christopher Robin. Despite the success of Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and friends, Milne was frustrated that his reputation as a writer for adults had been irrevocably damaged.

Children are often told what’s good for them, but the advice of the new children’s laureate may take them by surprise. Lauren Child, speaking for the first time since her investiture in Hull this summer, has a simple message: just stare into space.

In an age of prescriptive talk about targets and aspirations, Child, the creator of Charlie and Lola, plans to make a stand against the theorising and goal-setting during her two-year tenure.

The fantasy novelist recently struck a $1m book deal, but her storylines have also fallen foul of a Russian ban on ‘gay propaganda’

When bestselling fantasy author VE Schwab discovered her series Shades of Magic had been edited in Russia without her permission, to cut a romantic storyline with two gay characters, she had to make a decision: should she tolerate the redaction, to allow younger, possibly LGBT Russian readers to buy the books – or try to find another publisher?

“It was really heartbreaking, a moment when I had to sit with myself and ask myself what’s important to me. And at the end of the day, having the queer representation is just too important,” she says. “But it was not a simple solution and one of the reasons I wasn’t more vocal about it was because I was trying to resolve it with the publisher.”

The 21-year-old cartoonist on life as a competitive, teen ice skater, her work rituals and how her emotions affect her art

American cartoonist Tillie Walden has been a quiet yet confident force to be reckoned with from the moment she published her debut graphic novel, The End of Summer, in 2015. Since then, Walden has been a veritable machine: just as one piece wraps up, we hear she’s working on something new. In just two years, the 21-year-old has published four books and a webcomic (On a Sunbeam, a 20-chapter webcomic that she updated with 30 fresh pages a week).

Related: Get ready, here I come: 20 talents set to take 2017 by storm

As a popular search engine marks the great lexicographer’s birthday, it’s a good time for some defining questions. Can you get them right without Googling?

Google celebrates Samuel Johnson’s 308th birthday today with a new doodle. Johnson was born on 18 September 1709, but when was his hugely influential A Dictionary of the English Language published?

1729

1745

1755

1765

How long did it take Johnson to write the work?

Two years

Eight years

Twenty years

Fifty years

How many entries did it run to?

4,776

21,123

42,773

100,000

Which profession does Johnson describe in the dictionary as that of a “harmless drudge”?

Lamp lighter

Publisher

MP

Lexicographer

And to what is he referring here? “A man of artifice; one of deep contrivance.”

A politician

A literary agent

An actor

A publisher

Which word does Johnson describe in his definition as “a ludicrous word”?

Jobberknowl

Loggerhead

Far-fetch

Whig

What is Johnson defining here? “A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland appears to support the people.”

Whisky

Bran

Wheat

Oats

What is his definition of "depucelate"?

To bereave of virginity.

A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity.

Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.

A dish so changed by the cookery that it can scarcely be known.

What is Johnson defining here? “To deprive a dog of something, nobody knows what, under his tongue, which is said to prevent him, nobody knows why, from running mad.”

The verb “to castrate”

The verb “to worm”

The verb “to dock”

The verb “to deflea”

Johnson did make the occasional mistake in his dictionary – for example defining a pastern as “the knee of a horse” when it is in fact “the part of a horse's foot between the fetlock and the hoof” (says Collins). How does Boswell say he responded when asked why he made the mistake?

"Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance."

“My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.”

“Words are but the signs of ideas.”

“A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.”

Six years after he left London for New York, is the novelist feeling homesick? He talks about the shock of Trump and status anxiety on both sides of the pond

For the past nine months, Martin Amis has been living in his mother-in-law’s house, a grand, many-storeyed residence in downtown Manhattan to which he and his wife, the novelist Isabel Fonseca, decamped after a fire wrecked their home. This was the place in Brooklyn where they had been living since 2011, and almost a year after the fire – the result of a defective chimney and which, Amis says, broke out on New Year’s Eve like “the last kick in the arse of 2016” – he still looks like a man who has suffered a shock. In the gloomy drawing room, he moves stiffly around nursing a back injury, ruefully enumerating the ways in which old houses can ruin one’s life. The property was salvageable, but the couple’s peace of mind was not, and they will soon be moving to a new home, an apartment in a skyscraper in downtown Brooklyn. “It’s on the 20th floor, so you are up there in the clouds,” he says. “It’s going to be very heady, certainly to begin with.”

It seems strangely fitting that, two years shy of his 70th birthday, Amis should be plunged into a modern setting, although the very idea of Amis at 70 is somehow absurd. For many, he is frozen in time as he appeared in the late 1980s and early 1990s: young, rangy, belligerent, chucking out neologisms with a verve readers found either delightful or altogether too much. Amis as elder statesman doesn’t compute, not for any lack of gravitas on his part – he is, as always, erudite, thoughtful, disinclined to hold back for the sake of an easier life – but rather for some quality in his writing, a youthful elasticity. He is still very much Amis, slyly commenting on the absurdities of his adopted American home, but this afternoon his energy seems tempered by a frailty of form. If an occasional note of hesitation creeps in, it serves as a reminder that, for even the boldest among us, age is a process of becoming steadily less sure.

The Man Booker-longlisted author on why she gave up writing in the early hours, the benefits of a good walk and why Twitter during work is a no-no

The day begins with the alarm at 8.30 and then commences the great struggle: wake up or go back to sleep. I am by nature a nocturnal person; the hours between midnight and 3am are when the world feels almost enchanted in its stillness, and writing comes most easily. Through my 20s, I wrote at night – 10pm to 4am. If I were a different kind of person, one who could shut out both the world and myself, in order to work I would still be writing during those hours. But my life requires both solitude and sociability, and in the interest of the latter I have to reshape the ways in which I interact with the former. So, no more writing into the early hours of the morning. The alarm rings; I struggle with myself; I get out of bed. (How long this process takes is entirely dependent on how keen or not I am to get to my writing desk).

