A pair of books featured in our Great 2013 Book Preview hit shelves today: Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout’s fourth novel, The Burgess Boys, as well as Benjamin Lytal’s A Map of Tulsa.
Tuesday New Release Day: Strout, Lytal
Brit Bennett on the Opposite Sides of the Color Line
Brit Bennett discusses her latest book, The Vanishing Half, which follows twin sisters as one lives life as a white woman and one as a Black woman.
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Worth Its Weight
What’s the value of a Nobel Prize? As of last week, at least $250,000.
A New History of the Essay
“You might say we are awash in definitions of the essay and essays themselves, or to mis-paraphrase Wallace Stevens, ideas about the thing as well as the thing itself.” On The Making of the American Essay, the third and final volume of John D’Agata’s A New History of the Essay.
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The End of Marcus Books
The novel might not be dead, but some independent bookstores are struggling to stay alive. Last week, we reported that America’s oldest LGBT bookstore, Giovanni’s Room, is closing soon. Now, America’s oldest black bookstore, Marcus Books, has received an eviction notice. The 54-year-old bookstore is a mainstay of San Francisco’s African American Fillmore District but hasn’t been able to pay its rent for a while.
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Dead Sea SEOS
Google is pairing up with the Israel Antiquities Authority to put ancient manuscripts, such as the book of Genesis, online.
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