Michael Gorra reviews my new edition of Strong's Civil War Diaries in @nybooks.com. "It is the North's best record of the struggle's daily passions and woes, and essential reading for any student of the Civil War." @libraryofamerica.bsky.social www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

“Today, James Baldwin’s legacy seems assured, but this wasn’t always the case,” writes Ralf Webb in his @theguardian.com review of Nicholas Boggs’s Baldwin: A Love Story, the first major new biography of the genius essayist and novelist in thirty years: www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

Last week, acclaimed authors Joshua Cohen and Michael Cunningham explored the 19th-century American short stories that inspire them and remain resonant today. Catch a recording of their fascinating conversation, co-presented by LOA and the @columbiauniversity.bsky.social Center for American Studies.

John McPhee’s portraits of America’s wild places and the ingenious and resilient people who call them home are gathered in a new LOA collection, edited by David Remnick (@newyorker.com). Find the volume in bookstores today, or order a copy from our Web Store: loa.org/books/encounters-in-wild-america

George Templeton Strong was a “handsome, melancholy man” who wrote arguably the greatest civilian record of the Civil War. Funny as hell and a master of snark, his observations remain deeply relatable, writes @geoffwisner.bsky.social, editor of the new LOA edition of Strong’s classic diary.

“Kennedy is, at 98, a singular, ebullient literary voice. His novels keep alive the Albany of the 1930s: the domain of swells, sports, and bums, of women with appetites, of flophouses and bowling alleys in the dark hours.” On @literaryhub.bsky.social, a talk with the legendary author of Ironweed.

101 years ago, Mary Flannery O’Connor (she would drop the “Mary” during her time at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop) was born in Savannah, Georgia. “Mixing faith and grace with violence and dark comedy,” her biographer Brad Gooch wrote, “her shell-shocked attitude is neither sentimental nor dated.”

On April 7, join historians Tyina L. Steptoe, Keisha N. Blain, and Manisha Sinha for a discussion on powerful writings from the Jim Crow era, showing how Americans Black and white challenged racism and fought to create a better, more just nation. RSVP for free: www.eventbrite.com/e/voices-fro...

“It seemed that wherever history was being made, Jimmy Breslin was on the scene.” On our website, author Raj Tawney reflects on the streetwise language and truth-telling verve of the great New York City columnist, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary forty years ago. www.loa.org/news-and-vie...

Psst, Library of America is having a site-wide sale through this weekend. Get 15% off on all LOA books (including boxed sets and already discounted titles), no coupon code required. Browse new and recent volumes by William Kennedy, Jim Thompson, John McPhee, and many more at loa.org/books.

Philip Roth, born on this day in 1933, possessed, in his own words, a “passion for specificity, for the hypnotic materiality of the world one is in,” and sought in his writing “to discover the most arresting, evocative verbal depiction for every last American thing.” loa.org/writers/260-philip-roth/

“A truly great example of how writing helps people answer questions about what they think,” can be found in LOA's American Revolution volumes, writes @wsj.com. “Every last one... shows a mind grappling with difficult issues of law, historical events and an uncertain future.” loa.org/books/426

You may have seen that the British spy novelist Len Deighton died this week; what you may not have seen was that he illustrated the cover for the first UK edition of Jack Kerouac's On the Road in 1958! Check out this blog from the National Library of Scotland for more: blog.nls.uk/jack-kerouac...

James Madison—“the most astute, profound, and original political theorist among the founding fathers”—was born 275 years ago this week. A freshly reissued LOA edition of his writings features a striking new jacket and nearly 200 essential pieces by the Father of the Constitution. loa.org/writers/234

Last week, celebrated scholars Michael Gorra, Wendy Walters, and Brenda Wineapple delved into the era of the American Revolution and its aftermath with a trio of classic short stories that exert a profound (and profoundly spooky) influence on our national literature. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNXl...

Jack Kerouac, Beat icon and literary rebel, was born 104 years ago on this day, on March 12, 1922, in a French-speaking household in Lowell, MA. Discover the unknown side of the On the Road author in this LOA LIVE program exploring his complex relationship to language and identity.

