Out this week: M Train by Patti Smith; Mothers, Tell Your Daughters: Stories by Bonnie Jo Campbell; 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories edited by Lorrie Moore; The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks; The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra; Death by Water by Kenzaburō Ōe; and Ghostly: A Collection of Ghost Stories by Audrey Niffenegger. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Smith; Campbell; Moore; Brooks; Marra; Ōe; Niffeneger
For Science!
Celebrate of the recent discovery of the Higgs boson with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's list of science fiction stories based on "more or less accurate science" and the recently uploaded sci-fi themed New Yorker fiction podcast.
RIP Jimbo’s
South Floridian bandits, fishermen, drunks, madmen, and college students are mourning the imminent demise of beloved Miami institution, Jimbo's. The site of the "Who Lets The Dogs Out" video, the Flipper movie starring Elijah Wood, and a couple iterations of the now-defunct Swampstomp music festival, Jimbo's defied summation. Put simply, you had to see it yourself. The way I always explained it to my friends up North was by telling them it was like The Rum Diary met CBGB's and Will Smith's "Miami" video. Still, even that's insufficient, so I recommend reading the Miami New Times' epic chronicle of the place's history.
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Plagiarizing James Bond
Little, Brown & Company has pulled a mystery novel from the shelves after passages in the book were found to have been plagiarized from “a variety of classic and contemporary spy novels,” like James Bond novels and books by Robert Ludlum and Charles McCarry.
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The Recuyell Sells
The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye, the first book published in English, recently sold at auction for almost 2 million dollars.
Written History
The New Republic takes a look at Adrienne Rich’s never-before-seen letters, which trace her feminist awakening.
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Great American History Puzzle
Jeopardy! champion, Maphead author, and all-around puzzle whiz Ken Jennings has devised a month-long “Great American History Puzzle,” and the grand prize winner will receive a free trip to Washington D.C., as well as a “Secrets of the Smithsonian” tour no doubt reminiscent of touring the back room at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie.
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