Here’s a book that will be on our July “Most Anticipated” list: a new collection of stories from Junot Díaz called This Is How You Lose Her. The Times has more.
A New Collection on Its Way from Junot Díaz
You Should Move
“By three a.m., the seven of us had drunk a case of champagne, plus two additional bottles, followed by whiskey digestifs for the men. ‘They do this all the time,’ Pierre’s wife Chloe whispered to me in English at one point—dismissively, but without malice. As if to say, sure, Pierre’s relatives were lushes, but perhaps this was how life should be, inévitablement.” I doubt I have to tell you what city this all took place in.
Pride and Prejudice Continued
The short shelf of books written by Jane Austen has been recently supplemented by many imaginative efforts–Jane Austen as an amateur detective, and several works depicting Austen characters (or Jane herself) as a vampire, a zombie or some other Gothic monster. So what’s next? Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James is Pride and Prejudice continued.
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The World According to John
Here is a helpful User’s Guide to John Irving from the good people over at Hazlitt–it should be all you need in order to tackle Irving’s newest novel, Avenue of Mysteries. This slightly disheartened take on what it’s like to re-read Irving is worth a look.
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Matthew Salesses Interviewed
Get to know Matthew Salesses, whose story “High Schools, or How to Be Asian American” we shouted out a few months back.
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Thinking of pitching 33 1/3?
If you’ve ever thought you’d like to write a book on a beloved album for the 33 1/3 series you might find RJ Wheaton’s reflections on the pitch process of definite interest. For the record, he wrote the one on Portishead’s Dummy.
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(n)
Try to define the word “poetry” and you’ll quickly find yourself in a maze of contradictions. It refers, most obviously, to printed verse, but it can also refer to especially lyrical prose, among other things. At The Paris Review Daily, Damian Searls uses etymology to get some answers. Related: Kate Angus on loving poetry but not poetry books.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Bolaño, Vonnegut, Mamet, Eagleman
This week, New Directions offers up a collection that may offer some context to the Roberto Bolaño oeuvre. As the catalog copy suggests, “Between Parentheses collects most of the newspaper columns and articles Bolaño wrote during the last five years of his life, as well as the texts of some of his speeches and talks and a few scattered prologues.” Also out: Library of America does Kurt Vonnegut with Novels & Stories, 1963-1973; The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, a political tome by playwright David Mamet; and Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman, the scientist and polymath who was recently profiled in the New Yorker.