Acclaimed novelists Joshua Cohen and Michael Cunningham discuss the 19th-century stories that have most influenced them. Join LOA and the @columbiauniversity.bsky.social Center for American Studies for this live, in-person talk on 3/25 at 6 pm ET. RSVP for free: www.eventbrite.com/e/modern-mas...

America’s “Dimestore Dostoevsky” gets his LOA due today, with the publication of Jim Thompson: Five Noir Novels of the 1950s & 60s! Discover the knockout novels of the underground writer Stephen King called “absolutely over the top.” Order your copy from the LOA Web Store and save 20%.

In @thebaffler.com, accolades for George Templeton Strong’s newly published Civil War Diaries: "Watching him navigate this new territory . . . is to observe a concerned citizen do his best to adapt as the political world changed rapidly and shockingly, a sobering object lesson for today’s reader."

In @parisreview.bsky.social, the unlikely link between the Civil War diaries of George Templeton Strong and Kamala Harris’s recent memoir: “It would seem that these writers... are main characters because their realities were, even during times of crisis and dissolution, like books.”

Our new edition of nonfiction giant John McPhee is an @airmail.news best! “Whether it be the Pine Barrens of New Jersey or the rivers of Maine and Alaska, McPhee is always in the company of locals whom he profiles as sharply as the terrain.” airmail.news/issues/2026-...

Look at this beauty! I renewed my @libraryofamerica.bsky.social membership & they sent it to me.

American literature has never been one-size-fits-all, and LOA’s upcoming releases explore great writing at every magnitude, from epic fantasy to blink-and-you’ll-miss-it micro-fiction. Read on for details about our lineup of titles hitting bookstores in Fall 2026. www.loa.org/news-and-vie...

Just arrived from @libraryofamerica.bsky.social:

The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories, edited by me, is a nominee for best collection for the @bsfa.bsky.social Awards! @libraryofamerica.bsky.social bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-awards-...

LOA’s recently published Walt Whitman: On Democracy has debuted on not one but two (!!) best-seller lists, hitting No. 3 on the Independent Bookseller Independent Press Top 40 and No. 15 on the Independent Bookseller Bestseller list. Order your copy from LOA and save 25%: www.loa.org/books/on-dem...

Why did Rip Van Winkle sleep through the Revolution? Join Michael Gorra, Wendy S. Walters, and Brenda Wineapple for a discussion of four classic stories that imaginatively explore the meaning of America's founding moment. RSVP for free: www.eventbrite.com/e/why-did-ri...

Last night, filmmaker Laura Dunn and Mary Berry of The Berry Center joined LOA for a fascinating Q&A on the documentary Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry. Watch a recording of the full conversation for an intimate look at Berry's world, writing, and philosophy: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mbF...

After reading one page of Prof. Jim Endersby's "The Arrival of the Fittest" (@uchicagopress.bsky.social) I interrupted my reading of it to read Edith Wharton's short story "The Debt" (@libraryofamerica.bsky.social) from which the title is taken so as to be ready for any forthcoming nuances. #Booksky

“The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression,” wrote W.E.B. Du Bois, the influential writer, sociologist, and civil rights activist, born OTD in 1868. His classic works like The Souls of Black Folk—“the Bible for Black intellectuals,” as Henry Louis Gates, Jr., called it—remain vital.

This weekend only, catch a free, limited-time screening of Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry, a documentary exploring the world of Henry County, KY, and its great chronicler. RSVP at this link and you’ll receive a link and passcode to view the film: email.loa.org/h/i/3CEFCEC8...

Last night, Brenda Wineapple and @geoffwisner.bsky.social discussed “the greatest American diary of the nineteenth century,”: George Templeton Strong’s civilian account of the Civil War in the north (recently published by LOA). Watch the full program for more on this historical-literary masterpiece.

Tonight, don’t miss our first free online program of the year, on the Civil War Diaries of George Templeton Strong—perhaps the greatest civilian account of the war, unfolding like a novel—with historian Brenda Wineapple and editor Geoff Wisner. RSVP for free: www.eventbrite.com/e/american-m...

