Ruth Franklin rises to the defense of much-maligned (and newly retranslated) Emma Bovary.
Madame Bovary, Say Wha?
Tuesday New Release Day: Saunders; Marcus; Beah; Lee; Vapnyar; Kidd; Abani; Shteyngart
Lots of new releases this week, among them a new paperback edition of Tenth of December by George Saunders. Also out: Leaving the Sea by Ben Marcus; The Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah; On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee; The Scent of Pine by Lara Vapnyar; The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd; The Secret History of Las Vegas by Chris Abani; and Little Failure by Year in Reading alum Gary Shteyngart. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great 2014 Book Preview.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Ghosh, Banks, Kennedy, La Farge, Warner, Roth, Greenblatt, Orlean, Franzen
It's a big week for new books. Amitav Ghosh's River of Smoke is now out, as is Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks, Chango's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes by William Kennedy, Luminous Airplanes by Paul La Farge, and The Funny Man by John Warner, who recently appeared in these pages. Philip Roth's American Trilogy is getting the Library of America treatment. (Capsule previews of all of the preceding titles are available here, incidentally). New in non-fiction is Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve: How the World Became Modern and Susan Orlean's Rin Tin Tin. And out in paperback: none other than Jonathan Franzen's Freedom.
Bedtime Story
According to the Times, Adam Mansbach's "children's book for adults" Go the F--k to Sleep has gone "viral" well in advance of its October release date, at one point climbing all the way to #2 on Amazon. Bonus Link: The Millions Interview with Mansbach.
Audible Writers
Apropos of my literary YouTube posts, our own Mark O'Connell riffs on the speaking voice of several authors.
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Hold On
Lindsay King-Miller -- she of Ask A Queer Chick -- pays tribute to an old friend who died before her twenty-sixth birthday.
The Eternal Mystery
Recommended reading: Jonathan Russell Clark, who's written for us many, many times before, considers "The Eternal Mystery of the Reclusive Writer" for Literary Hub.
New James Ellroy Story
Legendary crime writer James Ellroy has a new story out for sale in ebookstores: "Shakedown".