Into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, and stop along the way to pick the Guardian off the doormat. Drink coffee; read paper. (How long this process takes is entirely dependent on how keen or not I am to get to my writing desk). Then I change into something comfortable verging on unviewable by the outside world. I read what I’ve written the day before, read it out loud to see if the ear might pick up flaws and failures that the eye can’t see. This is necessary, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a form of procrastination.

^‘I wrote the book primarily in 2016,” Attica Locke says of her new crime novel Bluebird, Bluebird, “so the rise of Donald Trump and of people feeling free to speak their white supremacist beliefs” had begun. The plot revolves around murders with a connection to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas: “Are you talking about the Klan?” her hero, Darren Mathews, is asked. “Worse,” he replies: “It’s the Klan with money and semi-automatic weapons.” The politics of race saturate the suspenseful tale, which is the first in a series set in the near present day. “When Trump was elected,” Locke tells me, “I remember feeling: oh my God, overnight my book changed, and I didn’t alter a word.”

Mathews, a Texas Ranger beset by difficulties but proud to wear the lone-star badge, is determined to investigate “homicides with a racial element – murders with a particularly ugly taint”. He reflects on the long history of racial prejudice his family has suffered and his recent hope that “change might trickle down from the White House”. But “in fact the opposite had proved to be true. In the wake of Obama, America had told on itself.” Locke has been forthright in her analysis of the discomfort many Americans felt having a black man as president: “A large segment of white folks … could not take that.” Interviewed hours after Trump’s election, she saw his victory “through the lens of race”, as a “backlash” to Obama.

The author believed he had mislaid the manuscript for a novella that was ‘perfect in every way’ – but now thinks he didn’t write it at all

Name: Ian McEwan.

Age: 69.

The illustrator responds to Iain Sinclair’s essay about losing his compulsion to write about London

As a judge of this year’s Forward poetry prizes, the illustrator was inspired to create sketches for each of the poets on the best collection shortlist

As the new spy novel is released, the illustrator conjures up an alternative medium on which to enjoy Smiley and the Circus …

The two novelists have used Greek tragedy and Shakespeare respectively to tell tough stories of modern life. They discuss how they went about it

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Kamila Shamsie’s Booker-longlisted Home Fire co-opts the classical story of Antigone to the very modern subject of the radicalisation of young Muslim men in the UK. In this scorching new rendition, Parvaiz is Polynices and Aneeka the sister who - in Sophocles’s drama - refuses to leave the her brother’s body until he has a proper burial.

The acclaimed Irish novelist talks to Charlotte Higgins about House of Names, his reimagining of the Greek tragedy of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon

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Colm Tóibín is the author of nine novels, including Brooklyn and Nora Webster, and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker prize three times. His subjects have ranged from the imagined inner life of Henry James (The Master), and the grief of Jesus’s mother (The Testament of Mary).

The Gruffalo’s co-creator shows us how he draws and paints the illustrations for Julia Donaldson’s much-loved children’s books

We visit the Edinburgh international book festival to speak with Man Booker nominee Whitehead, Norwegian author Lars Mytting and British novelist Rachel Seiffert

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On this week’s show we visit the Edinburgh international book festival, where we nab Booker nominee Colson Whitehead, Norwegian author Lars Mytting and British novelist Rachel Seiffert, and hear two rising stars of spoken-word poetry.

With around 1,000 speakers from 50 countries, this year’s Edinburgh international book festival included appearances from Val McDermid, Simon Callow and Paul Auster

They were an explosion of graphic design, cheating audiences with promises of raunchy scenes that never materialised. Collector Tony Nourmand reveals the real sordid truth about X-rated movie posters

On this week’s podcast, we talk to the Chinese-American author Jenny Zhang and the Colombian writer Carolina Sanín

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On this week’s show, the musician and writer Emmy the Great talks to Jenny Zhang. Born in Shanghai and raised in New York, Zhang’s first collection of short fiction, Sour Heart, is a made up of loosely-connected stories featuring the daughters of Chinese immigrants.

The Book of Dust is a forthcoming trilogy of fantasy novels by Philip Pullman, a companion series to His Dark Materials. The first book, La Belle Sauvage, is set 10 years before Northern Lights and centres on Lyra Belacqua, one of the original protagonists. Alethiometers, dæmons and the Magisterium also return, alongside new characters, including a new hero. La Belle Sauvage will be published in October 2017

• Read an extract from La Belle Sauvage

Ira Lightman is a man on a mission: to root out plagiarism in poetry. And his latest case is the most shameless yet

The poet Ira Lightman stared at his laptop screen in disbelief. Could it be true? He was sitting on the sofa in his terrace house in Rowlands Gill, five miles south-west of Newcastle, a narrow man with a curly mess of dark red hair. He’d just made a routine visit to the Facebook group Plagiarism Alerts. There, a woman named Kathy Figueroa had posted something extraordinary: “It appears that one of Canada’s former poet laureates has plagiarised a poem by Maya Angelou.”

Lightman clicked the link. It led to a Canadian government webpage where a poem had been chosen to honour the memory of Pierre DesRuisseaux, Canada’s fourth parliamentary poet laureate, who died in early 2016. The poem, it said, had been translated from DesRuisseaux’s French original. Lightman read the opening lines: “You can wipe me from the pages of history/with your twisted falsehoods/you can drag me through the mud/but like the wind, I rise.” The poem was called I Rise. Next, Lightman looked up the Maya Angelou. “You may write me down in history/With your bitter, twisted lies/You may trod me in the very dirt/But still, like dust, I’ll rise.” The poem was called Still I Rise.

The writer and broadcaster on a career ranging from Émile Zola to children’s poetry with wee-wee jokes

Michael Rosen is a man ambushed by stories – his own and other people’s. He thinks he has published four books so far this year, though neither he, nor anyone from what turns out to be five publishers, seems sure. No sooner had he sent his latest, a hefty memoir, to press than a stash of family photographs emerged from a cupboard in the US, adding an irresistible twist to his life story, and that of his extensive tribe. The result, he cheerfully announces, is that the proof copy I have just read is already out of date as he has added a new postscript to the finished version.

