Emma Alpern

1 week 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 week 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.

2 weeks 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.

1 month ago | vulture.com | Emma Alpern

One of several locations. Beginning this spring, New York–based bookstore McNally Jackson is holding a twice-yearly festival that will take place mostly at its Seaport location.

1 month ago | vulture.com | Emma Alpern

In novels about acting, what happens onstage tends to really matter. A good portion of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park revolves around a raunchy amateur version of Lovers’ Vows that disturbs hopelessly uptight Fanny Price; more recently, there’s been the West Bank production of Hamlet in Isabella Hammad’s 2023 novel, Enter Ghost, and the teenagers’ dangerous improvisations in Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise.