Time to dust off the old John Irving Recurring Themes Matrix because his new book In One Person is out today. Also out are Home by America’s last Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison and Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel’s hotly anticipated sequel to Booker- and Rooster-winning Wolf Hall. Also out is I Am a Pole, Stephen Colbert’s “children’s book” that was inspired by an epic visit from Maurice Sendak. Out in paperback is Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder.
Tuesday New Release Day: Irving, Morrison, Mantel, Colbert, Patchett
Appearing Elsewhere
Millions contributor Sonya Chung will be reading from her forthcoming novel, Long for This World, at KGB Bar in the East Village NYC, on Friday, Oct. 16 at 7pm. With Sara Goudarzi and Daniel Meltzer.
●
●
My Ears! My Ears!
In a move that could scar you for life, Gilbert Gottfried reads selected passages (Very NSFW!) from E L James’ breakout book Fifty Shades of Grey.
Education in America
In The New York Review of Books, Anthony Grafton has a long piece on the issues facing the American university system. I’ve previously linked to Malcolm Harris‘ excellent n+1 piece on the “higher education bubble,” but this infographic vividly illustrates that same inflation.
Fiction About Failure
Despite recently winning the Booker Prize, Howard Jacobson writes a list of his favorite novels about failure for the WSJ: “This category is, of necessity, a crowded one. Novelists are drawn to failure. Those who prosper, or expect to prosper, in the world as it is have no need to re-imagine it.”
●
●
On the True Grit Trail
If the first paragraph – and really, the entirety – of Jay Jennings’s piece about retracing the True Grit trail doesn’t make you want to drop what you’re doing and hit the road, then you and I are fundamentally different human beings.
●
●
An Infinity in Reading
“Calling yourself depressed when you’re a writer seems so redundant.” On a year in reading Infinite Jest with Anna Fitzpatrick at Hazlitt. Be sure to check out the new fan-designed cover for the twentieth anniversary edition of the book.
A 19th-Century It Girl
Rachel Vorona Cote takes a look at Letitia Landon's many identities and how she went on to become a cautionary tale about talented women.
●
●
●