Related: So They Call You Pisher! by Michael Rosen review – style and humour

From Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts in 1930s London to the recent violence in Charlottesville, the cult of hatred lives on

In 1934 the Daily Mail called Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists, “the paramount political personality in Britain”. The BUF was then enjoying a wave of popular enthusiasm and its membership was up around 34,000. Blackshirts marched through British towns and cities, and new recruits were encouraged simply to fall in behind. There was high unemployment in Britain at the time, particularly in the north, and Mosley’s appeal was in part the promise to restore jobs. A charismatic megalomaniac of immense wealth, convinced he was born to rule, Mosley also attracted support from middle-class Tories. They shared his vaunted pride of race, love of country and his commitment to law, order, free speech and “English methods”.

Jews were not admitted to the BUF, but Mosley was not at this time a rabid antisemite. He said national pride had no need of the “delirium of race”. But he came to realise that a movement requires a scapegoat, and that Jews fitted the bill. He said as much to Lord Sieff of Marks and Spencer, in Sieff’s own home, and to his surprise was at once thrown out. Meanwhile BUF marches, meetings and street violence continued unabated, and it was Mosley’s hope that political disorder would eventually precipitate a crisis that would sweep him into power.

My Absolute Darling is a page-turning thriller that’s been compared to Catch-22 and To Kill a Mockingbird by Stephen King. Its author reveals how a feminist, bushwhacking childhood in California inspired his dark debut

Turtle Alveston, the 14-year-old heroine of My Absolute Darling, one of the most talked-about novels of the year, eats raw eggs for breakfast, cracking them into her open mouth. She sleeps on the floor, skins and roasts rabbits over a fire of dried grass and is an expert shot, spending her evenings meticulously cleaning guns. She even snacks on scorpions. Turtle is “a person of great strength and personal resources and courage,” her creator, 30-year-old Gabriel Tallent tells me. But he adds: she’s “a girl who’s lost.”

Turtle lives in a ramshackle house on the northern California coast with Martin, her survivalist father; the windows are boarded up, cooking pans are left to be licked clean by raccoons. There are supplies of dried food in the basement – humanity is “slowly, ruinously … shitting in its bathwater”, Martin tells his daughter – and the gravel drive is littered with bullet casings. Turtle’s father is charismatic, macho and handsome, an eloquent self-taught philosopher with a deep feeling for nature: Tallent describes him to me as “visionary”. He is at times a “tender” father and certainly a loving one. He’s also a monster, who verbally, physically and sexually abuses Turtle, and insists on exerting total control over her. “You are mine”, he growls. She adores him and hates him and knows she needs to escape.

Last year the New York Times CEO and ex-BBC boss published a book lamenting the decline in political discourse. With the advent of Brexit and Trump, he’s had to write a new chapter…

Mark Thompson is the chief executive officer of the New York Times. He is also the former director general of the BBC and, before that, the chief executive of Channel 4. Last year he published Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong With the Language of Politics, a condemnation of current political discourse that was described by this newspaper’s Andrew Rawnsley as “elegantly argued… in cool, nuanced and forensic prose” but also a “blistering flame-thrower about the consequences of the digital revolution”. For the paperback edition, Thompson has added a postscript that deals specifically with the fallout from Brexit in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in the US.

What made you want to write this book?
Mark Damazer [former controller of Radio 4, now master of St Peter’s College, Oxford], a friend from the BBC, asked me if I wanted to give a series of lectures on public languages, on rhetoric. And I said no, I don’t know anything about it and I’m not interested in it. This was back in 2012. And then I spent about a week turning it over, and by the end of the week I figured out that actually I did have something to say, and that something had gone wrong in the relationship between politicians and the media and the public.

Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder work like antagonistic muscles in the imagination, pulling with and against each other. Bosch is a painter of medieval hellfire whose fantastical creations exceed our nightmares. Bruegel, most memorably and wonderfully, shows us a recognisable world where children lick bowls clean, bagpipers draw breath and harvesters stretch out in the sun. Turning from metaphysics and from myth, he attends to the ploughman who labours his way across a field while Icarus falls into the sea far below. Bosch’s pale figures belong to the international gothic; Bruegel’s weighty peasants dance vigorously into modern times.

Yet Bruegel (born 10 years after the elder artist’s death) was greeted by his contemporaries as a “second Bosch”, and the connections between the two Netherlandish masters have fascinated viewers for centuries. In this revelatory new study, the US art historian Joseph Leo Koerner argues that they are – together – the originators of what would later be called “genre” painting.

Success allowed the writer to escape the past, but at a cost: nightmares haunted him. Here, he recounts how he escaped the terrifying stranger stalking his dreams

The town was up in the mountains, a little Ruritanian place of cobbled streets and timber-framed houses. It was market day and in the main square, crowds of locals browsed stalls piled with fresh bread, cheese and cooked sausage. I drifted among them, passing unnoticed.

In the afternoon the sun slid behind the mountains. With the waning of the light a madness seemed to infect the crowd. Uniformly they turned to me, evil intent in their eyes.

The Library of Congress will host an array of programming this fall season that celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month, welcomes a new poet laureate and introduces new ways to experience the nation’s library through author talks, tours and online offerings. 

