“POPE OF PURGATORY WOULD BE A SOLID BAND NAME.” Part two of a series in which Mallory Ortberg of The Toast reviews Martin Luther’s The Ninety-Five Theses.
A Religious Review
Holden Caulfield Has No Friends
Chances are you’ve heard that in a recent interview, Claire Messud responded to a patronizing question about one of her characters -- “I wouldn’t want to be friends with Nora, would you?” -- by giving her interviewer a smackdown that resonated across the blogosphere. At Page-Turner, several authors (including Rivka Galchen, Jonathan Franzen and Year in Reading alumna Margaret Atwood) offer their own takes on the matter of "likeability." (There's also this piece by our own Emily St. John Mandel to consider.)
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Yup, Still Cold
With a huge winter storm bearing down on the East Coast, the Hopkinton library in Massachusetts did the only sensible thing: they erected a sign extolling the virtues of curling up with a book. What makes theirs unique is that, unlike many of their peers, they found a way to avoid the “warm yourself up” cliché. (Previously spotted on Reddit: “What are some good books to read [in jail?]”)
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Tuesday New Release Day: Englander; Sloan; Kassabova; le Carré; Ward
Out this week: Dinner at the Center of the Earth by Nathan Englander; Sourdough by Robin Sloan; Border by Kapka Kassabova; A Legacy of Spies by John le Carré; and Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Trigger warning: Breakups ahead
Kim Addonizio's latest collection of short stories, The Palace of Illusions, is due out this month. Here is a sneak peek, the story, "Another Breakup Song,” featuring a distinctly Raymond Carver-esque vibe.
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Two Davids and The Bone Clocks
Recommended listening: David Naimon interviews David Mitchell about "time, maps, cats," and The Bone Clocks (which we reviewed here) for Between the Covers.
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Tuesday New Release Day
New this holiday week is former indie rocker Matthew Gallaway's The Metropolis Case, an opera infused debut, written up favorably and excerpted at The Times.
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