Audible is bringing out the big guns for its new A-List collection, a series of audio books read by celebs, including Samuel L. Jackson narrating A Rage in Harlem and Anne Hathaway doing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Celebs to Read to You
Through the Pain
Recommended Reading: Cristina Fries on Excavation by Wendy Ortiz. (h/t The Rumpus)
Dispatch From Last Week’s Episode
What better way to warm up for Leigh Stein’s forthcoming Dispatch From the Future than by reading her ongoing series of reality-TV-inspired poetry, such as this installment for The Bachelorette, Season 8, Episode 2?
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Change
The New York Review of Books excerpts recent Nobel winner Mo Yan’s part fiction, part memoir Change.
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New McEwan on the Way
Ian McEwan is going after religion in his latest novel. The Children Act will focus on the conflict of parents who refuse medical treatment for their children due to religious beliefs. You can expect the book in September.
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Transcendentalist by Day; Awful Cook by Night
How could anybody believe Henry David Thoreau invented raisin bread? The Walden author once burned down about 300 acres of forest trying to cook fish!
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Don’t Let ‘Em
Recommended listening: Benjamin Percy, whose novel The Dead Lands was released just this week, sings “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Writers” for the debut episode of Poets & Writers‘s new podcast, Ampersand.
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A Rap on Race
Check out this conversation between Margaret Mead and James Baldwin on race, guilt, and responsibility.
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New Directions’ Birthday Bash
On a more optimistic note, New Directions, New York City’s inestimable and long struggling (but “long dazzling!”) publishing house, will be throwing itself a 75th birthday party on Thursday, October 27. (They just redesigned their website and colophon, too.)
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