Our humongous second-half preview will keep you busy planning your to-read list for the rest of the year, but there are some intriguing new books out this week too. Bonnie Jo Campbell’s novel Once Upon a River is now out, as is Edie Meidav’s Lola, California. (Don’t miss the remarkable essay Meidav wrote for us recently.) Also new is the latest from Benjamin Black (John Banville’s pen name), A Death in Summer, and Flip Flop Fly Ball, a collection of light-hearted and very clever baseball infographics from Craig Robinson (whose work also appears on his blog).
Wednesday New Release Day: Campbell, Meidav, Black, Robinson
iStephen Fry
Stephen Fry joins “the congregation at the Church of Apple” for the launch of the iPad and shares his thoughts on the company and its newest product.
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AutoSummarizing the Classics
Graphic designer Jason Huff takes the one hundred most downloaded copyright-free books and reduces them (pdf) using Microsoft Word 2008’s AutoSummarize 10-sentence function. Book Bench highlights several of the absurd – if occasionally poetic – results.
Bard’s Bard
This week brought news that NOX, Antigonick, and Red Doc> author Anne Carson is headed to Annandale-on-Hudson to become Bard College’s “Visiting Distinguished Writer in Residence.” Carson’s praise has been sung far and wide on The Millions, and even earned admiration from a pair of Janes: both Alison and Hirshfield.
The Common in the City Party
Tonight! Celebrate 3 years with The Common. You can still buy tickets to this elegant lit party here. André Aciman reads from his latest novel Harvard Square.
When A Critic Becomes An Author
Vanity Fair talks to renowned book critic Michiko Kakutani about her debut The Death of Truth and why she decided to become an author.