Male bonding can take many forms, among them the rarely-seen joint book tour, which Mike Harvkey and Josh Weil decided to undertake in support of their new novels. The two write about meeting each other, travelling around America and bouncing ideas off trusted friends in a Salon essay. FYI, our own Bill Morris wrote a piece about his own book tour for The Daily Beast.
Inseparable
Payday
Recommended Reading: Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin on writing for free (or not).
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Jon Clinch at Bloom
At Bloom this week, check out the feature on novelist Jon Clinch, and the accompanying Q&A, where Clinch talks in-depth about his decision to self-publish his fourth novel after having his first two published by Random House. He says that his second novel, Kings of the Earth, “was set up for success: Oprah’s magazine put it at the top of their summer reading list, and it went on to be named one of the best novels of the year by theWashington Post. But the Oprah nod came six or eight weeks before publication date, and Random House either couldn’t or didn’t capitalize on it. By the time the book hit the shelves, it was already forgotten. I simply couldn’t bear the possibility that The Thief of Auschwitz might slip into the abyss.”
The Better Angels of Our Nature
Steven Pinker‘s The Better Angels of Our Nature posits that human violence is becoming less and less common in civilized culture. If your interest was piqued by the book’s review in The New York Times, you will no doubt be interested in his Edge Master Class as well.