This year, the good folks at Slate and the Whiting Foundation kicked off a new literary prize, intended to reward authors for great second novels. To wrap up the year, they’ve asked several winners of the prize, including Akhil Sharma, Helen DeWitt and Daniel Alarcon, to write short pieces about objects that symbolize the writing process for their books. (Akhil Sharma chooses a stopwatch, while Eileen Myles chooses a can of Cafe Bustelo.)
Detritus
The Family
Recommended Reading (National Prayer Breakfast edition): Jeff Sharlet’s terrifying, timely The Family.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Smith; Campbell; Moore; Brooks; Marra; Ōe; Niffeneger
Out this week: M Train by Patti Smith; Mothers, Tell Your Daughters: Stories by Bonnie Jo Campbell; 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories edited by Lorrie Moore; The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks; The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra; Death by Water by Kenzaburō Ōe; and Ghostly: A Collection of Ghost Stories by Audrey Niffenegger. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview.
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Tuesday New Release Day
The New Yorker has collected all the stories from its 20 under 40 series into a single, snappy volume, on sale now. Also out this week is the third volume of Edmund Morris’ biography of Teddy Roosevelt and a new literary foray by comedian Steve Martin, An Object of Beauty.
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The Last Reading
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