At The Awl, James S. Murphy goes in-depth on the Stony Brook study, which I wrote about last week, that identified characteristics of historically successful books. In making a point about the publishing industry, he references the sale of our own Garth Risk Hallberg’s debut novel.
We Have the Technology
Hemingway Hijinks
Just in case you didn’t know, Mallory Ortberg gives you ways to tell if you’re in a Hemingway novel at The Toast. “Everyone you know respects you. This disgusts you.”
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Some Solutions
Over at the Literary Hub, Helen Phillips and Matthew Vollmer talk about the short story as a form. Pair with Paul Vidich’s Millions piece about the future of the short story.
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Wood on JJS
Critic and occasional Millions commenter James Wood has added his own two cents to the growing collection of Pulphead reviews.
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In the Middle of the Affair
“We look to lovers to heal us, to complete us, to give us the kind of comfort that can only be found in the work that we do inside of ourselves. It’s an inside job, as they say in twelve-step programs.” Talking with Melissa Febos about her memoir, Abandon Me.
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Invitation to a Beheading
“The author, whose novels thrum with ironic recurrences, might have been perversely pleased with this: thirty-six years after his death and twenty-two years after the fall of the Soviet Union with all its khudsovets, Vladimir Nabokov is, once again, controversial.”
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The Museum That Was Written Down
The fictional museum described by Orhan Pamuk in his novel The Museum of Innocence has been made into a real museum in Istanbul: “…the line between fiction and reality is both highlighted and blurred.” (via Book Bench)
Tuesday New Release Day: Atwood; Watkins; Walsh; Jollimore; Coetzee; Kurtz; Myles; Levi
New this week: The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood; Gold, Fame, Citrus, by Claire Vaye Watkins; Vertigo by Joanna Walsh; Syllabus of Errors by Troy Jollimore; The Good Story by Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee and Arabella Kurtz; I Must Be Living Twice by Eileen Myles; and The Complete Works of Primo Levi. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview.
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