New this week are A Possible Life: A Novel in Five Parts by Sebastian Faulks and the first six titles (A through F!) in Penguin’s snazzy new Penguin Drop Caps series.
Tuesday New Release Day: Faulks, Drop Caps
Dear Sugar’s Mugs
Last year, The Rumpus’ “Write Like a Motherfucker” mugs were so popular (um, I’m drinking coffee out of one right now), that this year, they’re offering two.
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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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What Is It Good For?
“War isn’t a destination, nor is it a topic to be mined for scribes with nothing else to say … War can be a subject, like any other, and it can be written about well, and it can be written about poorly.” Here is Matt Gallagher, author of the Iraq-war novel Youngblood, in an interview with J.T. Price at Bomb. Last week, Gallagher interviewed another great young novelist/veteran (and winner of the 2014 National Book Award in fiction), Phil Klay.
Tuesday New Release Day: McInerney; McGinniss, Jr.; Lee; Sjón; Vapnyar
New this week: Bright, Precious Days by Jay McInerney; Carousel Court by Joe McGinniss, Jr.; How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee; Moonstone by Sjón; and Still Here by Lara Vapnyar. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half 2016 Book Preview.
Vitality/Banality
To prepare us for the release of Italo Calvino’s letters, the editors at Page-Turner are running excerpts from the book. In their latest installment — following their first two — Calvino describes New York City, which “swallowed [him] up like a carnivorous plant.”
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Us vs. Them
When The New York Times tried to ask Jhumpa Lahiri what immigrant fiction inspired her, she smacked the question down by saying there is no such thing as immigrant fiction. “If certain books are to be termed immigrant fiction, what do we call the rest? Native fiction? Puritan fiction? This distinction doesn’t agree with me. Given the history of the United States, all American fiction could be classified as immigrant fiction.”
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Certain Loyalties
In his novels and plays, Sebastian Barry often focuses on segment of Irish society that tends to get ignored in literature — the Irishmen who fought for the British Empire in the first and second World Wars. At Full-Stop, John Cussen reads The Temporary Gentleman, which portrays a British officer, Jack McNulty, who sets out to write his memoirs. (Related: Matt Kavanagh wrote a piece for The Millions on Irish financial fiction after the crash of 2008.)
Next Up: Volcanic Vodka
What’s cooler: bourbon aged at sea, or beer made from barley launched into space?
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