Adam Mansbach’s “viral,” tongue-in-cheek kids’ book for adults, Go the F–k to Sleep is now out. We interviewed Mansbach years ago, pre-frenzy, about other matters. This week also offers up a pair of much anticipated novels for the literary set, The Astral by Kate Christensen (don’t miss Edan’s interview with Christensen today) and The Curfew by Jesse Ball, and a rather specialized tome for fans of literary history, Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms.
Tuesday New Release Day: Mansbach, Christensen, Ball, Nom de Plumes
Born Weird
Meet the man who calls his own fans “scum,” R. Crumb. Crumb first rose to prominence after the 1968 debut of Zap Comix, the first of the majorly successful “underground comix” publications. His work with legendary poet Charles Bukowski is worth taking a look.
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No Guarantees At All
The Paris Review once referred to Roberto Calasso as “a literary institution of one.” Calasso stopped by The New York Times to answer a few questions about publication and Italy in anticipation of his forthcoming memoir, The Art of the Publisher.
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Language, the Savior
At The Guardian, Jhumpa Lahiri recounts the path that led her to write her latest book in Italian, one of the most anticipated books of 2016. As she puts it, “A week after arriving [in Rome], I open my diary to describe our misadventures and I do something strange, unexpected. I write my diary in Italian. I do it almost automatically, spontaneously. I do it because when I take the pen in my hand I no longer hear English in my brain. During this period when everything confuses me, everything unsettles me, I change the language I write in.”
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The Irish Console The Irish
Over at Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Nick Curley prescribes “five passages from great Irish writers” as a means of coping with Notre Dame’s recent loss to Alabama in the college football BCS National Championship Game.
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I’d Prefer Not To
“REPORTER: You’ve reportedly conveyed to Judge Garland that if he comes knocking on your office door he’ll be wasting his time. But would you deign to meet with him somewhere off the grounds of the U.S. Capitol? Say, at a Starbucks? BARTLEBY: I would prefer not to.” This Bartleby, the Senator: A Story of Merrick Garland (not to be confused with the Bartleby, the Scrivener).
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Joyless
Poor Emily Schultz. Her debut novel is getting trashed on Amazon — not because it’s a bad novel, but because a number of reviewers have confused her with Stephen King. (It doesn’t help that her magazine also shares a name with King’s novel.)
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