esquire.com
The oldest stories in the world are love stories. Boy meets girl; girl shares her campfire; they live happily ever after, two cavepeople against the cruel world. In the millennia since, the form has only improved and multiplied—now our bookshelves are packed with tales of joy and heartbreak, love and loss, breaking up and making up.So when we asked five extraordinary writers to submit works of short fiction contained on cocktail napkins, we gave them this prompt: “Write a love story.” The result…
19 days ago
esquire.com
In January, when packing my bags for a “reading retreat” in the Dominican Republic, I agonized about which books to bring. A few days later, bellied up to the beachside bar at the all-inclusive Dreams Macao Beach Punta Cana resort (where, in place of barstools, swings are suspended from the thatched ceiling), I sipped a mojito, cracked open James Salter’s Light Years, a novel I reread annually, and knew that I’d chosen well.But if I’d had any regrets, summoning a new paperback would’ve been as e…
26 days ago
esquire.com
In the opening pages of Holly Gramazio’s time-bending debut novel, The Husbands, 30-something Lauren returns to her London flat late at night to find her husband waiting at the door. There’s just one problem: When Lauren left the house, she was single. Quick texts to friends, camera-roll photos, and a glance at the flat’s improved decor confirm what Lauren can’t fathom: She and this man have been together for years. But when he heads into the attic to change a light bulb, he abruptly disappears;…
about 2 months ago
esquire.com
James centers on a seminal character from American literature—and yet, seen afresh through the gaze of acclaimed writer Percival Everett, it’s as if we’re meeting him for the first time. Everett’s subject is Jim, the enslaved runaway from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Blasted clean of Twain’s characterization, Jim emerges here as a man of great dignity, altruism, and intelligence. The new novel opens in Hannibal, Missouri, where Jim teaches enslaved children to run their speec…
about 2 months ago
esquire.com
Welcome back to another year in books, dear reader. Just a quarter of the way through 2024, we’re already enjoying an embarrassment of literary riches—and now, we’re here to spread the gospel about our favorites. The best books of the year (so far) are taking us to dazzling new frontiers. In the fiction landscape, a spate of new novels offer visions of humanity from unlikely narrators, including robots, aliens, and the undead. Meanwhile, it’s shaping up to be an outstanding year for memoirs; new…
2 months ago
esquire.com
Nearly a year since HBO introduced the idea of a second Game of Thrones spinoff, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has finally given an update on Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The show is expected to begin production later this year, with a 2025 release date. Thrones creator George R.R. Martin will serve as executive producer on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which focuses on his short story collection, The Tales of Dunk and Egg. It’s It’s noteworthy that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms wi…
3 months ago
esquire.com
The institution of marriage isn’t doing so hot. In the United States, fewer Americans are getting married than ever before, while many are getting married later in life, if at all. What’s to be done about it? According to journalist Lyz Lenz, blow it all up and start over. In This American Ex-Wife, a blistering memoir-meets-manifesto about the fraught gender politics of marriage and divorce, Lenz details how the end of her marriage became the beginning of her life. Raised religious and married a…
3 months ago
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Love is in the air, folks. It’s time to yank those collars and see hearts in your eyes, because Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. Whether you’re coupled up or looking for love, don’t sweat it—romantic comedies have your back. Where else are you going to see someone try to catch the person they love before they get on an airplane? Where else will you see someone have so much difficulty telling someone else their true feelings? These films will put that romance back in your heart at the…
3 months ago
esquire.com
Larry David swears that season 12 is the end of Curb Your Enthusiasm. We’re supposed to believe him... even though he’s said it before! Still, throughout red carpet interviews and HBO promotional material, the Seinfeld co-creator declared that he is finally shedding the “Larry David” persona to “become the person God intended me to be—the thoughtful, kind, caring, considerate human being I was until I got derailed by portraying this malignant character.” We Curb fans here at Esquire are still in…
4 months ago
esquire.com
What’s the case for the western in 2024? Once a backbone of cinema and literature, the genre looks downright dated to contemporary eyes, steeped as it is in harmful American mythologies of racism, colonialism, and toxic masculinity. Westerns endure, but they’re long overdue for radical change—and now, change is here. According to author Elizabeth Gonzalez James, westerns are undergoing a renaissance, with those who were sidelined, villainized, or victimized now telling their own stories. A new w…
