This may be a temporary thing, but David Foster Wallace’s posthumously published novel The Pale King appears to be shipping now from Amazon, more than two weeks ahead of the official tax day publication date. Update: From the official Pale King Facebook page: the book “doesn’t have a one day laydown: stores can sell it as soon as it’s in their shop.” So looks like the book is now available everywhere. Do you have your copy yet?
The Pale King Is Shipping
Real Talk
"These conversations push Leonard outside his sister’s house and put him on a course complete with time travel, an unreadable ancient text, Jewish Mysticism, and an attractive reference librarian. And here’s where the trouble starts.” On Rachel Cantor’s A Highly Unlikely Scenario.
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Discovering Ice
Recommended Reading: On the secret history of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.
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Wharton is the Original Gossip Girl
On this week's New Yorker Out Loud podcast, Rebecca Mead recommends (seriously) Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth -- "the real thing" -- for teen-readers who love the Cecily von Ziegesar Gossip Girl series.
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More XX at the C-Level, Please
"Are things getting worse for women in publishing?" The Guardian asks, and while the article focuses on the UK, it also touches on the state of affairs in the U.S. What both situations share is a lack of female representation at the executive level, based partly on "a generation of women retiring and the amalgamation of publishing houses, which has left fewer c-circle jobs to compete for." Oh, and sexism.
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Ruin-Reading
Junot Díaz is at home discussing his native Hispaniola as he muses on the function of apocalypse - New Orleans, Haiti, and Japan - in our global media landscape.
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Blairian
Since his death in 1950, George Orwell has grown more and more popular, so much so that his eponymous adjective is now widely used even by ideological enemies. So how did this state of affairs come about? In the new Intelligent Life, an offshoot of The Economist, Robert Butler delves into the story of how Orwell became an icon. Pair with: Vishwas Gaitonde on his visit to Orwell’s birthplace.
The Belletristic Branch
At the Poetry Foundation’s website, a list of twelve poets that captivated American presidents.
I have my copy, although it’s a review copy directly from the publisher. The ship date on my Amazon pre-order is supposedly today or tomorrow.
The ship date on mine is also today– for those in NYC and willing to resist the temptation of Amazon’s discounts, St. Mark’s Books was selling them last night…)
Wow, Hachette, way to screw independent bookstores (many of which are planning big release day parties for The Pale King) out of sales by shipping to Amazon first.
Rachel, as you’ll see from the comment above yours, it appears that Hachette shipped to ALL bookstores ahead of the listed pub date, including indies like St. Mark’s Books in NYC.
But the bookshops that announced release day events are still screwed; they have the copies, but likely would have sold more if there had been a true release date. So: What Rachel Said.
Dreezer, that is true. Hadn’t thought about that.
I work at an indie, and I understand our books shipped today and will be here next week. So yeah, we can sell before the 15th, but not as early as Amazon.
But do you think there are really many people buying it this early from Amazon who hadn’t already pre-ordered it and wouldn’t be buying it in-store anyway?