Melville House Books

For as long as these things have been tracked, it’s been believed that the first writing by an English woman dates to the later middle-ages. But as reported by Allison… Read more »

Last year we wrote about the annual tradition that is Collins English Dictionary word of the year, as chosen by lexicographers since 2013. Following on from last year’s winner “single-use,”… Read more »

Last week, we wrote about how a “stick to sports” mandate handed down to the popular sports and culture blog Deadspin from its parent company, G/O Media, was met with derision… Read more »

In an unsurprising move, President Trump has publicly endorsed his son’s (Donald Trump Jr.’s) new book, “a violation of ethics rules if it had come from any federal employee other… Read more »

In heartwarming bit of library news, famed, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Phillip Roth has left $2 million of his $10 million estate to the Newark Public Library, the Wall Street Journal reports.… Read more »

“Whom the gods would destroy, they make crazy first.” —Ancient Latin Adage I The idea that Donald Trump is some sort of mafia don—or “wannabe gangster,” as Robert DeNiro derisively… Read more »

We were stunned over here on John Street to learn that our namesake and inspiration Herman Melville enjoyed … bowling? It’s somewhat hard for us to picture our austere and… Read more »

If ever there was a time to read up on impeachment, it’s now. That’s right, the time has finally come: the House votes today on whether to move forward with… Read more »

Your faithful blogger here at MobyLives briefly considered writing a thoughtful entry on the moral and ethical issues of the posthumous publication of a famous person’s diaries. The peg would… Read more »

Dame Judi Dench is putting her money to good use: she’s funding the Bronte Parsonage Museum’s attempt to purchase a rare book written by Charlotte Bronte when she was a… Read more »

Back in May, Virago published Naomi Wolf’s new book Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love in the UK. Best known for her acclaimed feminist title The Beauty Myth, her… Read more »

Remember way back in that innocent time of September 2018, when an unidentified Trump administration official published a New York Times op-ed titled “I Am Part of the Resistance”? Does… Read more »

Last spring we passed the mic over to the good people at Lawrence, Kansas’s Raven Bookstore, who, in a Twitter thread of uncommon grace and style, articulated why (if one… Read more »

Karl Ove Knausgaard, Norwegian author of the six-volume My Struggle saga, has become the sixth author to sign onto the Future Library project. The project, brain-child of Scottish artist Katie… Read more »

At last, the art of Nobel-prize-winning literary icon Bob Dylan can be encountered in a new format … audio. Ok, so you’ve been able to listen to Bob Dylan’s work many decades… Read more »

Perfect news for spooky season: famed horror writer Stephen King is turning his home in Bangor, Maine into an archive and writer’s retreat.  According to Rolling Stone, King and his… Read more »

OK, I’ll level with you. Every week, we go through the books news looking for the most vital, interesting, controversial and otherwise blog-worthy stories. It’s fun! And the past couple… Read more »

Sheesh! Can’t any of these people do anything right? As though attempting to one-up a string of disappointing Nobel Prize decisions—including last year’s non-award scandal and this year’s decision to… Read more »

Harold Bloom—literary critic and longtime Yale professor—died on Monday at the age of 89. Bloom was perhaps the bestselling literary critic of all time. He is most known for his rigorous… Read more »

Japan is home to some of the oldest temples and shrines in the world, but it also is the birthplace of the world’s first novel, The Tale of Gengi. According… Read more »

Oh boy, we are excited today, because today is the rare day where we get to start a blog post with the line: HOT, HOT LITERARY SCANDAL. They don’t come… Read more »

After a year with no Nobel prize in literature (read about the Swedish Academy’s sexual abuse and financial misconduct scandal here), expectations were high. Two awards would be given: one… Read more »

Among the many vexing questions to arise in the wake of #MeToo: is there a place in the classroom for books written by men who have been accused of sexual… Read more »

What do you do after writing the bestselling memoir of all time, a book that sent you on a totally unprecedented stadium tour of book events and still sits comfortably on… Read more »

The Swedish Academy is set to announce two more Nobel laureates next week, after it did not hand out the prize last year. The postponement last year was the result… Read more »

Like a good legal thriller (even better, a radio serial), the story of Audible’s “Captions” program has us anticipating every new twist and turn. To recap the last few weeks of… Read more »