In the introduction to her interview with the author, the inimitable Parul Sehgal described Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s latest novel, Americanah, as “a thrilling and risky piece of writing that takes on taboos, shatters pieties, and combines forthright prose, subversive humor, and a ripping good story.” If that doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what will.
Sehgal and Adichie in Conversation
Realia
“After scanning across this listing while doing cursory research for something else, I instantly became obsessed with the idea of the zebra skin in the library. What, exactly, did it look like? How was it stored amongst his papers? Why had he owned it? What was it doing in the special collections of an academic library?” On looking through the archives of William Gaddis.
Tuesday New Release Day
Out this week: Per Petterson’s latest to hit American shores is I Curse the River of Time. Also newly released is Mona Simpson’s My Hollywood. Mary Roach has another work of quirky non-fiction out, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. Young readers can now get their hands on the seventh book in the Artemis Fowl series, The Atlantis Complex. And grammar mavens have a new edition of the Chicago Manual of Style to add to their reference shelf.
●
●
Minister of Defense and Propaganda of the New Cinema
Recommended Reading: On the the anticriticism of Jonas Mekas, the “raving maniac of the cinema,” courtesy of The Paris Review.
●
●
Amis Scoffs at Literary Prizes
Martin Amis told the Hay Festival in Wales that only unenjoyable books win prizes, but the Telegraph’s lede implies sour grapes.