Did you know that a new Jonathan Safran Foer book is coming out this week? We didn’t until we saw a mention of it at Kottke. More surprising is the form of the book itself. Foer has created a new work called Tree of Codes by cutting out sections of one of his favorite books, The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Shulz. The die-cut, Kindle-proof volume is the first major title by London-based Visual Editions. Vanity Fair has more.
Jonathan Safran Foer, Cut Up
Sentimental Education
Recommended Reading: On sentimentality in literary fiction and commercial novels.
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Murakami’s Latest is Flying Off the Shelves
Haruki Murakami’s latest book – the title of which translates to Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and the Year of His Pilgrimage – went on sale in Japan last month, and in that time it’s been selling over a million copies a week. You can catch a glimpse of the book’s first and earliest reviews over at the NY Daily News. (By the way, did you know Murakami translated The Great Gatsby into Japanese?)
Lot by Lot
Valeria Luiselli has a new novel coming out, and BOMB has an exclusive excerpt. Titled “Hyperbolics,” it juxtaposes the goings-on at a church auction with descriptions of items on offer, which steadily grow macabre. You might want to check out her first novel after reading it to get some context.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Jin; Saizarbitoria; Jackson; Carson; Conroy; Boyle
Out this week: The Boat Rocker by Ha Jin; Martutene by Ramón Saizarbitoria; Black Elk by Joe Jackson; Float by Anne Carson; A Lowcountry Heart by Pat Conroy; and The Terranauts by T.C. Boyle. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half 2016 Book Preview.
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Not Ideal
“The most unfortunate / Thing about history / Is not pornos. No, it is how Americans / (And we were talking about men but may I take this opportunity / To be more inclusive, because inclusivity is in!) were once better than they are at present.” In which an imagined David Brooks writes a sestina about misogyny. Here’s a Millions piece in which the real-life Brooks is thought of not as a pariah, but as a harbinger of hope.
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“I am thankful for death”
It’s fun to imagine what literary titans might have thought had they witnessed modern pop culture. In that vein, here is a monologue, delivered by T.S. Eliot, on seeing the play Cats for the first time.
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If Bears Were Presidents
Recommended Reading: Three poems by Dalton Day at Hobart. “In the end, there are five bear cubs underneath your porch. You name them after U.S. Presidents. Taft dies of starvation.”
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Just in time for the holiday shopping season. As if the repackaged combo of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Everything is Illuminated isn’t enough.
No, my novel is called “Cut Up”. Burrough’s technique is called the cut-up technique.