Recommended Reading: This essay from The Literary Hub on how Jean Rhys and her novel Wide Sargasso Sea extended the limits of a feminism which was rooted in the work of Charlotte Brontë.
Alone In the Most Beautiful Place
Tuesday New Release Day: Fallon, Brown, Sriracha
New this week is a debut collection of loosely linked stories that's been getting some attention. Military families are the common theme in Siobhan Fallon's You Know When the Men Are Gone. Another newly released debut is Eleanor Brown's The Weird Sisters about a Shakespeare scholar's three daughters, all named after characters from the Bard's plays. Also new this week, a tome dedicated to the "hot" condiment of the moment, The Sriracha Cookbook.
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Reclaiming the Allegory
Recommended Reading: On the literary tradition of the allegory and what it means for modern storytelling. Staff writer emeritus Emily Colette Wilkinson writes on The Dark Knight as political allegory.
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Rethinking Art
What is the function of the art critic, anyway? According to Barry Schwabsky at The Nation, it is not "making or breaking" an artist, but rather "opening up perspectives without ... belaboring them." For the critically minded among you, here's a Millions review of A.O. Scott's new book Better Living Through Criticism.
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New Prize for French Literature
Albertine Books, the bookshop of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York City, is offering a $10,000 prize aimed at “introducing American readers to the best French-language novels that have been translated into English.” Among the nominees this year is Bardo or Not Bardo by Antoine Volodine, who was recently the subject of a Millions piece.
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I’m scared already
Kirk Hammett, of y'know, Metallica has a book coming out this fall. It's about his love of all things horror.