At the Tin House blog, I write about my literary education in independent bookstores Also, my piece about James Salter appears in Tin House‘s current issue.
Staff Writer Sonya Chung at Tin House
Needs More Filigree
Kate Heart has put together an array of charts breaking down the covers of 2011's Young Adult fiction. Spoiler: the average book featured filigree and a white girl whose head is "mostly/ completely missing."
“It’s all in the dark, all feeling around”
Speaking to Parul Sehgal, recent Booker and National Book Award finalist Jhumpa Lahiri confesses that in order to write, she must begin from “a place where I feel—and need to feel—completely alone and anonymous.” The Lowland author elaborates that the act of writing is “such an intimate thing; I can’t do it in front of other people. It’s a rich dimension in one’s head – to access it, the noise has to be shut off. And there is a lot of noise in the world.”
●
●
Stranger than Fiction
Baby Shoes Still Unworn
"These stories feature hookups and breakups, substance abuse, and violence so casual it’s as natural as jagged breathing." Electric Literature has an interview between flash fiction author Len Kuntz and critic and writer David Galef, whose Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook was just published by Columbia University Press. The two discuss the state of short fiction, their favorite one-line stories of the year, and how, even in the briefest of narratives, readers should still "feel a connection to the story and characters." For more ultra-lean tales, see our own Emily St. John Mandel's review of Hint Fiction, an anthology of 25-words-and-under short stories.
●
●
Tuesday New Release Day; McEwan, Munro, Bolaño, Tóibín, Solomon, Bookshelf, Jefferson, Glück, Peach, Rain, Hansen
Some heavy hitters out this week: Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan; Dear Life, Alice Munro's latest collection; Woes of the True Policeman by Roberto Bolaño; The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín; and Far From the Tree, Andrew Solomon's massive follow-up to The Noonday Demon. Also out are My Ideal Bookshelf, in which figures from Judd Apatow to Jennifer Egan share about which books shaped them; Jon Meacham's biography of Jefferson; 40 years of poems by Louise Glück; a new issue of McSweeney's food mag Lucky Peach; debut The Heat of the Sun by David Rain, and She Loves Me Not, a new collection of stories by Ron Hansen.