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month, between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15, with a collections display and series of lectures, concerts, book talks and other programs and initiatives. The programs are being hosted by various divisions throughout the Library. All events are free, but tickets are required for some, and there may be special restrictions.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

What is life? How might life have emerged on Earth or on other worlds? And how might we engineer the future of life—what might we make life to be? Astrobiologists and synthetic biologists grapple with these questions every day. To further explore the intersections between these sciences and the humanities, the Library of Congress is bringing together scientists, scholars, artists and journalists for a special symposium on Thursday, September 28.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Twice each year, the Library of Congress opens its magnificent Main Reading Room to share information about how the public can access the Library’s resources year-round. The Main Reading Room will be open to the public on the federal Columbus Day holiday, Monday, Oct. 9, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Main Reading Room is located on the first floor of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First Street S.E., Washington, D.C.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

From a great lineup of authors—including more than 40 who write for children and teens—to special guests like Captain Underpants and new, exciting activities designed to delight and inform, the 2017 Library of Congress National Book Festival will be a literature adventure for kids of all ages. The 17th National Book Festival will be held at the Washington Convention Center from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 8:30 a.m. ET) on Saturday, Sept. 2. The event is free and open to the public. The Convention Center Expo Floor (located on the lower level in Halls A, B and C) will include two dedicated children’s stages and family-friendly activities from the Library of Congress and festival sponsors.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Six new and returning live acts take the stage at the Packard Campus Theater next month. Four evenings of silent film screenings with live musical accompaniment will also be featured during the month of September. 

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress kicks off its 2017-2018 concert season with a terrific pair of back-to-back concerts.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress will host the appointment ceremony of the sixth class of the National Student Poets Program, honoring five outstanding youth poets from across the United States for their original work.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

In commemoration of Constitution Day, the Law Library of Congress will host constitutional law and history professor Michael J. Klarman of Harvard Law School, who will discuss his book, “The Framers’ Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution.”

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Best-selling Armenian-American author Chris Bohjalian will deliver the 21st Vardanants Day Armenian lecture, titled “Echoes of Anatolia: An Armenian-American Novelist Discovers his Literary DNA at Mid-life.” Bohjalian’s lecture, which will explore the influence of ethnic identity on literary creativity, will take place at noon on Friday, Sept. 1 in the Northeast Pavilion of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, located at 10 First Street S.E., Washington, D.C.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Highlights on the August schedule for the Library of Congress Packard Campus Theater include World War II films that commemorate the U.S. Army Air Force’s bombardier training program and the 75th anniversaries of the Siege of Malta and the Battle of Mount Austen in Guadalcanal. Blues songwriter, singer, guitarist and Virginia native Eli Cook will perform live in concert on August 18.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress  will host the concluding day of the groundbreaking “Asian American Literature Festival” on Saturday, July 29.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

On July 25, the Library of Congress will host a daylong symposium featuring a cadre of experts to explore the value of using digital collections and their impact on the public.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The roots of skiffle as a musical genre and its influence on popular music will be discussed in a book talk by singer and guitarist Billy Bragg at 7 p.m., Friday, July 21, at the Library of Congress.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

A series of films released in the seventh year of the decade, ranging from silent romantic comedy “Breakfast at Sunrise” (1927) to the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic,” will be screened the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus Theater in July. Many National Film Registry titles are featured in the lineup including “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967), and Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937).

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress will host a special outdoor film festival this summer to showcase several modern classics that have been added to the Library’s National Film Registry. The six-film series will be presented on Thursday evenings at 8 p.m. from July 13 through August 17 on the north lawn of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, across the street from the U.S. Capitol.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

“Resistance and Rights: Civil Liberties during World War I” will take place from 2:15 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 8, in the Montpelier Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C.  The event is free and open to the public.

The symposium is hosted by the Law Library of Congress and the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.  It is made possible by the James Madison Council, the Library’s private-sector advisory council.

Click here to register.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress today announced that Lynda Carter, the famed actress known for her role as Wonder Woman, will appear at Library festivities celebrating the world of comics. 

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Between August 1914 and November 1918, World War I eradicated empires, ignited the Russian Revolution, reconfigured the world map and marked a turning point for the United States. A new book available today commemorates the centennial of that decisive moment in American history.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress announces “Pride in the Library,” a pop-up display that will feature items from the Library’s extensive LGBTQ+ collections and will be on view June 8-10, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. plus a series of related programs.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Nearly 100 comic-book collection items will be on display for “Library of Awesome,” a pop-up exhibit featuring items from the Library’s comic-book collections presented in conjunction with Awesome-Con, Washington, D.C.’s annual convention of comics, cosplay and pop culture.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Law Library of Congress will present a live performance titled, “Justice for Shylock: A Mock Appeal Commemorating the 500th Anniversary of the Venice Ghetto” on Wednesday, June 21. The event is free, but tickets are required.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The American family comedy team known as The Marx Brothers was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Three films that feature appearances from the brothers will open this month’s screenings at the Packard Campus Theater.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress has an extensive collection of these maps in its Geography and Map Division. Many of the maps reproduced in “Picturing America: The Golden Age of Pictorial Maps” by Stephen J. Hornsby are from the division’s collections. Hornsby will discuss and sign his book at the Library on Wednesday, May 24.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Veterans History Project (VHP) today launched “A World Overturned,” the final chapter in a three-part, online website series titled “Experiencing War,” dedicated to U.S. veterans of the First World War. “A World Overturned” highlights eight digitized veterans’ stories about how World War I forever changed their lives, shared through original photographs, letters, diaries, memoirs and other materials.

Click here for more information.

The Library of Congress has put the papers of Alexander Hamilton online for the first time in their original format.

Click here for more information.

The Library of Congress today announced it has put online the first installment of a major oral history project documenting the diverse culture of contemporary workers around the United States. The Occupational Folklife Project, a multi-year initiative of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, launches today online with a collection of interviews from the Port of Houston.

Click here for more information.

In 1926, America celebrated the 150th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence. To mark the occasion, citizens of Poland – more than 5.5 million of them – signed a unique birthday card, The Polish Declarations of Admiration and Friendship. Now, all 111 volumes containing more than 30,000 pages – many beautifully illustrated or accompanied by photographs – are digitized and accessible on the Library of Congress website.

Click here for more information.

The Library of Congress has announced two new born-digital collections are now available on loc.gov – the Webcomics Web Archive and the Web Cultures Web Archive.

Click here for more information.

