Out this week: Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman; There’s Something I Want You to Do by Charles Baxter; Bon Appétempt by Amelia Morris; The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah; The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson; The Marauders by Tom Cooper; We Are Pirates by Daniel Handler; A History of Loneliness by John Boyne; Holy Cow by The X-Files star David Duchovny; and Get in Trouble by Kelly Link. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great 2015 Book Preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Gaiman; Baxter; Morris; Hannah; Swanson; Cooper; Handler; Boyne; Duchovny; Link
Empirical Studies of the Class System
Following the recent passing of Nobel laureate Doris Lessing, The New Statesman republished the author’s London diary, first published by the magazine back in 1958.
If Nobel Laureates Wrote for Home Depot
The Paris Review presents a spread of paint chips “sourced from the colors in literature.”
Hart Crane: Remix Artist
“Samuel Greenberg belongs in the pantheon of literary manqués,” writes Jacob Silverman. The poet was a favorite of Hart Crane, who described him as “a Rimbaud in embryo.” But did Crane take his adoration too far? Did he in fact “remix,” re-purpose, or plagiarize some of Greenberg’s work?
And Still I Rise
Via Galleycat we’re watching the just-released trailer for the upcoming documentary Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, which is scheduled to air on October 14th on PBS. Pair with this beautiful in memoriam we published upon her passing in 2014.
Tuesday New Release Day: McBride; Scott; Chariandy; Kendal; Erpenbeck
Out this week: Five-Carat Soul by James McBride; Unforgivable Love by Sophfronia Scott; Brother by David Chariandy; The Second Sister by Claire Kendal; and Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
MFA Opinions
Nearly everyone has an opinion about MFA programs, and Flavorwire has 27 pulled from writers and teachers, including our own Edan Lepucki whose full piece on “The MFA Debate” can be found here.
The Teenage Years are More Dystopian Than Ever
Led by Millions Top Tenner The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, dystopia is unseating vampires as the dominant theme in teen fiction, according to The Independent. The paper lists several other examples of the hot new trend, including Plague by Michael Grant and Matched by Ally Condie. (We’d argue that with dystopian classics like 1984 and Lord of the Flies on teen reading lists for decades, this is an old trend that’s new again.)