(Reluctantly) Recommended Reading: On the surprising racism of children’s books.
The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance
On Writing While Parenting
Having kids changes everything, of course, but for the writer, used to working in quiet solitude, it can feel like the end. Jessica Francis Kane writes about how she learned to write again, in a new way, after having children and offers some tips for new parents who write.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Hamid; Didion; Attenberg; Chaon; Bandi; La Farge; Morris
Out this week: Exit West by Mohsin Hamid; South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion; All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg; Ill Will by Dan Chaon; The Accusation by Bandi; The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge; and American Berserk by our own Bill Morris. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Extras
Zadie Smith’s On Beauty takes home the Orange Prize.Map of the New Yorker caption contest winners. (via emdashes)Abebooks has put together some special pages celebrating its 10th anniversary. Check out Powers of 10 – which includes the list of most expensive books ever sold on the site – and the timeline, which shows what the site looked like at its humble beginnings. (thanks Laurie.)
Curiosities: Astronaut Food
Jonathan Evison talks with independent publicist Lauren Cerand about promoting books.Kindle shenanigans: “This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers.”Marking the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, Kottke puts together a huge post of photos, videos, and links in commemoration.Our recent item rounded up all the “big” books coming out in the latter half of the year. PW alerts readers to “10 promising fiction debuts” coming this fall.Jacket Copy concludes its Pomo Month with an annotated list of “61 essential postmodern reads.”New uses for card catalogs. (via)The second issue of online literary journal The Critical Flame has arrived.Mark Sarvas offers a four-part interview with Joseph O’Neill. “I think I start with one idea. In Netherland, it was cricket in New York. Then there is an accumulation of sentences, and often just single words. Words that interest me. And I sort of build it up like a poem.”Amazon names the “Best Books of the Year… So Far.”
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So Shiny
Our good friends at The Morning News just rolled out a spiffy new look this morning! It’s in support of their “news for nerds” mission, which we also wholeheartedly support. Congrats, guys. Might we suggest you celebrate by reading its co-founder (and Year in Reading alum) Rosecrans Baldwin‘s very funny diary from a few years back?