New this week is Carlos Fuentes’ vampire tale set in Mexico City, Vlad. Also out are The Collective by Don Lee, Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann, Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer, and Evel Knievel Days by Pauls Toutonghi, who last year introduced us to six Egyptian writers as the world watched the Egyptian revolution.
Tuesday New Release Day: Fuentes, Lee, Klaussmann, Netzer, Toutonghi
Redefining Speculative Fiction
“In a genre that has long been dominated by white men and Western mythological tropes, Ms. Okorafor’s stories, which feature young black girls in starring roles as superheroes and saviors of humanity, have been hailed as groundbreaking.” The New York Times shines a spotlight on Nnedi Okorafor and other African American science fiction and fantasy writers building on -and popularizing-a tradition of African and African American folklore in the sci fi and fantasy genre.
Tuesday New Release Day: Toibin, Oswalt, Rachman
Colm Tóibín’s new collection The Empty Family is out today, as is comedian Patton Oswalt’s Zombie Spaceship Wasteland. New in paperback: 2010 fave The Imperfectionists. Many more new books to look forward to, of course, in our massive preview published this week.
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Prison Poetry
Over at The Paris Review, Max Nelson writes about prison literature, from John Clare to Christopher Smart.
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Valeria Luiselli on Writing Through the Pandemic
Valeria Luiselli on the importance of writers documenting this moment in time, at their own pace and within their own capacity.
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Where You Write
We showed you ours, and you showed us yours. Here’s a Storify of the 60+ responses we got when we asked you to invite us into your #writespace. Peep our Tumblr this weekend, where we’ll be featuring some of our favorites. And of course, keep ’em coming: tag a picture of where you write with #writespace on Twitter or Tumblr and we’ll be sure to take note.
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Abandoned Books
This holiday season may set a record for gift returns, and perhaps that’s understandable given the economy. But what does it mean if you simply abandon your things instead? A recent survey by Virgin Atlantic reveals which books are most frequently left behind by their passengers, and it raises that very question.
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