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A curated selection of videos, including book trailers, brief interviews, and other literary curiosities updated daily.
Valeria Luiselli talks about the inspiration for her books Sidewalks and Faces in the Crowd, both translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney and published earlier this year by Coffee House Press. Luiselli was recently named one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 for 2014.
This poem from Chris Tse tells the story of a Cantonese goldminer murdered on a Sunday in 1905, a year of the snake. Tse's first full-length collection How to Be Dead in a Year of Snakes (Auckland University Press, 2014) revisits the historic event, piecing together narratives of the dead and the guilty.
This novel by Emily St. John Mandel, published by Knopf this month, tells the story of a theatre troupe and their survival through a deadly plague. The book is longlisted for the 2014 National Book Award in Fiction.
The author of the best-selling novel The Alchemist sits down with Oprah Winfrey for a rare television interview. Coelho discusses the idea of the "personal legend" and how this guided his path to become a writer.
"When they ban or challenge a book, it instantly makes it prime reading material for that community." Sherman Alexie, the author of some of the most frequently challenged books in America, speaks about the backlash of book banning and why he feels events like Banned Books Week are important for the future of literature.
Phil Klay, a former U.S. Marine, reads from his debut book Redeployment (Penguin, 2014), a collection of stories whose characters are veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The book is on the longlist for the 2014 National Book Award in Fiction.
This short film from the Aspen Writers' Foundation follows poet Myrlin Hepworth as he participates in the organization's Writers in the Schools program, which brings accomplished writers to public schools in Colorado. Hepworth and fellow Arizona poet Logan Phillips visited more schools this year and watched their students share their work on stage.
The author of American Innovations (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014) speaks with Book Smart Tulsa about writing her second book and her influences growing up in Oklahoma.
Actor Neil Patrick Harris explains the unique, interactive concept behind his forthcoming memoir, Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography (Crown Archetype, 2014). Within the fun adventure of the book, Harris also discusses serious topics from his life.
