Out this week: The Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson; Let Me Be Frank With You by Richard Ford; Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet; Ugly Girls by Lindsay Hunter; Twilight of the Eastern Gods by Ismail Kadare; A Map of Betrayal by Ha Jin; Something Rich and Strange by Ron Rash; and Shark by Will Self. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great Second-half 2014 Book Preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Johnson; Ford; Millet; Hunter; Kadare; Jin; Rash; Self
Fountain of Youth
A new study says that book readers live two years longer than their non-reading counterparts. As they explain it, “While most sedentary behaviors are well-established risk factors for mortality in older individuals, previous studies of a behavior that is often sedentary, reading… have not compared the health benefits of reading-material type.” Pair with this Millions essay on private libraries and what books reveal about their readers.
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This Side of Criticism
F. Scott Fitzgerald called himself “a moralist at heart,” which might be why Kathryn Schulz finds The Great Gatsby to be “aesthetically overrated, psychologically vacant, and morally complacent.”
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The Future Is Near
Wallace Shawn has written a new play, and it’s unsettling to watch. In it, a group of wealthy, middle-aged party hosts reveal their roles in a dystopian future, where political murders, random beatings and censorship are all commonplace. In an essay for The New York Review of Books, Francine Prose reviews the play in the context of Shawn’s other works.
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“It was a nasty autumn morning…”
A thoughtful piece of fiction to mark the November 10 anniversary of Atatürk‘s death.
Tuesday New Release Day: Hadley; Hunt; Aboulela; Bohjalian; Tarkington; Lambert; Morris; Hawdon
Out this week: The Past by Tessa Hadley; Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt; The Kindness of Enemies by Leila Aboulela; The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian; Only Love Can Break Your Heart by Ed Tarkington; The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert; Travelers Rest by Keith Lee Morris; and Jakob’s Colors by Lindsay Hawdon. For more on these and other new titles, check out our just-published Book Preview.
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“It was a strange choice to decide to pass as a Russian.”
You can read the first twenty pages of Karolina Waclawiak’s How To Get Into the Twin Palms – and if that hasn’t sold you yet, know this: this excerpt has some sexy stuff in it.