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The Best Books of 2024 (So Far)

I am linking to this short list not because it is definitive or right, but because holy moses it is April. With the year a quarter gone, it makes sense to take stock of the year in books. Wandering Stars, included here, does seem to have an early case as the book of the year, but there is a long way to go (James is hot on its heels and closing). That said, it has been somewhat of a quiet year in books, but the first few months are always so. April is hot and the summer is always jammed.

After Allstora’s Messy Launch, The Lavender Rhino is Coming

Allstora’s launch, messaging, and response was a mess. The spirit didn’t seem to match the actions of the LGBTQ+-focused online store, at least at first. A more indie-spirited indie effort named The Lavender Rhino will open online April 6th, with aspirations for a brick and mortar store in the future. A word advice for this multi-colored pachyderm: get your story right about Ingram right now.

Horror Sales are Up 50%

There have been breakout hits, new imprints, and generally a mainstreamification of horror books over the last few years. And the sales numbers are following suit. This piece in The Guardian suggests that an evolution of horror towards issues confronting women has helped some horror titles in the social media world (caveat: no sales numbers for these titles are cited). I have a more general theory: kids who grew up in the 80s and after reading Stephen King in the library are now in their 50s and younger: prime ages to be writers and readers now. These folks are doing other things with horror, but it took several decades for their early exposure to manifest in their reading and writing habits.

Netflix's Scoop recreates the 2019 royal interrogation – but has the wrong focus

For our series Making of a Poem, we’re asking poets to dissect the poems they’ve published in our pages. Eliot Weinberger’s “The Ceaseless Murmuring of Innumerable Bees” appears in our new Spring issue, no. 247.

How did this poem start for you? Was it with an image, an idea, a phrase, or something else?

First, I doubt it qualifies as a poem. It starts out as a simulacrum of a poem and then turns into an essay—or at least what I consider to be an essay, which is sometimes mistaken for a poem or a prose poem.

Its origin was a letter I received out of the blue from a photographer in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Anne Noble, whose work includes portraits of  dead bees, some done with such devices as electron microscopes and 3D printers. She knew my collaboration with the Maori painter Shane Cotton (the essay “The Ghosts of Birds”) and asked me to write a text for a catalog of her photographs she was preparing.

Andrew Scott stars in a wonderfully creepy new series

February 28 – April 9, 2024

December 15, 2023 – April 7, 2024

How John Carpenter's absurd student spaceship movie Dark Star set a new template

The one time I met Lauren Oyler in person was in New York in the spring of 2018. I had been closely following her work as a critic and admired her intelligence and fearlessness. That exuberant night, she sat mostly quietly, with a look of anger, through a long evening at a bar, which ended late, outside a pizza restaurant, over greasy slices. She was the girlfriend of a friend of mine, who was the reason I was there. The next day, I learned that after they had gone home, she had dumped him. All of this made a deep impression on me. Not pretending to be having a good time. Some sort of power she embodied, just sitting there stonily. I have a terrible memory, but I remember that night—and her at the center of it—so vividly.

That spring, it seemed like everyone was talking about her hyperarticulate critiques of Roxane Gay, Greta Gerwig, and Zadie Smith. She was unafraid to use the full force of her critical eye to scrutinize even those artists who were mostly widely praised. Several weeks after we met, she wrote a defense of my novel Motherhood in The Baffler, responding to various prominent American female critics who had negatively reviewed the book. I wrote to thank her, and in the years since, we developed a correspondence and a friendship.

Three years ago, she published her first novel, Fake Accounts, about a young woman who flees to Berlin and interrogates her relationships and herself, while a Greek chorus of ex-boyfriends occasionally chimes in with corrections to her self-mythology.Her new book of essays, No Judgment, contains six pieces, all written specifically for the book. She thinks about the history of criticism in the form of star ratings on Goodreads; about gossip and anxiety. I was struck by the pleasure vibrating from these essays; the evident joy she takes, and freedom she feels, in writing and thinking in the essay form. I was eager to ask her certain questions outside the structure of our friendship. She is a critic I admire, with strengths that feel different from my own; in other words, someone to learn from.

INTERVIEWER

11 min read

Introduction

November 2023 marked twenty years since the repeal of Section 28. Introduced in 1988, Section 28 was a piece of legislation prohibiting the discussion of homosexuality within schools. Specifically, it forbade the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality, emphasising that no school maintained by the Local Authority could ‘teach the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationships’ . The legislation was wildly controversial, particularly due to the ongoing AIDS epidemic; whilst the legislation did not forbid sexual health education, many foresaw that the hostile educational environment being cultivated would not be conducive to effective HIV/AIDS education. As a result, many LGBTQ+ groups came together to stand up to this legislation, through the creation of community groups, protests, and publications. In Oxfordshire, this manifested in the creation of Gay and Lesbian Oxford Rights Campaign (GLO), and its publication, Pink Times. The group launched Pink Times to be ‘not just a newsletter, but an independent lesbian and gay newspaper for Oxfordshire ’.

Section 28’s legislative significance lies in the culture of silence and fear created for LGBTQ+ teachers, and the marked absence of positive education role models and discussions for queer youth. Though there were no cases of legal prosecution under the section, the metaphorical significance had an undoubtable effect on those working in the education sector – encouraging self-censorship and a sense of fear about what could or could not be brought into the workplace. However, its significance outside of its official legislative domain is also notable: bringing communities together in opposition to the section. Thus, this blog post examines some of the significant impacts of Section 28, as told through Pink Times.

The Inception of Pink Times

Oxford has an interesting history with Section 28. Though Section 28 marked a return to regressive legislation, it nonetheless had the effect of invigorating the community – bringing together different groups within the community to unite against the government’s oppressive legislation. This blog post takes a dive into some of the developments that emerged in Oxford, as reflected and recounted within the pages Pink Times.

From Gladiator 2 and Nosferatu to Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga