Out this week: Sweetland by Michael Crummey; Glow by Ned Beauman; Frog by the Nobel laureate Mo Yan; Watch Me Go by Mark Wisniewski; A Bad Character by Deepti Kapoor; Blood-Drenched Beard by Daniel Galera; Black River by S.M. Hulse; Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper; My Father’s Wives by the ESPN host Mike Greenberg; and Mobile Library by David Whitehouse. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great 2015 Book Preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Crummey; Beauman; Yan; Wisniewski; Kapoor; Galera; Hulse; Hooper; Greenberg; Whitehouse
Fear Factor
Colson Whitehead has some advice: write the book that “scares you shitless.” In a recent, wide-ranging interview with John Freeman, the Underground Railroad author talks about why he wrote his latest novel, along with his methods for sussing out good ideas. You could also read our review of The Underground Railroad.
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Emily Gould’s Mysterious Book Project
Emily Gould, former Gawker editor, author of And the Heart Says Whatever, proprietor of the literary cooking show Cooking the Books, appears poised to launch a new literary venture, Emily Books. So says The Observer.
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Addicted to Love
“Homer understood in the 8th century BCE what modernity has yet to accept—love can be an addiction, and when it is, we need substantial outside help.” Angela Chen writes for Aeon about finding a cure for desire.
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The Wind-Up You Chroncile
Do you love old jazz? Are you nostalgic? Did your wife mysteriously disappear? Then you might be in a Haruki Murakami novel. At The Toast, Alice Lee gives criteria to determine whether you’re part of Murakami’s fictional universe.
Getting Directions from Jack Kerouac
Want to retrace Sal and Dean’s On the Road journey? The Placing Literature app lets you explore with your favorite characters by mapping scenes from novels. There are 1,500 destinations currently, but you can add your favorite novels or your own work.
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Baby Belle
Precocious hardly begins to describe the early work of now-famous child fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson. If you’re like me–a clueless/skeptical johnny-come-lately–check out this post, in which Tavi documents and explains the Blanche DuBois outfit she’s worn to school and her take on Tennessee Williams‘ most famous heroine.
“What a world. It could be so wonderful if it wasn’t for certain people.”
Woody Allen wasn’t kidding when he said he wasn’t going to film in New York City ever again. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the setting for Allen’s next film will be Denmark.
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