A big week for new fiction. Ian McEwan’s latest novel Solar is out. Kakutani just called it his “funniest novel yet.” Also now apparently available (despite its late April pub date) is the latest in the long line posthumously published works by Roberto Bolaño, Antwerp, a slim volume that has been described as both a prose poem and a crime novel. Deborah Eisenberg’s big new volume of collected stories is also out today, as is Rachel Cusk’s The Bradshaw Variations. Hilary Mantel is a fan of the latter. And finally, The Lotus Eaters, a debut novel from sometime Millions contributor Tatjana Soli.
Tuesday New Releases
Avoiding Unnecessary Punctuation
Over at The Washington Post, Jeff Guo makes a case against periods. As he puts it, “When we get excited, the pauses between our sentences shrink. We speak in run-ons. […] A period feels too weighty.” Also check out this Millions piece on the benefits of excising quotation marks.
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Brief Hideous Movie
Gawker posted the first trailer for the forthcoming film version of David Foster Wallace’s Brief Interviews With Hideous Men.
Custodian of Forgotten Books
Recommended Reading: On Brad Bigelow, a “Custodian of Forgotten Books.” Our own Claire Cameron traces the history of John Williams’s Stoner, which was first published in 1965 and became a bestseller in the Netherlands in 2013.
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The Worst Dinner Party
Get Outta Town, Pat Buchanan
“White Americans do not realize how black they are,” writes Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish. If, upon reading Sullivan, you find yourself questioning your racial identity, try the blog Stuff White People Like–sure, most of it is really stuff that dinks and yuppies like (class trumps race, as Walter Ben Michaels explains at the LRB), but it might help you brush up on the ways and loves of white folks: camping, pea coats, hating your parents, Wes Anderson, diversity, sushi, standing still at concerts…
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Douglas Stuart on Writing in Secret
The Shuggie Bain author grew up in a culture that discouraged boys from reading. His debut novel just won the Booker Prize.
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Questions of Travel
Elisa Wouk Almino writes for Hyperallergic about her search for a home in Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry of estrangement. As she explains it, “Over time, I’ve found that home is not always attached to place.” Pair with this meditation on Bishop’s poetry.
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