The Wirecutter Union is striking from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday and is asking for readers and shoppers to support a boycott of the website during that time. The strike plan comes after two years of bargaining with the New York Times Company, and, according to the union, amid continued “unfair labor practices and wage offers that significantly underpay our staff.” The union hopes to reach a deal with management by Black Friday.
More than seventy writers, artists, critics, and other luminaries have signed a letter supporting Sally Rooney’s decision to not publish the Hebrew translation of her latest book through Modan Publishing House in Israel. Rooney has clarified that “the Hebrew-language translation rights to my new novel are still available, and if I can find a way to sell these rights that is compliant with the BDS movement’s institutional boycott guidelines, I will be very pleased and proud to do so.” The letter points out that Modan “markets the work of the Israeli Ministry of Defence” and applauds her choice, calling it “an exemplary response to the mounting injustices inflicted on Palestinians.”
At NiemanLab, Joshua Benton writes about Alden Global Capital’s latest plan to profit on local newspapers. Benton covers an offer to buy Lee Enterprises, the parent company of more than seventy local media enterprises, and describes the New York–based hedge fund behind the proposed purchase as “the news industry’s ever-more-engorged leech, a cost-cutting omnivore that makes every newsroom it touches worse, King Midas in reverse.”
In the new episode of the LRB Podcast, Adam Shatz talks with historian Enzo Traverso, the author of the new book Revolution: An Intellectual History.
The New York Public Library has added to the growing pile of “best books of the year” lists. You can read Bookforum’s own list—with picks from Asali Solomon, Lauren Oyler, Justin Taylor, Frank Guan, and others—here.