It's safe to say that 2020 hasn't exactly been a year of "business as usual." In business, in education, in entertainment, in socializing, in what we wear, where we go, how we interact, the expected has given way to the unexpected, the way things have always been done has given way to new ways of doing things. So why should the Mayor's Book Club be any different?

Have you ever wished the Texas Book Festival lasted more than one weekend? Well, this year, that big-as-the-Lone-Star-State literary event has granted your wish: The 2020 edition will be spread out over 16 days, Oct.31-Nov. 15. But there's a catch.

When Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League announced yesterday that he was stepping down as CEO to become executive chair, he stressed he would remain involved in operations at the Drafthouse, print wing Mondo, and Fantastic Fest. Yet one sub-brand – Birth.Movies.Death. – was missing, and now we know why.

"In the morning, Charlotte went to mass. When she knelt after communion, during the time she felt she had the most direct and clear line to God, she prayed, Dear God, please let me win a Mediterranean sea cruise."
For some people, going on a cruise is just that important. And Amanda Eyre Ward gets it. Really gets it.

"What if David Foster Wallace wrote Gremlins?" begins the press release from Doubleday.

Look, this current situation of ours? Let’s not overestimate this thing: It’s not an apocalypse.
It’s not even a dystopia yet.

Got a lot of reading time, lately, when you’re not struggling to survive this mess we’re in?

They’re telling you to stay the fuck home, citizen. “Binge some video,” they’re telling you. “Read some books, listen to podcasts,” they’re saying.

This is a story where we don’t know how it ends.
It starts in August 1972, my dad sealing the deal on a used two-tone cobalt/sky blue Cutlass while my mom and sisters and I sit inside on vinyl-covered bench seats, my mom protesting the very premise of “(If Loving You is Wrong) I Don’t Want to be Right” by Luther Ingram.