New this week: Paul Auster’s latest, Sunset Park; a new collection of short stories from Stephen King called Full Dark, No Stars; The Memory Hole, a memoir by the historian Tony Judt who recently died from ALS (the essays collected here appeared in recent months in the New York Review of Books); and the latest obligatory obfuscatory presidential memoir Decision Points.
Tuesday New Release Day: Auster, King, Judt, Bush
The Orange Eats Creeps Mixtape
Christopher Higgs was teaching Grace Krilanovich’s The Orange Eats Creeps, and one of his students was inspired to make a mixtape featuring “the twisted, crusty, and often sublime characters found within the novel.” (The book, by the way, was one of my selections for Year in Reading last year.)
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Lewis Carroll on Writers’ Block
Experiencing writers’ block? Lewis Carroll has a few tips to help you out. We revisited Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass following Tim Burton’s film release.
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52 Blue
Recommended reading: Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams (which we covered here and here), writes again, this time about 52 Blue, “the loneliest whale in the world.” The full work is available at Atavist for $3.99, but an excerpt is available at Slate.
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Walter Kirn’s Underwear
“For Mr. Kirn, 51, who indeed brims with an outer confidence that can be intimidating at times to those unused to brash, creative types who dress in custom cowboy boots and seem indifferent to the modest niceties of literary image, the loud underwear seems to be working this afternoon.” If this doesn’t read like the typical author profile that’s because Walter Kirn interviewed himself for The New York Times on his new book, Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade. Here’s our review.
Thomas Pynchon Adaptation Gets a Release Date
Paul Thomas Anderson’s cinematic adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice now has an official release date. That’s right. Starting December 12th, you’ll be able to catch Joaquin Phoenix starring as ‘60s stoner P.I. Larry “Doc” Sportello.
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