Emma Alpern

1 week ago | thecut.com | Emma Alpern

Photo: Getty Images This article first appeared in Book Gossip, a newsletter about what we’re reading and what we actually think about it. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every month. When you’re telling a story that doubles as an argument for human rights, it must be tempting to cast the scene with ideal players. The tough but compassionate abortion doctor. The desperate patient who arrives at the clinic with a convincing set of reasons for ending her pregnancy.

3 weeks ago | grubstreet.com | Emma Alpern

In Adam Roberts’s debut novel, Food Person, a young woman is abruptly fired from her job at a food magazine and ends up ghostwriting a cookbook for a problematic TV actress — “hungover, flaky, shallow, and — worst of all — indifferent to food,” as the book jacket puts it. Roberts, a longtime food-media figure who blogs as the Amateur Gourmet, took the idea straight from his life, though his version was much less dramatic. “My celebrity was really nice and great,” he says.

1 month ago | grubstreet.com | Emma Alpern

Aimee France, maker of artfully bumpy and leaning cakes with ingredients like Earl Grey, calendula, and cognac–tonka bean buttercream, didn’t necessarily expect to become a full-time baker. But when COVID interrupted her college semester, she ended up back at her parents’ house, where she taught herself how to bake. “When I graduated in 2021, my parents were like, ‘All right, Aimee, time to get a job,’” she says.

1 month ago | vulture.com | Emma Alpern |Jasmine Vojdani

Every month, Emma Alpern and Jasmine Vojdani will make new fiction and nonfiction book recommendations. This is their first batch of titles — you should read as many of them as possible. Make sure to also have on your radar Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America, an exploration of multilevel-marketing operations written by New York’s own Bridget Read, which is out May 6.

1 month ago | vulture.com | Emma Alpern

Amazon went back to its roots this week when the company made a move that appeared to blatantly antagonize smaller, independent bookstores. The tech conglomerate announced on April 15 that it would hold its second annual book sale April 23–28, a week that coincides with Independent Bookstore Day. That event, which happens on the last Saturday of April, is set to take place this weekend for the 12th year in a row; it’s consistently one of the biggest days of the year for non-chain bookstores.