"The robot agreed Cooper's sentences are long and his diction archaic." Rather than have an AI chatbot (mis)guide your reading of The Last of the Mohicans, get an expert's take in this interview with the editor of the LOA edition of the Leatherstocking Tales: www.loa.org/news-and-vie...

John Logan on James Fenimore Cooper: “Dive in and get reading” - Library of America

Tony Award–winning playwright John Logan is currently in the news for his latest project, Moulin Rouge! The Musical, now in previews on Broadway prior to its official opening on July 25. John Logan. (...

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Matt Pearce@mattdpearce.com · 2d ago

I’m learning that the people who gamified paragraphs are having trouble reading books. www.axios.com/2026/08/11/r...

Next week, Pulitzer-winning novelist Joshua Cohen leads an online class on the great Jewish American writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, covering three of his classic stories that bring the reader from Galician Poland to Manhattan’s East Side. Register on Eventbrite. www.eventbrite.com/e/reading-am...

Reading America: Acclaimed Authors on Great Writing That Resonates Today

An eight-part series of online classes with Annette Gordon-Reed, Joshua Cohen, Colm Tóibín, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and more

eventbrite.com

Weasel murder mysteries, tunnel sagas of the earthworm—these are but two examples of “therolinguistics,” the fictional field of study invented by @ursulakleguin.com and now drawing new researchers thanks to a recent exhibit in Los Angeles. Find out more about the show and its mind-expanding subject.

Weasel Murder Mysteries and Tunnel Sagas of the Earthworm: A New Exhibit Explores Ursula K. Le Guin’s Therolinguistics - Library of America

In the Library of Antarctica, the noble literature of the emperor penguin is preserved in icy splendor. Sound farfetched? Ursula K. Le Guin didn’t think so, and neither does a new project inspired by ...

loa.org

Richard Hofstadter, author of the groundbreaking 1964 essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” (and other trenchant works on US history and culture), was born 110 years ago today. “American political life,” he wrote, “has served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry minds.”

The Paranoid Style in American Politics: Revisiting Richard Hofstadter in the Time of Trump - Library of America

LOA Live: A conversation with Sean Wilentz, Eric Foner, Arlie Hochschild, and Ira Katznelson October 13, 2020 — In his Pulitzer Prize–winning Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963) and in The Pa...

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Wendell Berry, novelist, poet, farmer, turns 92 today. “Though he starts with the Neolithic Village we all come from,” writes Gary Snyder, “his vision of North American possibilities reaches into different soils, climates, and cultures and suggests a future path of wisdom and right work worldwide.”

Wendell Berry - Library of America

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Ray Bradbury’s story “There Will Come Soft Rains” takes place today, August 4, 2026, detailing the programmed routines of an automated house left standing after nuclear war obliterates Allendale, CA. www.loa.org/books/659-no...

And the award for best bookshelf goes to... this longtime LOA fan, whose stunning collection caught our eye. (It certainly gives those of us with home libraries on the, um, messier side something to aspire to!)

“In the days when aspiring writers still cherished life experience over MFAs, the towering [Jim] Thompson worked a variety of unglamorous jobs including hotel worker, plumber’s helper, truck driver, pipe-liner and harvest hand before becoming a professional author.” crimereads.com/kubrick-jim-...

Sinners, Saints and Screenplays: On Jim Thompson and Stanley Kubrick

Recently I’ve been watching my former Chelsea, NYC neighbor Ethan Hawke in the cool FX neo-noir series The Lowdown, which is streaming on Hulu. Though I won’t get into the plot of this sizzling sou…

crimereads.com

Democracy in America author Alexis de Tocqueville was born on this day in 1805. How did an aristocratic lawyer from France pen perhaps the most enduring work on American politics and civic life? An expert panel including @jbf1755.bsky.social explored the question during a recent LOA LIVE event.

