Bone Worship is Hot
Jamison on Lila
"Robinson resists the notion of love as an easy antidote to a lifetime of suffering or solitude, suggesting that intimacy can’t intrude on loneliness without some measure of pain." Leslie Jamison reviews Marilynne Robinson's latest novel, Lila, which was recently longlisted for the National Book Award.
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Try, Try Again
We have a lot of prizes that honor well-crafted first novels. But what about the second novel, which is far more likely to be ignored? Herewith, Dan Kois announces that Slate is teaming up with the Whiting Foundation to produce We Second That, a list of under-recognized second novels from the past five years. You could also read our own Bill Morris on the golden age of the second novel.
Steve Jobs
60 Minutes aired a great overview of Walter Isaacson's bestselling (yet just released today) Steve Jobs biography. The book was also reviewed by Janet Maslin for The New York Times.
From Augere to Author
"I've always loved that 'author' derives from the Latin augere, to increase." At The Guardian, Eleanor Catton discusses her inspiration for The Luminaries, which involved two years of research. Here's our review of the finished product.
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A Daredevil By Any Other Name
Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life might well be the only book in history to draw comparisons between creative writers and stunt pilots. At Brain Pickings, Maria Popova calls attention to a description of Dave Rahm, the real-life pilot who inspired Dillard’s analogy.
OWS lit down the line?
Christian Lorentzen wonders, in Book Forum, what the first OWS novels will be like. He anticipates them showing up next year, but I'm thinking we've already got at least two, though they were both published well before Occupy: Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story ought to fit the bill, and, of course, there's that famous Melville story about Wall Street, but I'd prefer not to talk about it when I could just direct you to Hannah Gersen's piece instead.
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Loved the post! Now I want to go buy the book. I shared the post link on my Facebook as “When bad titles happen to good authors.”
*chuckle*
Thanks, David! I hope you like the book. Even if it isn’t a porno. ;-)
As a quick follow-up, I’m on the final chapters now, and I really like this book. I’m not a very good book reviewer, but I’ll say that the narrative switches between 1st person for the main plot, and third person for the narratives of times gone by, and the mechanic works very well. The book is very believable; it feels very real. Well done, Ms. Eslami, well done.