At The Rumpus, our own Nick Ripatrazone writes about his twin daughters, Amelia and Olivia, who taught him that, when it comes to twins, “there are two babies but three identities: one for each baby, and then the twin identity, an amorphous, shared mass of personality and action that makes Amelia fuss one night and Olivia the next.” The essay nicely complements Nick’s Millions piece on Andre Dubus.
What They Share
Elkin’s 80th
Today would be author Stanley Elkin's 80th. On this occasion, one fan posts an excerpt from The Franchiser and suggests "Read it out loud three times: the first to hear the sounds, the second to feel your mouth and tongue and throat make the sounds, the third time to listen to what Elkin is saying."
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Tuesday New Release Day: Gray; Wang; Khadivi; Ibrahim; Rieger
Out this week: Isadora by Amelia Gray; Chemistry by Weike Wang; A Good Country by Laleh Khadivi; Season of Crimson Blossoms by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim; and The Heirs by Susan Rieger. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
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The Indiana Review is Digitizing
The Indiana Review is adding archived story excerpts and poems to its website. Here’s a Peter Jay Shippy poem they recommend.
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Blue Nights
An "extended short film excerpt" of Joan Didion reading from her memoir Blue Nights, which our own Michael Bourne reviewed yesterday.
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Tuesday New Release Day: McCarthy, Phillips, Turow, Geni, Catton
Vintage International released Cormac McCarthy's screenplay for The Counselor, the new Ridley Scott film which our own Nick Moran wrote about on Saturday. Also out: Quiet Dell by Jayne Anne Phillips; Identical by Scott Turow; The Last Animal by Abby Geni and The Luminaries by Booker Prize shortlister Eleanor Catton, which Martha Anne Toll reviewed for us on Monday. (For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-half 2013 Book Preview.)
Amazon’s Price-Check Debacle
A lot of people were outraged by initial reports of Amazon's price-check promotion, and a lot of that had to do with misinformation. Thankfully, Richard Russo sets the record straight about at least one point of contention. (The discount doesn't apply to books.)