Recommended Reading: Can desire thrive without freedom? On the works of Margaret Atwood and Michel Houellebecq in The Atlantic. Our essay on Atwood’s vision of the future and review of Ben Jeffery’s Anti-Matter: Michel Houellebecq and Depressive Realism pair nicely.
Desire and Freedom
B&N Partnership
Boston-based online retailer Wayfair.com has authored a major deal with Barnes & Noble. Wayfair, which sells 4.5 million products on its own site, is teaming up with Barnes & Noble to showcase some 500,000 toys, kitchenwares and other goods on the book giant’s site.
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Poetry in a Box
Recommended Reading: On poetry about poem-making and the poetics of assemblage.
Writers Bloc Series
In Zadie Smith's introduction to the Writers Bloc series, she writes that the program sought essays "that were not only pious, charitable or analytical but also readable, engaging, exciting." The essays published by Guernica certainly meet this criteria. I particularly recommend Aleksandar Hemon's essay on first graders in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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Coffee House + Emily Books
Coffee House Press recently announced it will be partnering with Emily Books, whose co-founder Emily Gould is a Year in Reading alum, to form their first imprint, which will publish two original titles a year. Their news pairs well with Electric Literature's "2015 Indie Press Preview."
A New Tradition
The New Yorker has launched an online-only series dedicated to the novella, featuring longer works of fiction the magazine isn’t able to fit into print. “The novella is not, usually, an expanded story. Rather, it is a contracted novel, in which the omissions cover much ground. It is more ambitious than a story, denser and more gemlike than a novel.” Callan Wink’s In Hindsight launches the series, with an interview with the author.
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He Means Well
The “good bad guy” has been having his moment on television. From Don Draper to Tony Soprano, America loves the anti-hero. Here’s a look at some literary anti-heroes from over at Ploughshares. You are likely to either agree with or be enraged by this essay from The Millions on likeability in fiction.
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