“My idea of the ideal literary dinner party remains locking a book under my left wrist while conveying risotto to my mouth with my right at the kitchen table.” Stacy Schiff talks literary dinner parties and more in this week’s New York Times By the Book column. Schiff’s latest, The Witches: Salem, 1692, is out this week.
Deep, Hungry Gulps
The Literature of Loss
“Loss isn’t science; it’s a human reckoning.” The New York Times posts an e-mail conversation between Joyce Carol Oates and Meghan O’Rourke on why we write about grief, following the release of Oates’ memoir A Widow’s Story and in anticipation of O’Rourke’s own memoir of loss, The Long Goodbye.
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Going On Eleven
A new story by Hilary Mantel is always a cause for celebration. Good news: there’s one up now at the London Review of Books called “Kinsella In His Hole.” Huzzah!
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Rumspringa
“Could there be anything better, or worse, than Amish romance novels?” Let’s find out.
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Lewis Explains Obama’s Way
The Big Short author Michael Lewis hung out with president Barack Obama for six months, and a 13,638-word profile is what ensued.
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50 States of Literature
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PEN Literary Award Longlists Released
The final PEN Literary Award Longlists are posted today! Check out all of the lists here. Longlisters include Angela Flournoy (whom we interviewed, and who has written a Year in Reading for us), Marilynne Robinson (who is known for her singular vision), Renata Adler (about whom we have made six possibly true observations), and David L. Ulin (whose Year in Reading is here).
Amazon’s Top Book Lists
Amazon has churned out a number of top books lists this year. We’ve already mentioned the Editors’ Top 100 Books, but there’s also the Customers’ Top 100 Books, the Top 10 Literature and Fiction, the Top 10 Cookbooks, and the Top 10 Science Books.