“Best” and “Worst” Are Prominent
Tuesday New Release Day: Proehl; Steiner; Shapiro; Anam; Wright; Cluchey; Addonizio
New this week: A Hundred Thousand Words by Bob Proehl; Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner; The Sun in Your Eyes by Deborah Shapiro; The Bones of Grace by Tahmima Anam; The Swan Book by Alexis Wright; The Life of the World to Come by Dan Cluchey; and Mortal Trash by Kim Addonizio. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great 2016 Book Preview.
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An Autocrat’s Guide to World Cup Qualification
Recommended reading: What do you get the guy you can’t get anything else–the one with his own oil-rich country–like the Emir of Qatar? The LA Review recommends starting with the World Cup.
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Pride and Fiscal Prudence
According to the BBC, Jane Austen will replace Charles Darwin on the Bank of England’s new £10 notes.
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Clashing Titans, old and new fashioned
Virginia Heffernan weighs in on the whole Wikipedia v. Philip Roth thing, brilliantly pitting “Anglo-American Great Man media empires” against “Polyglot Open-Source new media”.
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Kafka’s “The Country Doctor” as a film
The internet’s repository of Franz Kafka-inspired literary treats seems to have no bounds. This latest: his excellent short story “The Country Doctor” has been adapted by Japanese filmmaker Kōji Yamamura into a 20-minute animated film (subtitled). Kafka adaptations clearly aren’t going anywhere. Pair with our essay on the subtle art of rereading his most famous story.
The Happiest Meal
Do you want a book with your Happy Meal? McDonald’s will replace Happy Meal toys with books for two weeks next month. Don’t expect to pull out Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs with your fries, though. The books were created for McDonald’s by Leo Burnett and discuss nutrition. Did they miss the irony?