The Veterans History Project (VHP) has launched a web exhibit that complements the Library of Congress’s major exhibition “Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I.”  The three-part web companion, “Experiencing War,” will help tell the larger story of the war from the perspective of those who served in it. 

Click here for more information.

The Library of Congress has placed online nearly 25,000 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, which depict the structure and use of buildings in U.S. cities and towns. Maps will be added monthly until 2020, for a total of approximately 500,000.

Click here for more information.

Produced by the Japanese-Americans interned at assembly centers and relocation centers around the country during World War II, these newspapers provide a unique look into the daily lives of the people who were held in these camps. They include articles written in English and Japanese, typed, handwritten and drawn. They advertise community events, provide logistical information about the camps and relocation, report on news from the community, and include editorials. Included in this collection are 4600+ issues of 29 newspaper titles (in English, Japanese, or both) from camps in seven states.

Click here for more information.

Or read this blog post about the collection.

The papers of Margaret Bayard Smith (1778-1844), author and leader in Washington, D.C., social and political circles during the first decades of the nineteenth century, span the years 1789-1874. Topics covered include Washington, D.C., social life, presidential elections, the British occupation of Washington in 1814, and visits to the Virginia homes of Thomas Jefferson and James and Dolley Madison.

Click here for more information.

May is both Asian Pacific Heritage Month and Jewish American Heritage Month. The Library of Congress and other federal agencies join in paying tribute to the Asian and Pacific Americans and the Jewish Americans who have enriched America's history and are instrumental to its future success.

Click here for more information on Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

Click here for more information on Jewish American Heritage Month.

This exhibition showcases the Library’s extensive collections of original art by talented artists hired by both newspapers and television to capture the personal dynamics of legal trials.

Click here for more information.

The renowned Eastern Orthodox Monastery of St. Catherine’s on Mt. Sinai was constructed by the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian I, in the late sixth century AD over the relics of the martyred saint and the place of the biblical burning bush as identified by St. Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor, Constantine. It is home to reputedly the oldest continuously run library in existence today. Its holdings of religious and secular manuscripts are legendary and allegedly second only in number to the collection held by the Vatican: from bibles, to patristic works, to liturgies and prayers books, and on to legal documents such as deeds, court cases, Fatwahs (legal opinions). The greater proportion of the manuscripts were copied in Greek, and then in Syriac, Georgian, Coptic, Armenian, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and Ethiopic, as well as Old Church Slavonic.

In 1949, Kenneth W. Clark, led an expedition to the Middle East under the Auspices of the Library of Congress and its partners, to microfilm old manuscripts in various libraries of the Middle East, the largest and most isolated of which was that at St. Catherine’s. His group evaluated the 3,300 manuscripts held there and chose 1,687 for filming. Finally, the group also prepared under his direction a Checklist of Manuscripts in St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai Microfilmed for the Library of Congress (1950), which gave researchers access to both the manuscripts microfilms and the black and white transparencies.

Since its appearance, this set has been so widely consulted by scholars around the globe that the Library has now digitized the microfilms to facilitate their use by scholars worldwide. At the same time the descriptions of the manuscripts as found in the Checklist have also been edited and updated.

Click here for more information.

50 new items and biographies, added for National Poetry Month. Read Anne Holmes’ blog post about this collection.

Click here to visit the collection.

Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I examines the upheaval of world war as Americans confronted it— both at home and abroad. The exhibition considers the debates and struggles that surrounded U.S. engagement; explores U.S. military and home front mobilization and the immensity of industrialized warfare; and touches on the war’s effects, as an international peace settlement was negotiated, national borders were redrawn, and soldiers returned to reintegrate into American society.

here for more information.

The South-Central Georgia Folklife Project collection was an ethnographic field project conducted in the summer of 1977 by the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress and the Arts Experiment Station of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. The eight-county area chosen for the study is in the center of the "Wiregrass" region of Georgia. The collection consists of approximately 376 sound recordings, 14,300 photographs, 13 containers of manuscripts, 8 videocassettes, and 31 pen-and-ink drawings that document the folklife of south-central Georgia from July-August 1977. Topics of research were hymn singing, vernacular architecture, occupations, foodways, jokes, and stories from the region. Approximately 300 hours of audio and various local events were recorded.

Click here for more information.

The papers of Millard Fillmore (1800-1874), educator, U.S. representative from New York, vice president, and thirteenth president of the United States, contain approximately thirty-five items spanning the years 1839-1925, with the bulk dating from 1839 to 1870. The collection includes correspondence relating primarily to political issues such as slavery, Compromise of 1850, Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act, John Brown's 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, and congressional politics. Individuals mentioned in the correspondence include Thomas Hart Benton, John C. Calhoun, and William Henry Harrison. Fillmore's correspondents include Philip Ricard Fendall, Solomon G. Haven, and Humphrey Marshall.

Click here for more information.

The Library of Congress has established a channel on the Medium online publishing platform.

Click here for more information.

The Nation's Forum recordings were made between 1918 and 1920 in an effort to preserve the voices of prominent Americans; in most cases, they are the only surviving recordings of a speaker. The project originated with St. Louis attorney Guy Golterman (1879-1967), an active supporter of the opera and other performing arts. With the endorsement of the Department of State's Committee on Public Information -- a governmental propaganda ministry -- the Nation's Forum sought speakers, and the Columbia Graphophone Company pressed and distributed the recordings under the Nation's Forum label.

Click here for more information.

Annual update with 2016 additions to Recording Registry. Includes audio montage.

Click here for more information.

World War I Primary Source set for classroom use. Includes Teacher's guide. Also available in Student Discovery Set format for iPad via Apple iBooks.

Click here for more information.

