When Octavia Butler died in 2006, she left behind unseen short stories. Butler’s agent has discovered two unpublished stories in the author’s papers. “A Necessary Being” features a lonely alien leader, and “Childminder” is about mentoring telepaths. The two stories will be published this summer in the collection Unexpected Stories.
New Octavia Butler
Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys?
The Original of Laura offers a glimpse under the hood of the chromed and gleaming Nabokov machine, writes Sam Anderson of New York Magazine.
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Olive Kitteridge on HBO
Soon HBO will have another show based on an acclaimed book in its lineup. Olive Kitteridge, a show based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Elizabeth Strout, will premiere on November 2nd. You can see the trailer (along with a brief analysis) over at Slate. FYI, Strout wrote a Year in Reading entry for us.
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The man Lish fought for
It was the height of the feminist revolution and one man was trying, unsuccessfully, to publish a book about a man amidst a midlife crisis. 25 years later, Esquire editor Gordon Lish read sections of An Armful of Warm Girl in a literary magazine and demanded that Knopf reconsider publishing it (they did). This week over at Bloom, Nicki Leone dives into the work of W.M. Spackman, the man often referred to as “Fitzgerald‘s literary heir.”
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Australian Best
Lit-mag Meanjin Quarterly is taking a cue from The Millions and kicking off a new series, The Best Australian Fiction of the 21st Century (so far).
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And Still I Rise
Via Galleycat we’re watching the just-released trailer for the upcoming documentary Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, which is scheduled to air on October 14th on PBS. Pair with this beautiful in memoriam we published upon her passing in 2014.
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I Is for Impressive
“It all started with A Is For Alibi, then came B Is For Burglar, C Is For Corpse and on and on through the alphabet.” NPR interviews Sue Grafton about her Kinsey Millhone series, currently spanning 25 letters – the newest and penultimate entry, Y for Yesterday, comes out today – and 35 years. Pair with Ujala Sehgal‘s list of five crime novels where women are the true detectives.