Donald J. Sobol, author of the Encyclopedia Brown series, passed away last week at age 87.
Donald J. Sobol Passed Away
Everything That Rises Must Be Filmed
Recommended Listening: this episode of the Ryder + Flye podcast in which Jason Diamond and Margaret Eby discuss Southern Catholicism, 70s cinema, and why it’s so darn hard to make Flannery O’Connor’s stories work on the screen.
Elif Batuman: Get a Real Degree
Elif Batuman’s provocative essay “Get a Real Degree” is up at the London Review of Books: “Despite the recent trend in viewing fiction as a form of empathy training, I’m pretty sure that writing short stories isn’t the most efficient way to combat injustice or oppression.”
Tuesday New Release Day: Rebeck; Ryan; Maynard; Simpson
Out this week: I’m Glad About You by Theresa Rebeck; Green Island by Shawna Young Ryan; Under the Influence by Joyce Maynard; and Cockfosters by Helen Simpson. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview.
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Oyster Pirate Turned Novelist
This week in book-related infographics: a look at the surprising day jobs of writers.
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Book Business Savvy
The bookstore business is supposed to be dying, but Ann Patchett begs to differ. She discussed her independent shop, Parnassus Books, and the future of bookstores for The Daily Beast’s “How I Write” series. “I can’t remember the last time I was in a bad bookstore. The future of independent bookstores is strong. We need to be small. The day of the 30,000 square foot bookstore is over, but the day of the 3000 square foot bookstore has arrived.” Patchett was also interviewed for The New York Times “By the Book” series, where she said Charlotte’s Web had such an impact on her as a kid that she got a pet pig and became a vegetarian.
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Escape to the Seaside
“You have turned to stone. A hairline crack runs along your entire length from crown to toe. Your feet have turned to liquid, and you are melting onto the kitchen floor.” Are you living in an Elena Ferrante novel? Li Sian Goh at The Toast has compiled a helpful list of ways to tell whether or not you might be a character in Ferrante’s final Neapolitan novel, The Story of the Lost Child.
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A Life in Books
“Reading is a type of reckoning with the self. That may sound like a simplistic platitude, but platitudes exist only because they are true, our self-serving intellectual mirrors be damned.” Cher Tan shares a lifetime’s reading history with Catapult, tracing her trajectory from “[k]eeping up with the boys” during high school to this past year, in which she made a personal pact to read only books written by people of color. Pair with our own Nick Ripatrazone in conversation with six authors on their childhood reading.