Tonight at 7pm Eastern time, Atlantic writer Adam Serwer will discuss his new book The Cruelty Is the Point: Essays on Trump’s America with How to Be an Antiracist author Ibram X. Kendi. You can register to attend the virtual event here.
Ben Cohen writes for the DC publication The Banter that Matt Tabbi—author of The Great Derangement and other books—has thrown “his considerable reputation down the toilet and joined the outer regions of far left/right conspiracy land.” Cohen laments the political contortions of Taibbi’s recent writing, particuarly in a piece on Fox News’s Tucker Carlson: “Taibbi paints Carlson as a victim of liberal hysteria and goes to great lengths to convince his readers that he is in fact a brave truth teller railing against the establishment.” Cohen then shows how much Taibbi “ignores the evidence” in order to write his Carlson “puff piece.”
LitHub reports that the American Booksellers Association recently promoted Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, sending copies to 750 bookstores. After a number of booksellers objected to the selection—Shrier’s book has been out for more than a year, and its anti-trans stance is well-documented—the ABA offered an apologized on Twitter. The ABA then deleted the apology and locked its Twitter account.
Writers are paying tribute to journalist Dawn Foster—a staff writer for Jacobin, a contributor to the London Review of Books, and the author of Lean Out—who passed away last week. “Dawn never wavered in her belief in a better world, and was never shy about fighting for it. She did not modulate her beliefs in pursuit of professional advancement,” wrote James Butler, co-editor of Novara. “The world did not always treat her kindly, but I never saw a trace of self-pity in her. I admired that greatly.”
At the New York Times, Abdi Latif Dahir writes about new journals such as Lolwe, Doek, Isele Magazine, Imbiza Journal, and Down River Road, which are showcasing new African writers.