Today in Bookish and Literary History, November 15

1689 Crusoe sets out from Pampeluna.


1978 Betrayal by Harold Pinter (UK)


2016 Swing Time by Zadie Smith (UK)

Two brown girls dream of being dancers—but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either.

  • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
  • Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

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