New York City’s iconic Strand bookstore features prominent authors’ curated book collections on their website. Here’s Jennifer Egan‘s. Here’s Art Spiegelman‘s.
Curated Book Lists
As It Comes
Recommended Reading: Nicholas Rombes on Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays. You could also read S.J. Culver on discovering her work when he was young.
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Only Connect
Recommended Reading: Anything that Vivian Gornick writes. Here’s an essay from The New York Times on how literature ages and rereading E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End. Our own Lydia Keisling also wrote a fantastic piece on the Forster classic.
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Public Radio, Straight No Chaser
WNYC’s Jazz Loft Project series is absolutely essential listening: a portrait of New York’s bygone bohemia, complete with resident genius Thelonious Monk. And a book version is out this week from Knopf – a great gift idea for jazz lovers.
“The town was called Dayton.”
Recommended Reading: Rachael Maddux’s “Hail Dayton,” which features one of the finest opening paragraphs ever printed.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Butler; Lurie; Jemc; Steinke; Jacobson; Rosner; Grannec; Beckett; Oliver
New this week: 300,000,000 by Blake Butler; Quick Kills by Lynn Lurie; A Different Bed Every Time by Jac Jemc; Sister Golden Hair by Darcey Steinke; J by Howard Jacobson; Electric City by Elizabeth Rosner; The Goddess of Small Victories by Yannick Grannec; The Letters of Samuel Beckett; Volume 3; and Blue Horses by Mary Oliver. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great Second-half 2014 Book Preview.
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