Lots of anticipated books hitting shelves today. At the top of the list is Michael Lewis’s look at the recent financial calamity, The Big Short. Also new today, Chang Rae Lee’s The Surrendered, Ron Rash’s story collection Burning Bright, Lionel Shriver’s So Much for That, and James Hynes’ Next, about which we have noted some intriguing Twitter buzz. New in paperback are Victor LaValle’s The Big Machine and Dave Eggers’ The Wild Things.
A Big New Release Tuesday
A Longtime Pen Pal Meets Emily Dickinson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson was pen pals with poet Emily Dickinson for eight years before the two finally met face-to-face.
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Unread Books
Lorin Stein, editor of The Paris Review, cops to a list of classic books he’s never read. Among them: Jane Eyre, Blood Meridian, and Millions Hall-of-Famer Stoner.
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No Bill the Butcher?
If Martin Scorsese develops a TV series based on Gangs of New York but it doesn’t feature Daniel Day-Lewis or Leonardo DiCaprio, will anybody watch it?
The Amazing Production of Kavalier & Clay
Seattle’s Book-It Repertory Theatre has adapted all 636 pages of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay for the stage.
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Illustrating the Cave
TED-Ed illustrates Plato’s allegory of the cave in this fun video.
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Women at War
From The Things They Carried to Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, veteran literary fiction has always been popular, yet women are almost nowhere to be found in war literature. At The New York Times, Cara Hoffman argues that leaving women out of combat literature makes returning from war even more isolating. “They would be made visible if we could read stories that would allow us to understand that women kill in combat and lose friends and long to see their children and partners at home.”
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The Oracle
John Warner is today reprising his popular book-recommending engine (i.e. his brain), that he unveiled to great effect during the Tournament of Books earlier this year.
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