New this week: The State We’re In by Ann Beattie; Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner; The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips; The Race for Paris by Meg Waite Clayton; In The Language of Miracles by Najia Hassib; Still Life Las Vegas by James Sie; and Subway Stations of the Cross by Ins Choi. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Beattie; Weiner; Phillips; Clayton; Hassib; Sie; Choi
Living and Translating is Wearing Me Out
The premier English-language translator of modern Chinese fiction, Howard Goldblatt, says flatly that Western audiences don’t read Chinese books. However, with last year’s Nobel Prize win for Mo Yan (and the rave review his novel Pow! received in the Times), Goldblatt and other scholars are hoping that could change.
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Watkins’s Romantic Sublime
“Too vast for human comprehension, yet at the same time a tabula rasa for each fragile individual’s desires, it’s a classic example of the Romantic sublime, as mesmerising as it is deadly.” The Guardian reviews Year in Reading Alumnus Claire Vaye Watkins’s Gold Fame Citrus. Compare and contrast with our review of the novel.
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He’s at a Loss
Guess which famous novelist and new Twitter user got 19,000 retweets for the following: “On Twitter at last, and can't think of a thing to say. Some writer I turned out to be.” (Hint: his last name rhymes with “sing.”)
As Bad As The Worst
Believe it or not, there may be a connection between Walt Whitman and US drones.
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Lev Grossman on Aspiring Writers
Lev Grossman offers some words of encouragement for aspiring writers: "because it turns out that talent, whatever that is, and that glowy aura, are only part of the picture."
The Summer Rooster Strikes Back
The second annual Rooster Summer Reading Challenge starts next week with two selections for June: Julián Herbert's Tomb Song and Tayari Jones's An American Marriage. Get yourself ready with an essay about black love stories featuring Jones' novel.
Yes.
Your dandruff falls like the fixtures within a scenic railway passing through a thousand bearded rainbows... Compliment courtesy of the Surrealist Compliment Generator! (Via.)
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