The seven volumes of diaries and notebooks, 1793-1861, of Anna Maria Brodeau Thornton (ca.1775-1865) document her position at the center of a Washington, D.C., social circle that included George and Martha Washington, James and Dolley Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Margaret Bayard Smith and the cabinet members, congressmen and diplomats who constituted the city's entwined social and political worlds. Anna Maria Brodeau Thornton's papers consist of diaries and commonplace books, 1793-1861, which she began when she was 18 and ended at 86, a period of 68 years. These volumes document the operation of her household, including the management of slaves; travel, including visits to the Virginia homes of George and Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James and Dolley Madison; the construction of Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Capitol; the city under attack during the War of 1812; visits of the Count de Volney, 1796, and Alexander von Humboldt, 1804; an attempt on her life by Arthur, a slave, in 1835; the 1844 shipboard explosion that killed Secretary of State Abel Upshur and Treasury Secretary Thomas Gilmer; the inauguration of president James K. Polk in 1845; and the start of the Civil War.

Click here for more information.

The papers of Union soldier Samuel J. Gibson (1833-1878) consist of a diary kept by Gibson in 1864 while serving with Company B, 103rd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, and a letter to his wife while held as a prisoner at Camp Sumter in Georgia, the Confederate prisoner of war camp commonly known as Andersonville Prison. The diary documents the capture of the Federal garrison at Plymouth, North Carolina, in April 1864, and Gibson’s experiences as a prisoner of war at Andersonville, Georgia, and Florence, South Carolina. Gibson records war news and rumors received by the prisoners, the state of his physical and emotional health, the deaths of fellow prisoners, and the importance of his diary in maintaining a sense of time.

Click here for more information.

The papers of Franklin Pierce (1804-1869), army officer, representative and senator from New Hampshire, and fourteenth president of the United States, contain approximately 2,350 items dating from 1820 to 1869. They include correspondence, a photostatic copy of a diary kept by Pierce while serving in the Mexican War, drafts of Pierce’s messages to Congress, and an engraved portrait. Pierce’s correspondence relates chiefly to his service in the Mexican War, public affairs, and national politics.

Click here for more information.

A preview of the Library of Congress' comprehensive exhibition set to open in the Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C., on April 4. Featuring the Library's unparalleled collections related to the conflict, "Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I" examines the upheaval of world war as Americans confronted it—both at home and abroad. 

Click here for more information.

The Veterans History Project (VHP) today launched “PTSD: A Lasting Impact of War,” the latest installment in its online “Experiencing War” website series.

Click here for more information.

A poem by R. T. Smith from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Tom Wayman from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Theodore Roethke from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Jason Bredle from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by William E. Stafford from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Leanne O’Sullivan from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Mary Cornish from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Ron Koertge from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Brian Turner from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Yusef Komunyakaa from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by May Swenson from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Natalie Diaz from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Tracy K. Smith from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Billy Collins from the Library's Poetry 180 Project. This is the first Poetry 180 poem of the high school year.

A poem by Dorianne Laux from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

This is the final Poetry 180 poem of the season. This service will resume distributing Poetry 180 poems on Tuesday, September 5, 2017.

A poem by Laura Kasischke from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Phillis Levin from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Robert Francis from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Anna Denise from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem Andrea Hollander from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Jeffrey Harrison from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Lisel Mueller from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Major Jackson from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Dana Gioia from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Linda Gregg from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

Thursday, September 28, 12:00 PM
CONVERSATIONS WITH AFRICAN POETS AND WRITERS: ANTJIE KROG

South African writer Antjie Krog will read selections of her work and participate in a moderated discussion with Laverne Page, Africa Area Specialist in the African and Middle Eastern Division. This event is free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress African and Middle Eastern Division and presented in partnership with the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa and Howard University.

Location: African and Middle Eastern Division Reading Room, LJ-220, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Thursday, August 31, 4:00 PM
NATIONAL STUDENT POETS PROGRAM

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and Institute of Museum and Library Services Director Kathryn K. Matthew will appoint the sixth class of National Student Poets, five outstanding youth poets from across the United States, for their original work. Program to include a plaque ceremony and poetry reading. Public reception to follow. Free tickets required. 

Presented in partnership with the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

This event will be livestreamed via Facebook and YouTube (with captions).

Please click here for more information.

Thursday, August 31, 4:00 PM
NATIONAL STUDENT POETS PROGRAM

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and Institute of Museum and Library Services Director Kathryn K. Matthew will appoint the sixth class of National Student Poets, five outstanding youth poets from across the United States, for their original work. Program to include a plaque ceremony and poetry reading. Public reception to follow. Free tickets required. 

Presented in partnership with the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

This event will be livestreamed via Facebook and YouTube (with captions).

Please click here for more information.

Saturday, July 29, 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM
ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE FESTIVAL

Two events concluding a city-wide, three-day festival celebrating Asian American literature.

• 11:00 AM: American Book Award winner Karen Tei Yamashita gives a lecture, “Literature as Community: The Turtle, Imagination, and the Journey Home,” followed by a fiction reading featuring Kundiman fellows Vt Hung, Mark Keats and Sejal Shah. Book sales and signing to follow.

• 2:00 PM: Poetry Society of America President Kimiko Hahn gives a lecture, “Angel Island: The Roots and Branches of Asian American Poetry,” followed by a poetry reading featuring July Poetry magazine contributors Kazim Ali, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Paisley Rekdal, Gerald Maa, Sally Wen Mao, Rajiv Mohabir, Khaty Xiong and John Yau. Book sales and signing to follow.

Free tickets required. Full festival schedule available here. Presented in partnership with Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.

Location: Room 119, First Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

For more information, please click here.

Wednesday, April 26, 12:00 PM; 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
POET LAUREATE'S CLOSING EVENTS: SPEAK THE PEOPLE/THE SPARK/EL POEMA

A host of acclaimed scholars, musicians, and community organizers join Juan Felipe Herrera to close his second term as U.S. Poet Laureate. All events are free and open to the public. 

• 12:00 PM: Fresno State Chamber Singers Concert | Tickets available
  The Fresno State Chamber Singers, under the direction of Dr. Cari Earnhart, perform newly commissioned pieces created with Juan Felipe Herrera.
  
