Has there ever been a decent television show about book publishing? Not yet. Liam O’Brien at Melville House explains how Showtime’s The Affair is the best one we’ve got–and by “best,” he means impossible and hilariously unrealistic.
A Sordid Affair
Mavis Gallant, Diarist
Rejoice: Mavis Gallant's private journals are being released by Knopf in the US.
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Fleshing Out “The Man”
Luke Epplin examines the life and legacy of Stan “The Man” Musial, who died last week. In particular Epplin takes issue with how well-intentioned biographers have, over the years, “effectively turned Musial into a cardboard cutout, a bygone era's one-dimensional paragon of constancy, stability, community fealty, and humility, devoid of the temperamental shadings that humanize public figures.”
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Outkube
The Onion's tired of incendiary comments left by trolls reading their articles. (Who isn't?) So the publication has created Outkube, a "decoy website" rife with troll-bait. It's hysterical. Elsewhere, they've started curating a list of people who just don't get the joke.
Tuesday New Release Day: Yanique; Vollmann; Cheshire; Makkai; Sweterlitsch; Chancellor; Hellenga; Brown; Thorpe; Baricco; Lawson; Lepucki
Out this week: The Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique; Last Stories and Other Stories by William T. Vollmann; High as the Horses’ Bridles by Scott Cheshire; The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai; Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Thomas Sweterlitsch; A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall by Will Chancellor; The Confessions of Frances Godwin by Robert Hellenga; Don't Try to Find Me by Holly Brown; The Girls from Corona del Mar by Rufi Thorpe; Mr. Gwyn by Alessandro Baricco; Road Ends by Mary Lawson; and our own Edan Lepucki's California (which you may have seen on Colbert). For more, go read our Great Second-half 2014 Book Preview.
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5 Women Under 35
For the first time ever, this year's National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" winners are all women. Congrats to Molly Antopol (The UnAmericans), NoViolet Bulawayo (We Need New Names, which was also just shortlisted for The Booker Prize), Amanda Coplin (The Orchardist), Daisy Hildyard (Hunters in the Snow), and Merritt Tierce (Love Me Back).
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