In a reprise of this year’s Rooster final, Barbara Kingsolver’s Lacuna comes out on top this time, besting Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (and four other finalists) for the Orange Prize.
Kingsolver Wins the Orange
Tuesday New Release Day: Kepler, Block
New this week is the latest Scandinavian sensation, The Hypnotist by "Lars Kepler," who after a literary manhunt, was revealed to be a husband-and-wife team. Also out this week is a new novel by wunderkind Stefan Merrill Block, The Storm at the Door.
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Secrets of the Game
Following the successes of Moneyball and The Art of Fielding, young writers with an eye on their book sales are growing more interested in writing baseball books. Fortunately for them, Luke Epplin wrote a guide.
New Directions Fall Releases
Eight Fall releases are highlighted by New Directions.
Lake(rs) Wo(e)begone
It's not the first of April and this is not a joke, NBA all-star and future hall of famer Kobe Bryant announced his retirement yesterday–in verse. Oh Kobe, how will we miss thee? Let me count the ways.
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Prejudice and the Grotesque
Dave Griffith writes for The Paris Review about reading Flannery O’Connor’s “The Displaced Person,” an immigrant story set in the South, in the age of Islamophobia. Pair with Nick Ripatrazone’s Millions essay on teaching and learning from O’Connor.
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T. S. Eliot: Proud Banker
Many aspiring writers wind up in publishing jobs or teaching posts. Some view the career choice as a happy union between their creative interests and their vocational qualifications. T. S. Eliot was not so. In an article for The Rumpus, Lisa Levy notes that the poet continued "to work at the bank even after his poems [became] successful," and that the poet found the work "more conducive to writing poetry and criticism than taking a more literary job might be."
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A Great Career
Back in May, our own Sonya Chung reviewed All That Is, the first novel in 35 years by A Sport and a Pastime author James Salter. For another viewpoint (courtesy of the LRB), check out James Meek's assessment of the book alongside Salter's Collected Stories.