Heck of a mail day. @3lobed.bsky.social and @libraryofamerica.bsky.social

RIP to the great actor Robert Duvall, who appeared in screen adaptations of four works in the LOA series: True Grit, The Natural, The Scarlet Letter, and In Dubious Battle. He also starred in True Confessions, which Joan Didion helped write for the screen. youtu.be/vs1U7U9sgXA?...

The noirs of Jim Thompson—charged with psychological complexity, gut-wrenching twists, and lurid detail—leaped off the pulp racks primed, his biographer Robert Polito writes, to take the tops off unsuspecting readers’ heads. Discover the wild life of the “Dimestore Dostoevsky” on our website.

Wendell Berry—novelist, poet, farmer, activist—has been compared to Faulkner for his revelatory writings. LOA and the Berry Center invite you to a free online screening of the evocative documentary Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry, streaming Feb. 20–22. RSVP now: email.loa.org/h/i/3CEFCEC8...

The Victorian Society (@vicsocny.bsky.social) welcomes editor Geoff Wisner (@geoffwisner.bsky.social) to speak about, "George Templeton Strong" (published @libraryofamerica.bsky.social) tonight at 6:30pm. We will be handling sales at the event this evening. #booksigning #nycevents

The Testimony of Henry Adams “highlights sustained, courageous efforts by Black Southerners to claim political power, defend their rights, and organize collectively in the face of overwhelming repression.” Learn more about the remarkable life of this soldier, faith healer, and political leader.

On Wednesday, Feb. 18, take a close look at “the greatest American diary of the nineteenth century” with historian Brenda Wineapple and @geoffwisner.bsky.social, editor of the new LOA edition of George Templeton Strong's Civil War Diaries. RSVP for free: www.eventbrite.com/e/american-m...

Happy birthday to John Guare, the prophetic playwright whose essential works were collected by LOA last year. “For Guare,” explains volume editor Michael Paller, “restoring theater to a place of poetry is the entire purpose of his self-declared ‘War on the Kitchen Sink.’” www.loa.org/news-and-vie...

Thornton Wilder’s Our Town—"probably the finest play ever written by an American,” said Edward Albee—made its Broadway debut on this day in 1938. Pay a visit to Grover’s Corners, NH, in this 2022 LOA LIVE event celebrating Wilder’s Pulitzer-winning masterpiece: youtu.be/TgUGGA1-lnY?...

This March, celebrated author and teacher Edward Hirsch returns for a new online course with Library of America exploring the transformative language, ideas, and emotions that animate American poetry and connect it to our everyday lives. RSVP now on Eventbrite! www.eventbrite.com/e/how-to-rea...

Thanks to @evavroslin.bsky.social for the morning shout-out that let me know The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories is on @locusmag.bsky.social's 2025 Recommended Reading list! @staceyarobinson.bsky.social @libraryofamerica.bsky.social

An incredible lineup of books in this NYPL list of 100 Black Voices, including many in the LOA series. One still-under-appreciated novel here is The Man Who Cried I Am by John A. Williams, an explosive combo of Black literary history and Cold War political thriller. www.nypl.org/books-more/r...

The short story might be America’s national art form, capturing the country’s moods and experiences like little else. On our website, Harvard’s John Stauffer explores the genre’s meteoric rise in the century of the Civil War and the industrial revolution. www.loa.org/news-and-vie...

Spotted in John Woo’s 1992 Hong Kong action masterpiece Hard Boiled: the Library of America edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories and tales! Seems fitting, as Poe arguably invented the modern detective story with his works “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter.”

Ursula K. Le Guin’s Book of Cats is “rife with worldly wisdom, containing small meditations on life, love and death, from one of the greatest writers of our time,” says @oregonian.com. “One should never underestimate Le Guin.” www.oregonlive.com/books/2026/0...

George Templeton Strong was “a vivid writer, a shrewd judge of men with a novelist’s eye for detail, and a man with a rare willingness to alter his opinions when facts intervened.” In @wsj.com, a look at LOA’s new edition of his Civil War Diaries, perhaps the greatest civilian account of the war.

Me: I love the nominations on this list, I bet I'll know the winners, this is great stuff @bsfa.bsky.social Also me: Oh damn The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories is nominated for best collection! @libraryofamerica.bsky.social