Out this week: The Angel of Losses by Stephanie Feldman; Charleston by Margaret Bradham Thornton; Panic in a Suitcase by Yelena Akhtiorskaya; The Home Place by Carrie La Seur; Lucky Us by Amy Bloom; and Tigerman by Nick Harkaway (which I wrote about for our Great 2014 Book Preview).
Tuesday New Release Day: Feldman; Thornton; Akhtiorskaya; La Seur; Bloom; Harkaway
Do Emoji Really Count?
What’s your favorite form of punctuation? R. L. Stine is partial to the em-dash.
I’d Prefer Not To
“REPORTER: You’ve reportedly conveyed to Judge Garland that if he comes knocking on your office door he’ll be wasting his time. But would you deign to meet with him somewhere off the grounds of the U.S. Capitol? Say, at a Starbucks? BARTLEBY: I would prefer not to.” This Bartleby, the Senator: A Story of Merrick Garland (not to be confused with the Bartleby, the Scrivener).
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Literary Graphic Novels
At Paste, eight literary works that deserve the graphic-novel treatment. (via AuthorScoop)
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Coffee House to Publish Essays and Nonfiction
“Coffee House Press is pleased to announce that in addition to literary fiction and poetry, the nonprofit press will add essay collections and creative nonfiction to their publishing program.”
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Everything Is Interesting
“Baker is such a wonderful prose stylist that he could probably get away with publishing his diary—which, for epic stretches, is what Substitute feels like.” Over at The Nation, Evan Kindley reviews Nicholson Baker‘s latest, a 700-plus-page non-fiction exploration of substitute teaching. Spoiler: it’s not as sexy as Baker’s other work. If it’s the sex you want, see our primer on Baker’s novels; also immensely entertaining, our interview with the author from 2013.
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Reliable Suspense
What’s the greatest tool to create suspense? An unreliable narrator, according to Gillian Flynn, who is a master of them if you’ve read Gone Girl. She discussed how to write a good thriller, why she doesn’t believe in guilty pleasure reading, and her ambitious quest to read every Pulitzer Prize-winning novel in chronological order in a New York Times “By the Book” interview. Pair with: Our conversation about Gone Girl.
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