To commemorate the book’s 75th anniversary, WNYC and WQXR Radio will present a live radio play of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. New Yorkers will be able to catch the broadcast on February 29th and March 1st, and then the rest of the nation can hear it in September.
Janie Crawford and Tea Cake on Air
Pulp Saint
From The Atlantic comes the case for canonizing G.K. Chesterton, the “Catholic convert and an oracular man of letters, a pneumatic cultural presence, an aphorist with the production rate of a pulp novelist.”
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And the Award Goes to…
“Proulx’s deep reverence for the beauty and complexities of rural America has introduced millions of readers to the wide breadth of American life. Her commitment to crafting compassionate, honest stories has left an indelible mark on literature and created a powerful and enduring legacy.” Annie Proulx nabs the National Book Foundation’s lifetime achievement award. Check out her Year-in-Reading entry from this past year here.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Erdrich; Müller; Haddon; Barnes; Null; Hurley; Abramson; Cage
Out this week: LaRose by Louise Erdrich; The Fox Was Ever the Hunter by Herta Müller; The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon; The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes; Allegheny Front by Matthew Neill Null; The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley; Just Life by Neil Abramson; and The Selected Letters of John Cage. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great 2016 Book Preview.
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Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists
Once a decade, Granta publishes a special “Best of Young American Novelists” issue featuring work from American fiction writers under the age of forty. The latest list includes Millions staffer and City on Fire author Garth Risk Hallberg, as well as Lauren Groff, Yaa Gyasi, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Claire Vaye Watkins, to name just a few. The issue will hit shelves on May 4th.
A Frothy, Heady BFFship
“It seems that not only do Americans see beer as a person, they see beer as a person other people like better than them.”
Comic Macbeth
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Truth with a Dragon
Jeff Vandermeer writes for the Los Angeles Times about autobiographical influence in fantasy and sci-fi and argues that “there’s little or no difference in process or results compared to “normal” fiction, except that sometimes you end up with a dragon in your story and sometimes you don’t.” Pair with Alex Trivilino‘s account of “binge-reading” Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy.
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