  Location: Room 119, First Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
  
  

• 7:00 PM: Panel Discussion and Quetzal Concert | Tickets required
  Panel discussion between Juan Felipe Herrera and Martha Gonzalez, Hugo Morales, and Louie Pérez, moderated by Rafael Pérez-Torres.  To close out the evening, Grammy Award-winning band Quetzal gives a concert
  
  Location: Coolidge Auditorium, Ground Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>

Book sales to follow panel discussion. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress Music Division, Hispanic Division, and American Folklife Center. Presented in partnership with California State University, Fresno, and the Fresno State Chamber Singers.

Contact: (202) 707-5394, poetry@loc.gov

These events will be livecast via YouTube and Facebook.

Thursday, April 20, 6:30 PM
BOBBITT PRIZE READING: NATHANIEL MACKEY AND CLAUDIA RANKINE

The co-winners of the 14th Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry—Nathaniel Mackey for Lifetime Achievement and Claudia Rankine for her book Citizen—read selections of their work. Book sales and signing to follow. This event is free and open to the public. Tickets available here.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Wednesday, April 26, 12:00 PM; 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
POET LAUREATE CLOSING EVENTS: SPEAK THE PEOPLE/THE SPARK/EL POEMA

A host of acclaimed scholars, musicians, and community organizers join Juan Felipe Herrera to close his second term as U.S. Poet Laureate. All events are free and open to the public. 

• 12:00 PM: Fresno State Chamber Singers Concert | Tickets available
  The Fresno State Chamber Singers, under the direction of Dr. Cari Earnhart, perform newly commissioned pieces created with Juan Felipe Herrera.
  
  Location: Room 119, First Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
  
  

• 7:00 PM: Panel Discussion and Quetzal Concert | Tickets required
  Panel discussion between Juan Felipe Herrera and Martha Gonzalez, Hugo Morales, and Louie Pérez, moderated by Rafael Pérez-Torres.  To close out the evening, Grammy Award-winning band Quetzal gives a concert
  
  Location: Coolidge Auditorium, Ground Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>

Book sales to follow panel discussion. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress Music Division, Hispanic Division, and American Folklife Center. Presented in partnership with California State University, Fresno, and the Fresno State Chamber Singers.

Contact: (202) 707-5394, poetry@loc.gov

These events will be livecast via YouTube and Facebook.

Thursday, April 20, 6:30 PM
BOBBITT PRIZE READING: NATHANIEL MACKEY AND CLAUDIA RANKINE

The co-winners of the 14th Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry—Nathaniel Mackey for Lifetime Achievement and Claudia Rankine for her book Citizen—read selections of their work. Book sales and signing to follow. This event is free and open to the public. Tickets available here.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Thursday, April 20, 6:30 PM
BOBBITT PRIZE READING: NATHANIEL MACKEY AND CLAUDIA RANKINE

The co-winners of the 14th Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry—Nathaniel Mackey for Lifetime Achievement and Claudia Rankine for her book Citizen—read selections of their work. Book sales and signing to follow. This event is free and open to the public. Tickets available here.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Wednesday, April 26, 12:00 PM; 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
POET LAUREATE CLOSING EVENTS: SPEAK THE PEOPLE/THE SPARK/EL POEMA

A host of acclaimed scholars, musicians, and community organizers join Juan Felipe Herrera to close his second term as U.S. Poet Laureate. All events are free and open to the public. 

• 12:00 PM: Fresno State Chamber Singers Concert | Tickets available
  The Fresno State Chamber Singers, under the direction of Dr. Cari Earnhart, perform newly commissioned pieces created with Juan Felipe Herrera.
  
  Location: Room 119, First Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
  
  

• 7:00 PM: Panel Discussion and Quetzal Concert | Tickets required
  Panel discussion with Juan Felipe Herrera and Martha Gonzalez, Hugo Morales, and Louie Pérez, moderated by Rafael Pérez-Torres.  To close out the evening, Grammy Award-winning band Quetzal gives a concert
  
  Location: Coolidge Auditorium, Ground Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>

Book sales to follow panel discussion. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress Music Division, Hispanic Division, and American Folklife Center. Presented in partnership with California State University, Fresno, and the Fresno State Chamber Singers.

Contact: (202) 707-5394, poetry@loc.gov

These events will be livecast via YouTube and Facebook.

Wednesday, April 12, 12:00 PM
CONVERSATIONS WITH AFRICAN POETS AND WRITERS: LIDUDUMALINGANI MQOMBOTHI

South African author and 2016 Caine Prize winner Lidudumalingani Mqombothi will read from his prize-winning short story “Memories We Lost” and participate in a moderated discussion with Laverne Page, Africa Area Specialist in the African and Middle Eastern Division. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress African and Middle Eastern Division, Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa, and The Caine Prize for African Writing.

Location: African and Middle Eastern Division Reading Room, LJ-220, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Tuesday, April 4, 7:00 PM
THE LIFE OF A POET: DANA LEVIN

Poet Dana Levin will discuss her work with Ron Charles, editor of The Washington Post's Book World. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are required. Co-sponsored by the Hill Center and the Washington Post.

Location: Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital (921 Pennsylvania Ave. SE)
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Monday, April 3, 7:00 PM
FICTION, FAITH, AND THE IMAGINATION

Authors/scholars Geraldine Brooks, Paul Harding, Steven Knapp, and Alan Lightman join 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction winner Marilynne Robinson in a panel discussion centered on intersections of fiction, faith, and the imagination. This event is free and open to the public with book sales and signing to follow. Tickets are required. Co-sponsored by the Kluge Center. The event will also be livestreamed on the Library’s YouTube channel.

Location: Coolidge Auditorium, ground floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Thursday, March 30, 4:00 PM
US/CA CAPITAL POETRY EXCHANGE

Canadian poets Suzanne Buffam, Liz Howard, and David O’Meara share and discuss selections of their work with Monty Reid, director of VERSeFest. The event is free and open to the public. Book sales and signing will follow. Co-sponsored by VERSeFest and the Embassy of Canada, Washington, D.C.  