Reading Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America Now - Library of America

LOA LIVE Wednesday, September 10—Two centuries on, Alexis de Tocqueville’s brilliant Democracy in America remains the most prescient account of the virtues, and potential dangers, of our politics and ...

loa.org

The Queen Anne home of @ursulakleguin.com in Portland, Oregon, has been added to the National Register of Historic Places! “Within its walls, she produced many of the novels that transformed science fiction and fantasy into vehicles for exploring gender, politics, identity and culture.”

Historic Portland home where Ursula K. Le Guin wrote her greatest works gains national recognition - The Portland Tribune

One of Portland’s most important literary landmarks has earned national recognition. The Queen Anne home where acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin lived and wrote for nearly six decades has […]

portlandtribune.com

We've started to gather the fascinating conversations Ted Widmer has been having about The Living Declaration, including talks with @jamellebouie.net, Brian Bergstein @bostonglobe.com, and @bobcrawfordbass.bsky.social. Check them out at livingdeclaration.org/media.

Despite the end of reading having been declared, a friend and I are reading @libraryofamerica.bsky.social 19th century American short story collection together. A story a week and then we email each other our reactions. In general the stories are wilder than we might have guessed. Having good time

Don’t miss next week’s master class with historian Nell Irvin Painter, staging a meeting of the minds between near contemporaries Ralph Waldo Emerson and Sojourner Truth. Register on Eventbrite and find out more about LOA’s Reading America series. www.eventbrite.com/e/reading-am...

Reading America: Acclaimed Authors on Great Writing That Resonates Today

An eight-part series of online classes with Annette Gordon-Reed, Joshua Cohen, Colm Tóibín, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and more

eventbrite.com

This September, author and scholar Michael Gorra leads an online class on America’s quintessential literary art form: the short story. Trace the genre’s development through eight of its greatest practitioners, from Edgar Allan Poe to Eudora Welty. Register now: www.eventbrite.com/e/the-americ...

The American Short Story

Acclaimed scholar and critic Michael Gorra leads an online course on the American short story, from Edgar Allan Poe to Eudora Welty

eventbrite.com

Born on this day in 1849, the poet Emma Lazarus is perhaps best known for her sonnet to the Statue of Liberty, “The New Colossus.” “From her beacon-hand / Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command / The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.” loa.org/writers/121-emma-lazarus/

Ernest Hemingway, born July 21, 1899, remade the sound and style of literary English with his debut novel, The Sun Also Rises, published a century ago. Discover this masterpiece in a new annotated edition, with hundreds of illustrations, photographs, and marginal notes. www.loa.org/books/the-an...

The Annotated Sun Also Rises - Library of America

Introduction by Adam Gopnik Arriving in early September. Reserve your copy today at the special prepublication price and it will be shipped to you as soon as books arrive in the warehouse—weeks befor...

loa.org

Historian Ted Widmer sat down with Christina Shutt of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library to discuss the Declaration of Independence, with readings from actors Maura Kidwell and Chiké Johnson. Watch the full program on YouTube, hosted by Chicago Public Library: www.youtube.com/live/TTjGrn9...

The Living Declaration

YouTube video by Chicago Public Library

youtube.com

Historian Ted Widmer teamed up with antiquarian bookseller William Reese Company to identify some remarkable historic documents and manuscripts tied to the Declaration of Independence. Browse images of these fascinating texts and read Widmer’s commentary: www.williamreesecompany.com/media/wysiwy...

Tonight, historian Ted Widmer and Christina Shutt of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum discuss divergent readings of the Declaration of Independence. Attend in person at Chicago Public Library or catch the livestream at 6 pm CT. chipublib.bibliocommons.com/events/6a035...

The Living Declaration

CPL partners with Library of America and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum to commemorate America's 250th Anniversary with The Living Declaration, a discussion and celebration of the...

chipublib.bibliocommons.com

Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the graduation address at @harvard.edu Divinity School on July 15, 1838, stoking outrage. One Unitarian periodical proclaimed that his ideas “…so far as they are intelligible, are utterly distasteful” and were, in their eyes, “neither good divinity nor good sense.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson - Library of America

loa.org

"... a Palace, / Lofter, fairer, ampler than any yet, / Earth's modern wonder... / with glass and iron facades, / Gladdening the sun and sky... / Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner, Freedom." Walt Whitman wrote these lines for the 1853 World's Fair in NYC, which opened July 14.

