Francine Prose has a new novel out this week, while Elizabeth McCracken has a new story collection on shelves. Also out: Chestnut Street by the late Maeve Binchy; In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman; Terms and Conditions by Robert Glancy; The Selected Letters of Elia Kazan; and new paperback editions of The Color Master by Aimee Bender and The Infatuations by Javier Marias.
Tuesday New Release Day: Prose; McCracken; Binchy; Rahman; Glancy; Bender; Marias
Welcome to Wild West Egg
You are hotshot Nick Carraway in the 8-bit Nintendo version of The Great Gatsby. Don’t ask questions…just click “z” to shoot.
●
●
White Lies
“As adults, we should hold each other’s work to high standards, and our own work to the highest of all. As writers, we shouldn’t settle for a single pale line. But before the poem is written, I say, we should lie to ourselves, the way we lied to that winded child. Before composition, we have to be gods.” Alex Chertok writes about literary pep talks for the Ploughshares blog.
●
●
Recommend Them One at a Time
In The New York Times, Anne Lamott (of Bird by Bird fame) reveals the one book she’d recommend to President Obama. It might not surprise many readers of her memoir that her choice — Anti-California: Report from our First Parafascist State — is a nonfiction book by her father.
“I have a lot of feelings about the meeting.”
I highly recommend reading Jennifer Gilmore’s emotional essay on meeting “the birth mother.”
●
●
The Great American Novel
How it all got started: in 1868, The Nation published an article by John William De Forest titled “The Great American Novel.” (via American Literary blog).
Oprah’s New Book Club Pick Revealed
Word on the street is that Oprah’s new book club pick will be Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan. So, last chance to get one before the Oprah logo goes on the front. We first wrote about Akpan when he appeared in the 2005 New Yorker debut fiction issue. Say You’re One of Them was also a “Most Anticipated” book in 2008.
●
●