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017, 2:00 PM
LIVE INTERVIEW WITH POET LAUREATE JUAN FELIPE HERRERA

Tune in with us tomorrow, Tuesday, March 21, at 2:00 PM, for a live event with NPR and Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera. Herrera will read from his work, discuss his path as a poet, talk about his process, and offer advice for young poets. He will take two questions from the audience via Facebook.

Location: The Library of Congress on Facebook

Thursday, February 16, 6:30 PM
INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE: IMMANUEL MIFSUD

Maltese poet and fiction writer, Immanuel Mifsud, will read and discuss his work with Lucia Wolf, Reference Librarian in the European Division. This event is free and open to the public. Co-Sponsored by Library of Congress European Division and presented in partnership with Embassy of the Republic of Malta supported by the Arts Council of Malta, New York. 

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394; lwolf@loc.gov

Please click here for more information.

Monday, February 13 - Tuesday, February 14, 4:00 PM
INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE: PABLO NERUDA
Two events celebrating Chilean poet and Nobel Prize winner, Pablo Neruda.

• Monday, February 13, 4:00 PM: (Mary Pickford Theater) Special advanced screening of Neruda, internationally co-produced biographical film directed by Pablo Larraín starring Gael Garcia Bernal. Co-sponsored by the Hispanic Division and presented in partnership with the Folger Shakespeare Theatre and the Embassy of Chile, Washington, D.C.
  
  
• Tuesday, February 14, 4:00 PM: (Mumford Room) Poet and translator Forrest Gander will read from his new book, Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda, and participate in a discussion with Chilean-born author Marjorie Agosín and Georgette Dorn, chief of the Hispanic Division. Co-sponsored by the Hispanic Division and presented in partnership with the Folger Shakespeare Theatre.

Location: Mary Pickford Theater, third floor, James Madison Building <view map>
                     Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact:  (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Friday, February 10, 1:00 PM
CONVERSATIONS WITH AFRICAN POETS AND WRITERS: AFRICAN POETRY BOOK FUND SPOTLIGHT

During the annual AWP Conference, African Poetry Book Fund board members Chris Abani, Matthew Shenoda, and Aracelis Girmay discuss contemporary African poetry with Mary Jane Deeb, chief of the African and Middle Eastern Division. Immediately following, Kwame Dawes will introduce African poets Yasmin Belkhyr, Chekwube O. Danladi, Safia Elhillo, Tsitsi Jaji, Mukoma Wa Ngugi, Ladan Osman, Hope Wabuke, and Patricia Jabbeh Wesley who will read from their work. This event is free and open to the public with book sales and signing to follow. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress African and Middle Eastern Division and presented in partnership with the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa and Prairie Schooner.

Location: Whittall Pavilion, ground floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Tuesday, February 7, 7:00 PM
THE LIFE OF A POET: BRENDA SHAUGHNESSY

Poet Brenda Shaughnessy will discuss her work with Ron Charles, editor of The Washington Post's Book World. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are required. Co-sponsored by the Hill Center and The Washington Post.

Location: Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital (921 Pennsylvania Ave. SE)
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016 – 6:30 PM
WITH BORGES: A CONVERSATION WITH MARÍA KODAMA

Jorge Luis Borges' widow, María Kodama, will be in conversation with professor of Spanish Saul Sosnowski (University of Maryland). This year marks the 30th anniversary of the author's death and this event will be part of a series of events coordinated by the Embassy of Argentine in Washington, DC. 

This event will be primarily in Spanish, though some translation will be available. Cosponsored by the Hispanic Division and the Poetry and Literature Center, in collaboration with the Embassy of the Republic of Argentina. Event is free and open to the public.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: cgom@loc.gov

Please click here for more information.

Friday, December 2, 12:00 PM
INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE: MIGUEL DE CERVANTES

William Egginton, Andrew W. Mellon Professor at Johns Hopkins University, will discuss his new book The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World. Co-sponsored by the Hispanic Division.  

Location: Mary Pickford Theater, Madison Building (3rd floor) <view map>
Contact: tguz@loc.gov

Please click here for more information.

Friday, November 18, 12:00 PM
CONVERSATIONS WITH AFRICAN POETS AND WRITERS: KWAME DAWES

Ghanaian writer Kwame Dawes will read selections of his work and participate in a moderated discussion with Angel Batiste, Africa Area Specialist in the African and Middle Eastern Division. This event is free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress African and Middle Eastern Division, and presented in partnership with the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa.

Location: African and Middle Eastern Division Reading Room, LJ-220, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Friday, November 4, 12:00 PM
CONVERSATIONS WITH AFRICAN POETS AND WRITERS: SHENAZ PATEL

Mauritian writer Shenaz Patel will read selections of her work and participate in a moderated discussion with Eve Ferguson, Africa Area Specialist in the African and Middle Eastern Division. This event is free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress African and Middle Eastern Division, and presented in partnership with the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa, the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State.

Location: African and Middle Eastern Division Reading Room, LJ-220, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Thursday, November 3, 4:00 PM
INTERNATIONAL WRITING PROGRAM SPOTLIGHT

Program residents Khaled Alkhamissi (Egypt), Ukamaka Olisakwe (Nigeria), Yaroslava Pulinovich (Russia), and Zhou Jianing (China) read selections of their work and participate in a moderated discussion with Christopher Merrill, director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Presented in partnership with the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State, and PEN/Faulkner Foundation.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.

Thursday, October 20, 6:30 PM
LAW & LITERATURE

Lawyer and poet Monica Youn reads from her new book, Blackacre, and participates in a discussion with Martha Dragich, Professor Emerita of Law at the University of Missouri. Co-sponsored by the Law Library of Congress.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building
Contact:  (202) 707-5394; (202) 707-6462

Please click here for more information.