In Carson McCullers news (the best kind): "The house saw a revolving door of entertainment and cultural icons; Marilyn Monroe (pictured, being kissed on the cheek by McCullers), Arthur Miller, Edward Albee and Isak Dinesen all sat at her marble dining table." news.columbusstate.edu/posts/a-lega...

A Legacy Restored: Carson McCullers’ Nyack home bridges the Hudson and the Chattahoochee

news.columbusstate.edu

“When we think of fantasy sagas aimed at young adults, we tend to think of Hogwarts… But before all of that, there was another fantasy series that broke new ground.” Collider shouts out LOA’s forthcoming two-volume edition of @ursulakleguin.com’s Earthsea series, in bookstores this October.

The Fantasy Saga That Helped Inspire Harry Potter Is Getting a Huge New Release

Ursula K. Le Guin’s beloved fantasy series that helped inspire Harry Potter is getting a new 6-book boxed set.

collider.com

“The Fourth of July has come and gone, but the celebration of America’s semiquincentennial continues apace,” writes the New Criterion of our 4-part set of writings from the founding era. “Each volume is, of course, a typically handsome Library of America production.” newcriterion.com/dispatch/the...

“The Critic’s Notebook,” by the Editors

Weekly recommendations from the Editors on what to read, see, and hear in the world of culture.

newcriterion.com

“Murder, suicide, spontaneous combustion, sleepwalking, ventriloquism: these are some of the sensational events in the novels of Charles Brockden Brown.” On @theconversation.com, a look at the American gothic progenitor and the nation’s first professional author, whose work continues to captivate.

The Founding Father of American literature, Charles Brockden Brown saw his nation’s dark side

Charles Brockden Brown’s work addressed the violence, psychological torment and corruption that Americans faced in urban centres and along the frontier.

theconversation.com

Among the most, um, vocal reassessments of the Declaration of Independence comes in the form of 1776 the musical, a personal favorite of Laurence Maslon, editor of LOA’s American Musicals volume. Read his take on this singular blend of pop history and pop songwriting. www.loa.org/news-and-vie...

The Ringing Legacy of 1776: Laurence Maslon on an Unlikely Musical Triumph Drawn Directly from American History - Library of America

For the Fourth of July holiday and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we’re pleased to present this essay by Laurence Maslon, editor of LOA’s two-volume American Musicals editio...

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Historian Ted Widmer and @nytimes.com columnist @jamellebouie.net recently discussed the Declaration of Independence at the New York Society Library. Catch their complete conversation, tracing the origins and legacy of the words that shaped America. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaQz...

Ted Widmer, The Living Declaration: A Biography of America's Founding Text, with Jamelle Bouie

YouTube video by The New York Society Library

youtube.com

There’s still time to register for our July 9 master class with historian @jbf1755.bsky.social on Alexander Hamilton and Alexis de Tocqueville, two key interpreters of American democracy whose writings continue to resonate. Registration info on Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.com/e/reading-am...

Reading America: Acclaimed Authors on Great Writing That Resonates Today

An eight-part series of online classes with Annette Gordon-Reed, Joshua Cohen, Colm Tóibín, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and more

eventbrite.com

The utterly original and tragically short-lived short story author Breece D’J Pancake was born on this day in 1952. His writing, set in the isolated Appalachian world he grew up in, is beautiful, stark, and solemn, winning admirers from Joyce Carol Oates to Lorde. www.loa.org/books/641-th...

The Collected Breece D’J Pancake: Stories, Fragments, Letters - Library of America

“The stories [are] tense, elegiac, remorseless in their insistence on the past’s dominion over the present. . . . As compactly and tightly written as prose poems.” —Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Tim...

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Stock up on summer reading during our flash 15% off sale this weekend! All titles on our Web Store are discounted through Monday, June 29 (including boxed sets and already on-sale books). Browse everything here: www.loa.org/books/