Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, both reporters for the Washington Post, have sold their biography of George Floyd to Viking. The book, My Name Is George Floyd, is set for publication in May 2022.
Twitter cofounder and CEO Jack Dorsey has resigned and the company’s former CTO, Parag Agrawal, will be taking over. Dorsey wrote to the staff: “I’m really sad . . . yet really happy. There aren’t many companies that get to this level.” Referring to his own decision to leave, he continued, “And there aren’t many founders that choose their company over their own ego. I know we’ll prove this was the right move.”
The New York State Assembly has released its report on its investigation of former governor Andrew Cuomo. Among the findings: the governor “utilized state resources and property, including work by Executive Chamber staff, to write, publish, and promote his book regarding his handling of the COVID-19 crisis—a project for which he was guaranteed at least $5.2 million in personal profit.” There is extensive evidence that state employees assisted the governor in the writing and promotion of American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic: “certain senior state officials worked extensively on the book, including attending meetings with agents and publishers, transcribing and drafting portions of the Book, coordinating the production and promotion of the Book, and participating in working sessions to review and finalize the Book.”
The Wirecutter Union is still on strike, asking shoppers to avoid visiting and shopping through the Wirecutter site through the end of Cyber Monday. On Twitter, the union recommends supporting other worker-led efforts, from the nurses’ strike at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Massachusetts to the Kellogg’s strike.
At Hazlitt, Donika Kelly talks about her recent book of poems, The Renunciations, published this Spring by Graywolf Press. Kelly told Sarah Neilson, “Artifice doesn’t have a negative connotation to me, and I don’t know how it could, since I’m a poet; so much of the genre relies on artifice.”
In the latest episode of the LARB Radio Hour, Melissa Anderson discusses her monograph on David Lynch’s 2006 film Inland Empire. Host Kate Wolf is also joined by Pippa Garner, an artist and inventor whose work satirizes American consumer culture.