Last week, I pointed readers to an article about Michael Faber’s latest book and his decision to quit writing fiction. Now, in the Times Book Review, Marcel Theroux sizes up the novel, writing that “the reader is drawn through the book effortlessly, by the combination of incidental strangeness and the suspenseful handling of plot.”
Strange and New
What Was I Saying?
Recommended Reading: “Happy Birthday to Me” by Nicole Sealey
Appearing Elsewhere
You should totally go to Edan’s reading tonight. But if Brooklyn is inconvenient for you while Manhattan is somehow more manageable, Millions founder and editor Max will be appearing with several other editors at the National Book Critics Circle panel “How to Publish Book Reviews & Features” at The New School at 6:30pm.
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Happy Birthday, Lord Byron
Happy Birthday to Lord Byron, who was born on this day in 1788. Read some of his poems aloud or check out illustrations of “Don Juan” at Brain Pickings to celebrate his life’s works.
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An Interview With Helen DeWitt
Helen DeWitt talks to Bookforum about the origins of her long (as in really long!)-awaited second novel, Lightning Rods.
CSI: Poetry Edition
An international group of forensic experts studying the poet Pablo Neruda‘s remains, which were ordered exhumed in 2013, says he didn’t die of cancer, as the Nobel laureate’s official cause of death states. The question remains: was he poisoned? And if you want to see how Neruda lived, perhaps you might enjoy this tour of writers’ houses.