Need some more Jeanette Winterson in your life? The New Statesman is here with a short story. Titled “Gnomon,” it centers on a medieval blacksmith, Stephen, who’s asked to create his town’s first mechanical clock. Sample quote: “Time is irregular. One hour is not the same length as another.”
Timekeepers
The Future Is Unwritten
It turns out that books by self-publishers and small presses are eating away at the Big Four’s market share. Pair with this series from The Millions about the future of the book.
One With Others
"She was to me and so many poets an exemplary and inimitable figure. And I mean to emphasize the tension between 'exemplary' and 'inimitable'—what her example taught us was the necessity of going our own way, of being one with others." Ben Lerner remembers C.D. Wright, who passed away earlier this week.
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Kindle Spam is Here
Inevitable: Spam is increasingly cropping up among the self-publishing hordes on the Kindle.
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Where We Are
You may know that The Butter founder Roxane Gay had a banner year in 2014. The Year in Reading alum published a collection of essays and her debut novel. At Salon, she talks with Sara Scribner, sharing her thoughts on modern feminism, Lena Dunham and her plans for her next book.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Irving; Hijuelos; Eco; Rothschild; Golden; Alarcón; Gaitskill
Out this week: Avenue of Mysteries by John Irving; Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise by Oscar Hijuelos; Numero Zero by Umberto Eco; The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild; Wherever There Is Light by Peter Golden; City of Clowns by Daniel Alarcón; and The Mare by Mary Gaitskill (who we interviewed today). For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview.
Coates: A Public Intellectual
The New York Times profiles MacArthur Genius and National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates as one of America's foremost public intellectuals. His book We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy (which we have been anticipating for months) is released this Tuesday.