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
Writing on Mute
Even though James McBride (new National Book Award winner for The Good Lord Bird) is an accomplished jazz musician, he doesn’t listen to any music while writing. “Because I’m a musician, listening to music is…it’s a bit like work for me,” he told The Daily Beast for the “How I Write” series.
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What We Owe
Recommended reading: In a piece for the LA Times David Ulin ponders the ethics of writing. “What do we owe our subjects? Do we have the right to tell their stories at all?”
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Out with the Books, In with the People
OWS: Book Coming Soon
The Occupy Wall Street history will be published by OR Books, a company which rose to fame after publishing Going Rouge, a collection of negative essays about Sarah Palin that was released on the same day as her memoir, Going Rogue.
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Book(case) Criticism
Dispirited by the deluge of advance review copies and publishing mailers (a plight to which I can relate), Ron Charles decided to forego traditional book criticism for the time being and instead to focus on reviewing something more immediately practical: a bookcase.
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Fighting for Space
Recommended Reading: London’s Feminist Library is at risk of being evicted. Broadly spoke to some of the women who are taking to the streets to save the space.
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Just Like Christmas
Good news for Catch-22 fans: a previously unpublished Joseph Heller story appears in the newest issue of Strand Magazine. (h/t Paris Review)
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?