Simon & Schuster has posted an excerpt of John Irving’s forthcoming novel In One Person.
‘I’m going to begin by telling you about Miss Frost.’
Tuesday New Release Day: Wray; Tennant-Moore; Wink; Sorrentino; de Kerangal; Gustine; Barbery; Silva; Warlick; Enrigue; Amdahl
Out this week: The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray; Wreck and Order by Hannah Tennant-Moore; Dog Run Moon by Callan Wink; The Fugitives by Christopher Sorrentino; The Heart by Maylis de Kerangal; You Should Pity Us Instead by Amy Gustine; The Life of Elves by Muriel Barbery; Square Wave by Mark de Silva; The Arrangement by Ashley Warlick; Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue; and The Daredevils by Gary Amdahl. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great 2016 Book Preview.
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What Improv Can Teach You about Writing Humor
Elissa Bassist took an intro improv class and used what she learned to create some rules for writing funny fiction. (Thanks, Rachel)
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You May Call Me Bobby, Or You May Call Me Zimmy
In more “Dylan at 70” news, the knowledgeable Ed Ward reviews the compilation How Many Roads: Black America Sings Bob Dylan for The Oxford American. (Editor’s Note: The omission from this album of Nina Simone‘s “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” and Ben E. King‘s “Lay Lady Lay” are both unconscionable.)
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“I have no taste for self-revelation”
In 1970, a journalist named Joseph Epstein wrote an essay for Harper’s that came to a frightening conclusion: that Epstein would, if possible, “wish homosexuality off the face of the Earth.” The incendiary language inspired Merle Miller, a former editor at the magazine, to publish a call-to-arms, “What It Means to Be a Homosexual,” that became the basis of the book On Being Different. Emily Greenhouse puts the essay in context at Page-Turner.
Fight the Dad-Bod
Is the “Dad-bod” a harmless internet trend or an organizational principle of patriarchy? Vishnu Strangeways at The New Inquiry sides with the latter. Our own Edan Lepucki wrote a particularly relevant piece for The Millions on Beyoncé and the problem with feminist anthems–here it is.
Maya Angelou in the Kitchen
Maya Angelou's underrated cookbooks are as vibrant as her more prominent work.
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