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
Got Two and a Half Days to Kill?
Hachette Audio has composed a 56-hour long audiobook version of Infinite Jest. In case you’re wondering: no, they don’t read the endnotes; they’re provided as a “bonus PDF.” Also, The Huffington Post gathered two audio excerpts.
●
●
Nothing if Not Consistent
Fans of Moby-Dick should read Nathaniel Philbrick’s outstanding historical account In the Heart of the Sea. The book, which tracks the fate of The Essex, a New England whaling vessel sunk by a humongous sperm whale in the South Pacific, is vivid and harrowing. It’s also, as it turns out, only one of the naval catastrophes to befall George Pollard, Jr., The Essex‘s captain: a second wreck of his was recently located off the coast of Hawaii.
●
●
No Whining Allowed
Elissa Schappell thinks writers need to stop whining. “Writers seem to think that by virtue of intellect or sensitivity that we suffer more than others, that the work we do is more necessary than other work. This idea is not only ridiculous, it’s shameful,” she wrote after 2paragraphs asked her “What Do You Like Least About Being A Writer?” Pair with: our interview with her earlier this year.
2011 PEN/Malamud Winner
Edith Pearlman takes the 2011 PEN/Malamud award in recognition of her short stories. Her most recent collection, her fourth, is Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories.
●
●
Interview with an Innkeeper
Some holiday cheer: John Scalzi offers up an interview with history’s most famous innkeeper.
●
●