For its spring issue, the Paris Review will be publishing Roberto Bolaño’s The Third Reich—its first serialized novel in forty years—with original illustrations by Leanne Shapton. It’s a chance to discover Bolaño’s famous lost novel almost a year before it appears in book form.
Paris Review to Publish Bolaño
Chimamanda: One of the Greats
If you haven’t had a chance to finish perusing the New York Times Style Magazine’s ‘The Greats’ issue make sure you at least find the time to read Dave Eggers profile of Year in Reading alum Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She is on one of their seven covers and if you’ve ever wanted to know about her family and what kind of reading she wants to do more of, this is the interview for you. “‘That boy,” she said, and sighed. She was still thinking about Edwyn. ‘There was something so clean and pure and true about his writing, don’t you think? Increasingly I find that that’s the kind of thing I want to read.'”
Arrested Development Meets Academia
“Dr. Kristin M. Barton is seeking proposals for an edited volume … which will explore Arrested Development from a scholarly perspective,” reads a call for submissions on H-Net. I can see the titles of these essays now. Can’t you? “Desperation Economics: There’s Always Money in the Banana Stand” or “I Don’t Know What I Was Expecting: An Exploration of Dead Doves and Tragicomedy.”
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Lord Byron’s Frankenstein
Revealed: Lord Byron’s personal copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The book will be exhibited at Peter Harrington, Chelsea’s world-renowned rare bookshop, later this month.
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The Greatest Show on Earth
“On January 14, 2017, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus—America’s oldest and best circus, America’s last true touring circus—announced that it was closing, and six days later the country mourned, with an exit parade, a grand-finale funeral: the inauguration of Donald J. Trump.” Year-in-Reading alum Joshua Cohen, whose Book of Numbers spent seven months on our top-10 list back in 2015, and whose new novel Moving Kings made our most-anticipated list for the latter half of this year, reflects on the end of an era for The Point.
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E-Reading: Up. E-Readers: Down.
Young Money author Kevin Roose provides a glimpse at “What the Future of Reading Looks Like.” His prediction does not bode well for the makers of e-readers, though, and it’s not because e-books are on the wane. On the contrary, it’s because “when people read e-books, they’re doing it on their existing tablets and smartphones, not on devices built expressly for reading,” he writes. (Related: this may have a positive effect when it comes to rising carbon emissions.)
The Underground Railroad: The Series
Moonlight director Barry Jenkins plans to adapt Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad as a limited-run series. In his review of the novel for our site last year, Greg Walklin gushed that “Whitehead’s brilliance is on constant display.”
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Writing History
Laila Lalami recently wrote about “How History Becomes Story,” but writing an interesting and compelling history book sans fiction has its own challenges. Thankfully S.C. Gwynne offers some tips in a piece for the History News Network, including the hard-hitting reminder that “it is your job to force your facts into narrative form.”
Fitzgerald’s Football
“F. Scott Fitzgerald is known as one of America’s greatest authors, but was he also responsible for one of football’s most important strategic advances? Maybe. Possibly. Probably not.” Kevin Draper writes about Fitzgerald’s love and possible genius for the game.
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Ugh. Another Bolano novel already? Can we finally agree that Bolano is the most over-hyped writer of the decade?
In the grand scheme of things (i.e. literature), he’s a middling talent at best.
Surely Bolano is less ‘over-hyped’ than other authors covered by The Millions? It’s easy to deem an author ‘middling talent’ from the peanut gallery of internet comments. I agree that there is some serious trendiness in the regard given to Bolano by websites like this or Quarterly Conversation, html giant, etc –and something cynical about the industry that’s grown around his work — but if the author that’s over hyped is the author of 2666 I think that’s pretty encouraging for literature [insert Franzen jibe here]. Who would you prefer to be ‘hyped’?
If you read Spanish that novel has been available for awhile now. (I don’t, unfortunately.) Just started a subscription to The Paris Review and am looking forward to this serial.
Middling? 2666. The Savage Detectives. Distant Star. Antwerp. By Night in Chile. I can’t think of half a dozen living American novelists with a comparable list of masterpieces.