Out this week: Saint Mazie by Jami Attenberg; Muse by Jonathan Galassi; The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty by Vendela Vida; Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave; The Unfortunates by Sophie McManus; The Sunlit Night by Rebecca Dinerstein; A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay; I’d Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them by Jesse Goolsby; The Loved Ones by Mary-Beth Hughes; A History of Money by Alan Pauls; Land Where I Flee by Prajwal Parajuly; and Bitter Bronx by Jerome Charyn. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great 2015 Book Preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Attenberg; Galassi; Vida; Dave; McManus; Dinerstein; Tremblay; Goolsby; Hughes; Pauls, Parajuly; Charyn
Tuesday New Release Day: Lee; Jiles; McCarthy
New this week: The Boy Who Escaped Paradise by J.M. Lee; News of the World by Paulette Jiles; and The Hollow Men by Rob McCarthy. For more on these and other new titles, go read our latest fiction and nonfiction book previews.
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New Quarterly Conversation
In the new Quarterly Conversation, among other pieces, Jordan Soyka endeavors to answer the question, “How do we decide who owns the right to write about Hurricane Katrina?”
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“The dream of authenticity”
A few weeks ago, Meghan Daum released an essay collection, The Unspeakable, which our own Hannah Gersen described as “unputdownable” in her Millions review. At Slate, Katy Waldman offers her own praise, writing that “these essays do what essays often set out to do: trace the outlines of a self.”
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The Pursuit of Happiness
“It came to me while picking beans, the secret of happiness.” Maria Popova from Brain Pickings on gardening and what it means to be happy. Writers used to be so mopey and alcoholic all the time–it’s nice that they can just be happy now.
Science Fiction and the Paperback Novel
Fun fact: Up until the late 1940s, science fiction novels really didn’t exist. Andrew Liptak writes about the rise of the paperback novel and the evolution of science fiction for Kirkus Reviews. Pair with Nichole Bernier‘s Millions essay on “The Point of the Paperback.”
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More Frightened Than We’ve Ever Been
Following up on her latest book, On Immunity: An Inoculation, Year in Reading alum Eula Biss talks with Salon about “action movies, race, fear, violence and vaccination.” Pair with Kyle Boelte‘s Millions review of On Immunity.
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New Directions’ Birthday Bash
On a more optimistic note, New Directions, New York City’s inestimable and long struggling (but “long dazzling!”) publishing house, will be throwing itself a 75th birthday party on Thursday, October 27. (They just redesigned their website and colophon, too.)
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