Out this week: City of Secrets by Stewart O’Nan; Ladivine by Marie NDiaye; These Heroic, Happy Dead by Luke Mogelson; The Adventurist by J. Bradford Hipps; and Whosoever Has Let a Minotaur Enter Them by Emily Carr. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great 2016 Book Preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: O’Nan; NDiaye; Mogelson; Hipps; Carr
Creepy Cervantes
A team of archaeologists just found Cervantes‘s body, and while that seems like a fun literary and historical event, the New Yorker‘s Ilan Stevens has a slightly different perspective: “Frankly, there is something creepy about bringing Cervantes back from the dead.”
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Steve Jobs
With his black turtleneck, wire-rimmed glasses and conspiratorial grin, Steve Jobs was arguably the best ambassador ever between androids and humans.
The Art of Fiction No. 207: Jonathan Franzen
“I’ve never felt less self-consciously preoccupied with language than I did when I was writing Freedom.” Lorin Stein introduces The Paris Review’s new Winter issue, and includes excerpts from the Art of Fiction interview with Jonathan Franzen.
Tuesday New Release Day: Gilbert, Forna, Drabble, Segal, MacFarlane, Winterson, de la Pava, Franzen
New releases this week include The Signature of All Things by Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert, which you can learn more about in Steve Almond’s review for the Times. Also out: The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna; The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble; Half the Kingdom by Lore Segal; The Night Guest by Fiona MacFarlane; The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson; Personae by Hall of Famer Sergio de la Pava; and The Karl Kraus Project by Jonathan Franzen.
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The Hype Cycle
Elif Batuman entertainingly muses on “hype” and resolves to “write five 5-star Amazon reviews this month of books I love by living authors.”
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“Fight Club 4 Kids”
There are some charming children’s books, some really bad ones, and then finally there’s Fight Club 4 Kids, which somehow manages to be both. Watch Chuck Palahniuk read the (fake) children’s version of his classic novel in this video from Mashable.
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Rocking Out With the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan loves music just as much as her protagonists in A Visit from the Goon Squad. Westword, Denver’s alt-weekly, asked Egan what her five favorite songs are. The playlist includes everyone from Iggy Pop to Cat Power. We think Bennie Salazar would approve.
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