For everyone who believes that “being out and reading is better than staying home and planning to read,” The New Yorker‘s Andrea Denhoed may have found just the thing: silent reading parties.
Silence, Please
The Voices Who Confided
Head over to The Literary Hub and take a look at this excerpt from Svetlana Alexievich’s newest book, Second-Hand Time, which has been called a “history of emotions” chronicling the demise of Soviet communism. While you’re at it, take a look at this Millions profile/interview with Alexievich from earlier this summer.
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Big Money Books
Online used book marketplace AbeBooks has released its list of the top ten most expensive sales on the site in 2010. A rare and very old Arabic manuscript is in the top slot. Herman Melville also makes a couple of appearances.
Quark Winner
Big congrats to Millions staff writer Edan Lepucki whose essay “Reading and Race: On Slavery in Fiction” has come in second for the 3 Quarks Daily Arts & Literature Prize.
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“Der Nister”
Here’s a great article about the underrated Soviet/Yiddish writer Pinkhes “Der Nister” Kaganovich.
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Anna Karenina in Somalia
Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina has changed readers' lives for generations, but for Mohamed Barud, the epic novel saved his life.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Ball; Vásquez; Samson; Ginsberg & Ferlinghetti; Kushner
New this week: A Cure for Suicide by Jesse Ball; Lovers on All Saints’ Day by Juan Gabriel Vásquez; The Kindness by Polly Samson; a new book of correspondence between Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti; and Apollo in the Grass by the Russian poet Aleksandr Kushner. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview.
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