The Economist gives a succinct explanation of “why books come out in hardback before paperback,” but their answer feels almost too simple. For a fuller understanding of the paperback / hardback question, pair The Economist‘s article with Nichole Bernier‘s Millions piece on “The Point of the Paperback.”
Hardcover, Paperback and The Economist
Tuesday New Release Day: Adler; Smith; Harris; Margolin; Hall; Mailer; Saramago
Out this week: The Wall by H.G. Adler; How to Be Both by Ali Smith; Screenplay by MacDonald Harris; Woman with a Gun by Phillip Margolin; Essays after Eighty by Donald Hall; Selected Letters by Norman Mailer; and Skylight by the late Nobel laureate José Saramago. For more on these and other recent titles, check out our Great Second-half 2014 Book Preview.
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“A Minor Manifesto”
Ian Crouch writes for The New Yorker about a new version of The Sun Also Rises, which gives readers a peak into Hemingway's drafts and revisions. Crouch believes that by reading these drafts carefully, one can pick out a "minor manifesto" that "conceives of a book with greater intellectual and artistic ambitions than Hemingway ever produced." In the words of Hemingway's character Jake Barnes, "Isn''t it pretty to think so?" Pair with our own review of the latest edition of The Sun Also Rises.
“Art of Agenting”
In an interview for Guernica Jonathan Lee talks to Chris Parris-Lamb, the literary agent who represented Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding, John Darnielle's National Book Award-nominated Wolf in White Van, and now our very own Garth Risk Hallberg's upcoming City on Fire, about "The Art of Agenting." Pair with our own Edan Lepucki's conversation with her agent, "Don't Ever Do It for the Money," and with the opening lines of City on Fire, a Millions exclusive.
Know Your Book Covers
Think you know your Arthur Conan Doyle from your Agatha Christie? This week, The Guardian quizzes you on the book covers of classic crime novels. In case you missed it, previous weeks featured science fiction and literary classics.
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