Has Edward St. Aubyn killed the existentialist novel? Jacob Kiernan at Full Stop Magazine has a few ideas about it. If it’s existential quandary you’re after, this essay for The Millions on the beautiful afterlife of books–which may not be so much of an afterlife, after all–will be perfect for you.
Author as Commercial Mechanism
Appearing Elsewhere
Park Slopers, I’ll be reading tonight at 7 p.m. at The Community Bookstore on 7th Avenue, with our former guest contributor Joshua Henkin and some other folks, in celebration of the long running literary magazine Glimmer Train. It would be lovely to see some familiar faces, or new ones.
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Building Covers
Year in Reading alumnus Chris Ware drew the cover of this week’s New Yorker. (If you liked his latest, Building Stories, you might like reading our review.)
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LA Review of Books Launches Standalone Site
The swanky new LA Review of Books website is live, and it’s a multimedia experience worth checking out. Users can select content by genre or article type, and the site’s author, contributor, and staff pages even come with fancy head shots to boot. Be sure to check out their upcoming events page as well.
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Taking Bets on the Nobel Prize
Popular bookmakers Ladbrokes have announced their opening odds for the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature. Smart money seems to favor Haruki Murakami, who would surely take the prize if it depended on recent book sales. Meanwhile the next two favorites are Joyce Carol Oates (6/1) and Hungarian author Péter Nádas (7/1). All signs point to this being another year of disappointment for Philip Roth’s fans – his odds of winning stand at 16/1.
Welcome to Wild West Egg
You are hotshot Nick Carraway in the 8-bit Nintendo version of The Great Gatsby. Don’t ask questions…just click “z” to shoot.