It’s “Bulgaria Week” at Granta, and you can celebrate by reading two of Ivan Landzhev‘s poems, a short story by Rayko Baychev, a piece by Georgi Tenev, and many more. In case that isn’t enough, however, FiveChapters has posted Miroslav Penkov‘s “Makedonija,” and he has a short essay on the FSG Work in Progress site.
Bulgaria Week
Five Favorite Story Collections
Curtis Sittenfeld shares her favorite short story writers, from Alice Munro to new voice Jennine Capo Crucet.
●
●
Ghosts of Novels
It’s always disappointing when your novel fails to get published, but what if that novel were still lurking online? At The New York Times, Jason K. Friedman writes about finding the Amazon and Google links for his novel that never made it to print. “Google admits, ‘We haven’t found any reviews in the usual places,’ which in this case would be the planet Earth.” Pair with: Our own Edan Lepucki’s essay on how to cope with not selling your novel.
●
●
How to Beat Bias Againist the News? Libraries
Lisa Eve Cheby argues that one of the best ways to beat ‘fake news’ claims (which is really media illiteracy) is to fund more libraries. Read the rest of her argument in Entropy. I’m certainly convinced.
New Releases
Elizabeth Kostova’s follow-up to The Historian is out today. The Swan Thieves was one of our “Most Anticipated” books. Also out today is Day out of Days, a collection of stories by Sam Shepard, and Game Change, an account of the 2008 presidential race from John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, a pair of big name political reporters.
●
●
Tuesday New Release Day: Woodson; Korkeakivi; DeWitt; Hertmans; Hemmings; McHugh; McInerney
Out this week: Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson; Shining Sea by Anne Korkeakivi; White Nights in Split Town City by Annie DeWitt; War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans; How to Party with an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings; Arrowood by Laura McHugh; and The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half 2016 Book Preview.
●
●
Ada Lovelace Day
This Tuesday marked the celebration of Ada Lovelace Day, commemorating the world’s first computer programmer (who also happened to be Lord Byron’s daughter). Sydney Padua has published a graphic novel about Lovelace and Charles Babbage, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer. Check out scenes from the story and read more about Lovelace at Brain Pickings.
●
●