Know a great title that’s not in our latest Book Preview? Tweet it using the hashtag #otherbooks2015. Coined by Steve Himmer — who’s written for us — the hashtag lets readers suggest noteworthy books that didn’t appear on our list. You can find even more additions in this Metafilter thread.
Second-Half Ctd.
Your Country Rocks
Few people know that Roger Ebert was an ardent Anglophile, so much so that in 1986 he wrote an obscure little book, The Perfect London Walk, in which the lifelong film critic laid out his preferred walking path through the city. Over at Slate, Katie Engelhart reviews the book, which apparently still functions as a guide to a decent stroll.
Iran Overload
My student and friend Paria Kooklan pens a guest piece at the Vroman's Blog about the popularity of novels about Iran--and penning her own. "I mean, the American public has a short attention span – Iranians are hot right now, but I can’t help wondering when the trend is going to die out. Next year, there may well be another trendy nationality: Iraqis, maybe. Or Tibetans. Or…I don’t know – the Bhutanese? Anything is possible."
The View from Out Here
“Sometimes I fear that Midwestern authors are seen from a similar vantage point: that many of us are 'fly-over writers' to whom readers wave (or just ignore completely) as they make their way to Saul Bellow and Stuart Dybek and Marilynne Robinson. I fear that these bigger names, along with a few others (Charles Baxter, Lorrie Moore), are seen as exceptions to the general rule that little of cultural worth grows in this flat, middle stretch of the country.” On the plight of the literary Midwesterner.
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“The Threadbare Art of My Eye”
As Robert Lowell put it: "sometimes everything I write / with the threadbare art of my eye / seems a snapshot." Poetry and photography.
NYRB Fall Preview
Double Shot of Dominican Poets
The Fortnightly Review has English-language translations of poems by Homero Pumarol and Frank Báez, two Dominican poets you should really check out.
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Another James Franco Film Adaptation
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