4 months ago
esquire.com
Cord Jefferson is ready for everyone to argue about American Fiction. “That, to me, is the dream,” the writer-director tells Esquire. “All I want is for people to go see it with their friends and debate.” Jefferson will surely get his wish. American Fiction, which opens nationwide this weekend, is a crackling satire about art, commerce, and identity that’s destined to ignite heated conversations. The film stars Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a frustrated novelist seething with righ…
5 months ago
esquire.com
Here at Esquire Book Club, we’ve had a big year. Tim O’Brien taught us how to lie professionally, Daniel Knowles encouraged us to ditch our cars, and Claire Dederer leveled with us about the problem of canceled artists. Oh, and Michael Finkel schooled us in the tricks of committing multi-billion dollar art theft (but you didn’t hear it from us). As we considered how to ring in the holidays Esquire Book Club style, we realized: what better way to celebrate than to give the gift of great books? An…
5 months ago
esquire.com
When we set out to publish this special holiday edition of The Napkin Project, we knew that we didn’t want to tell typical holiday stories. No treacle-y tales of family, forgiveness, and full hearts—that’s not our style.And so, when we asked five tremendously talented writers to submit works of short fiction contained on cocktail napkins, we gave them this prompt: “Write a story set at an office holiday party.” Corporate parties aren’t the stuff of Hallmark movies or holiday literary lore, but t…
5 months ago
esquire.com
At the 74th annual National Book Awards, the proceedings were charged with politics from beginning to end. Held in downtown Manhattan on Wednesday night, the evening opened with host LeVar Burton joking, “Are there any Moms for Liberty in the house? No? Good! Then hands will not need to be thrown tonight.” It ended with a joint statement from a group of writers calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The group’s statement came after the final award of the night: the National Book Award for Fiction, whi…
6 months ago
esquire.com
Nearly two decades after PBS’s long-running series went off the air, the Reading Rainbow generation is all grown up. Their love of reading and knowledge is an enduring gift, courtesy of host LeVar Burton and the show’s producers—but in an age of unprecedented assaults on the freedom to read, what’s to become of today’s young readers in the making? As ever, Burton is looking out for them. The actor and literacy advocate recently served as the honorary chair of Banned Books Week, an annual October…
6 months ago
esquire.com
What’s going on underneath the hood of the self-driving car industry? According to Joanne McNeil, the tech critic behind a thrilling new industry satire, the harsh reality is a whole lot of “bizarre and usually non-functional technologies that don’t deliver on their promises.” The author of Lurking makes her blistering fiction debut with Wrong Way, a closely observed novel about how individual lives are shattered by Big Tech’s hollow promises. After years scraping by in the gig economy, Teresa’s…
6 months ago
esquire.com
This week, Esquire is celebrating Halloween season with an ode to our favorite nocturnal creature: the humble vampire. Whether you want to relish in the beauty of What We Do in the Shadows’s Nandor, relive the indelible camp of Twilight, or simply catch up on the best vampire novels and films, we’re here to provide a smattering of vampire-themed stories, made just for you. So grab your garlic and a stake, dear reader—we’re taking a trip to the underworld.Do you like your vampires sassy and sexy,…
7 months ago
esquire.com
“Why should truth matter?” asks a character in America Fantastica, Tim O’Brien’s first novel in more than two decades. It’s the question at the heart of American politics today—and the question that O’Brien has spent his entire career trying to answer. America Fantastica opens in 2019, when a “lying infection” has taken hold of the nation. Our narrator Boyd Halverson, a compulsive liar and disgraced journalist, now makes a living flooding the internet with “fresh untrue truth content.” Pushed t…
7 months ago
esquire.com
Our list has wellness cults, car chases, funhouse mirrors, and a viral sheep named Ayn Ram. What more could you want?
8 months ago
esquire.com
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” John Keats once wrote. “Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.” The poet’s immortal words should be emblazoned on the family crest of Stéphane Breitwieser: aesthete, depraved genius, and according to author Michael Finkel, “perhaps the most successful and prolific art thief who has ever lived.” From 1994 to 2001, Breitwieser romped through Europe on a breathtaking crime spree: roughly three weekends out of every four, he nicked pricel…
11 months ago
esquire.com
Watch a young Queen Charlotte meet King George in the (very) dramatic first trailer for ‘Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.’
over 1 year ago
