Some heavy hitters out this week: Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan; Dear Life, Alice Munro’s latest collection; Woes of the True Policeman by Roberto Bolaño; The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín; and Far From the Tree, Andrew Solomon’s massive follow-up to The Noonday Demon. Also out are My Ideal Bookshelf, in which figures from Judd Apatow to Jennifer Egan share about which books shaped them; Jon Meacham’s biography of Jefferson; 40 years of poems by Louise Glück; a new issue of McSweeney’s food mag Lucky Peach; debut The Heat of the Sun by David Rain, and She Loves Me Not, a new collection of stories by Ron Hansen.
Tuesday New Release Day; McEwan, Munro, Bolaño, Tóibín, Solomon, Bookshelf, Jefferson, Glück, Peach, Rain, Hansen
Poetry and Ouija
On life, love, poetry and Ouija: the New Yorker profiles the life and work of James Merrill.
●
●
For Sale: Hemingway App, Doesn’t Work.
A new Hemingway App promises to trim the fat from your writing in a way that the Great Bearded One would’ve approved. The app uses various color codes to highlight writing written in the passive voice, writing that’s too hard to read, and also unnecessary adverbs or complex phrases. Sounds interesting enough, no? Well, the problem is that someone ran the Hemingway App on some actual Ernest Hemingway writing, and it turns out that Papa himself didn’t even write to the app’s standard.
One comment:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
RIP Harper Lee
Harper Lee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman, died this morning in Monroeville, Alabama at the age of 89. Lee won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for Mockingbird, which later formed the basis of a film starring Gregory Peck. To learn more about her legacy, you could read our own Michael Bourne on the hidden character of Atticus Finch, or else read Robert Rea on a pilgrimage he took to her home.
Tom McCarthy Gets Interviewed
“There is a vicious rumor circulating that Tom McCarthy is the writer of our generation,” writes Christopher Bollen in Interview as he, ahem, interviews the author and Millions Year in Reading alum.
●
●
Mrs. Rowling
J.K. Rowling is one of the most successful writers in the world, but the one person she wanted to see her success never got to — her mother. “She never knew about Harry Potter – I started writing it six months before she died, so that is painful. I wish she’d known,” she said during an interview with BBC Radio 4. She discussed her mother’s death, multiple sclerosis, rugby, and more when she guest edited an edition of “Woman’s Hour.”
●
●
The Future Is Now
Today at 3 pm EST, Toni Morrison will be digitally signing copies of her recent novel Home, in celebration of Black History Month. The entire event will be streamed live on Google+.
I would just like to comment that I’ve been looking forward to Bolano’s Woe’s of the True Policeman for months, only to find that ZERO locally owned, independent bookstores in Brooklyn, New York have stocked the book on their shelves. If they read this blog or other literary blogs, to which it seems that they don’t, then they should be embarrassed. I’m taking my 27 dollars to Barnes and Noble. For shame.