Landlord, patron, gardener, traveler— Elizabeth Gilbert is so much more than a memoirist. Steve Almond profiles Gilbert for The New York Times and finds out about her return to fiction with her new novel, The Signature of All Things. Yet Gilbert doesn’t disparage her Eat, Pray, Love fame and readers, even if others do. “I want to say: ‘Go [expletive] yourself! You have no idea who the women are who read my books, and if I have to choose between them and you, I’m choosing them.’”
Eat, Pray, Write a Novel
Tuesday New Release Day: Pochoda, Schine, Bolaño
New this week: Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda, Fin & Lady by Cathleen Schine, and, available for the first time ever as ebooks, Roberto Bolaño’s masterpieces 2666 and The Savage Detectives. There are many, many more anticipated books on offer in our big second-half preview, published this week.
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New Eggers Story
Today’s second dose of recommended reading: Dave Eggers has a new short story, “The Alaska of Giants and Gods,” in The New Yorker.
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Everyone’s Writing
“Every month, Literary Hub, Electric Lit, and Catapult engage more than two million people with serious writing and contemporary writers, instead of leaving them to play Candy Crush or what-have-you.” Meet the man behind Lit Hub, Electric Lit, and Catapult, Andy Hunter. For reflections on the world of print, Nick Ripatrazone writes on the literary magazine and getting paid.
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Goodreads Recommendations
Goodreads has unveiled its new book recommendation feature. Unlike Amazon’s feature, Goodreads’ will draw data from every book you’ve read and logged, not just those you’ve purchased online.
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In a Room of the Auction House
“It can not be that I monopolize / The making of the songs that give you praise / Or that such pools as are your dearest eyes / Have just one bather through the unclear days. / Then, let me take my place amid the pack, / If I so pack my songs with your rare worth / There were no quality they then should lack / But they were bettered by that happy death.” A previously unpublished Ezra Pound sonnet selling at auction is always newsworthy–especially when it fetches nearly $12,000. Here is a related Millions piece about the difficult poetry of Ezra Pound, John Berryman, and Ted Berrigan.
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