The long-awaited follow-up to Yann Martel’s Booker-winner Life of Pi is out: Beatrice and Virgil. Also new, Elegy for April, a thriller by John Banville alter ego Benjamin Black; David Lipsky’s already much discussed interview with David Foster Wallace, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself; and, apparently hitting shelves ahead of its official release date, a book of philosophy by Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind.
Tuesday New Release Day
Mistakes Happen
In 1864, Herman Melville was asked to submit a poem to a collection intended to raise funds for the United States Sanitary Commission – and he sent the wrong one.
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You Can’t Go Home Again (If You Understand What This Means)
The 113th anniversary of Thomas Wolfe’s birthday was last Thursday, but the author lives on in America’s cultural memory thanks to the title of his 1940 novel, You Can’t Go Home Again. Unfortunately, the titular phrase seems to be taken at face value by many people these days, and that can lead to some groan-worthy invocations. A newly-minted Tumblr blog illustrates the point.
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Maya Angelou’s Forever
“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” Maya Angelou now has her own Forever stamp.
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A Bookstore of Common Prayer
Common dreams, common bookstores: “I went home with…the BookWoman bumper sticker, which reads: ‘Support Your Feminist Bookstore — She Supports You.'”
Saundersisms
George Saunders stopped by the Dinner Party podcast to dole out advice on topics ranging from constructing poems about wolves “making love,” dealing with a friend who’s been fired, sober-drunk relations, and “man purses.”