Recommended Reading: Jen Calleja offers a reading list to soothe your Brexit blues at The Quietus. “Like many people, I went through the five stages of Brexit – ‘oh well’, manic laughter, crying, rage, existential despair – in one day, and in the days that followed felt numb, nauseous, in doubt. But now it’s time to climb out of the mourning pit and work even harder than before at holding on to a European identity and keeping channels open to personal and literary dialogues with our European neighbours.”
Brexit Blues
An Excess of Symmetry
“What a perfect couple, two halves of the same little orange.” Guernica Magazine has a fantastic flash fiction piece by Andrés Neuman in anticipation of his upcoming collection of stories, The Things We Don’t Do.
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Curiosities
The Economist’s nifty, new(?) culture mag More Intelligent Life is putting together guides to the best critics, including those who cover books; film; dance, art, and classical music, and rock music. Scott has performed a similar exercise for book reviewers, as well.Polite magazine: “Where Are They Now? A visit with Encyclopedia Brown“The estimable New York Sun books section follows our lead in adding a review archive.Nextbook asks: Where have all Bernard Malamud’s readers gone?Vroman’s, a legendary Southern California independent bookstore and the employer of Millions contributor Patrick, has been named Bookseller of the Year by PW.Richard Russo:”My fictional Eliot [Spitzer] would be complex, would contain paradoxes. He would not be a hypocrite. My Eliot would believe with his whole heart in his crusades against the corrupt and the powerful and the privileged, even as he worked studiously to undermine his legacy. Fiction can accommodate such paradoxes, provided they’re explained.”An open letter to Steve Jobs pleading for Apple to create an iPod optimized for “a best-of-breed reading experience.” (via)One of our most anticipated books, Jonathan Littell’s novel Les Bienveillantes won’t be out in English for a while yet, but a new translation into German offers an opportunity for another review to trickle out.There are 1,000 Places to See Before You Die and 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, but forget all that and “Read this column before you die.”
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Another “Mildred Pierce”
Are you a Mildred Pierce fan? James M. Cain’s recently discovered manuscript will be released next year by Hard Case Crime.
The Turnip Princess
We’re all familiar with the Grimm-style fairy tales, with their evil stepmothers and imperiled princesses. But a new collection of 19th century Bavarian folk tales has been discovered, edited, and now released in English for the first time, and they’re darker, dirtier, and involve more gender-bending than the Grimm tales. Salon talks with the tales’ translator, Maria Tatar, about their history, importance, and “the surprising ways they upend our long-standing notions of the roles of heroes and heroines in some of Europe’s oldest and most popular stories.”
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The 2017 Rooster
There’s a new Tournament of Books winner in town, and it’s also being adapted for the screen by Moonlight director Barry Jenkins, so it truly does rain when it pours.
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NBA Nominee Hits Shelves
Another new release this week: Jaimy Gordon’s book Lord of Misrule, a small press underdog recently nominated for the National Book Award.
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The Reason I Jump
Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell and his wife KA Yoshida (who have an autistic son of their own) translated the latest work from Naoki Higashida, who uses an alphabet grid to communicate. The resulting memoir from the thirteen year old boy, The Reason I Jump, is scheduled for an August release. Hari Kunzru has a sneak preview of the book’s cover.
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