Library of America

On Democracy (paperback) - Library of America Few writers have condemned America’s moral failures as harshly as Walt Whitman. But for all his fury over the nation’s “canker’d” political institutions (“saturated in corruption, bribery, falsehood, ...

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 American Revolution? Michael Gorra, Wendy S. Walters, and Brenda Wineapple discuss four classic short stories that illuminate the founding moment.

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...

YouTube video by Library of America Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry | Filmmaker Q&A

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

W.E.B. Du Bois - Library of America

“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.

Wendell Berry virtual screening. To RSVP, visit https://email.loa.org/h/i/3CEFCEC85E595373

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...

YouTube video by Library of America American Masterpiece: The Civil War Diaries of George Templeton Strong

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.

The Civil War Diaries of George Templeton Strong, with Brenda Wineapple and Geoff Wisner

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

YouTube video by Hey_ Joe Fill your hand you sonofabitch! - True Grit - John Wayne, Kim Darby & Glen Campbell

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?...

Dime Stores & Bus Stations: Robert Polito on the Savage Art of Jim Thompson - Library of America Jim Thompson lived hard and wrote with rawness, intensity, and a diabolical zeal for experimentation. His noirs—charged with psychological complexity, gut-wrenching twists, and lurid detail—leaped off...

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.

RSVP for the free virtual screening of Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry: https://email.loa.org/h/i/3CEFCEC85E595373

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

Henry Adams, the Collapse of Reconstruction, and the Determined Resistance of African Americans According to historian Steven Hahn, “Among the voices of America’s past, few are as arresting and distinctive as that of the freedman Henry Adams.”

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.

American Masterpiece: The Civil War Diaries of George Templeton Strong, with Brenda Wineapple and Geoff Wisner, Feb. 18, 2026

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...

“War on the Kitchen Sink”: Michael Paller on the Larger-Than-Life Plays of John Guare - Library of America In the plays of John Guare, the fourth wall dissolves to disclose a thrilling truth: anything can happen here. In a career extending from the 1960s to the present day, this “uncannily prophetic” playw...

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...

YouTube video by Library of America “Our Town” for Our Time

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?...

How to Read an American Poem, an online course with Edward Hirsch, March 2026

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...

Cover of The Black Fantastic 20 Afrofuturist Stories superimposed over a banner identifying the 2025 Recommended Reading list from Locus Magazine which identifies titles in the categories of science fiction fantasy horror YA first novels translated novels collectiosn anthologies non-fiction art books novellas novelettes short stories

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

Excerpt of The King Alfred Plan, the genocidal plot outlined by the US government in John A. William's 1967 novel The Man Who Cried I Am.

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...

“A National Art Form”: John Stauffer on Rediscovering the 19th-Century American Short Story, from Poe to Wharton - Library of America From the political and economic tumult of the nineteenth century, the American short story emerged as a distinct and powerful national art form. Bolstered by early trailblazers such as Washington Irvi...

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...

Screenshot of Library of America book in Hard Boiled (1992)

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 is back with ‘Book of Cats,’ a meditation on love, death and cats The posthumous release is full of cat poems and cat drawings from the legendary Portland author.

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’ Review: When a Nation Came of Age Strong’s journal traces a changing world—and his changing mind—throughout the crisis of the Civil War.

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

1931 "Objectivists" issue of Poetry magazine, edited by Louis Zukofsky (right: CC BY-SA 4.0)

“Each word, like a stone dropped in a pond, creates a ripple around it,” writes Charles Bernstein of the poetry of Louis Zukofsky, cofounder of Objectivism, born OTD in 1904. “The intersecting ripples on the surface of the pond are the pattern of the poem.” www.loa.org/books/245-se...

Edgar Allan Poe (Public Domain) and Patricia Highsmith (Alamy / Swiss Literary Archives)

Two LOA writers with a penchant for darkness and the depths of the human mind share a birthday this week (albeit 112 years apart): Edgar Allan Poe (b. 1809) and Patricia Highsmith (b. 1921). If Poe invented the detective story in the 19th century, Highsmith reimagined crime fiction in the 20th.

Some especially timely thoughts from MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, reprinted in the *essential* @libraryofamerica.bsky.social two volume set of Civil Rights journalism

The American Short Story: The Nineteenth Century

Unprecedented in scope, LOA's new two-volume anthology of 19th-century American short stories collects more than 100 pieces by 51 writers, from Charles Brockden Brown’s haunting gothic tales to the Gilded Age masterpieces of Henry James. Order your copy today: www.loa.org/books/the-am...

James Baldwin on hearing Martin Luther King preach in Montgomery - Library of America Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking in New York City in 1967. (World Journal Tribune photo by Don Rice/Library of Congress Prints and Photographic Division) In 1961 Harper’s Magazine commissioned James ...

“I have not lost faith. I'm not in despair, because I know that there is a moral order. I haven't lost faith, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Martin Luther King Jr., born OTD in 1929, returned to this phrase often, casting a ray of hope in dark times.