New this week: Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue; The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis; The Outside Lands by Hannah Kohler; I’m Still Here by Clelie Avit; and Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half 2016 Book Preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Mbue; Davis; Kohler; Avit; Thompson
O Health Coach! My Health Coach!
“To you, clerk, literary man, sedentary person, man of fortune, idler, the same advice. Up!” Walt Whitman, health nut and paleo dieter–resist carbs, obey red meat!
RIP Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco, Italian semiotician and author of works such as Theory of Semiotics and The Name of the Rose, has died at 84. His most famous work, The Name of the Rose, was adapted in a film starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater. Reflect on his life by revisiting Hillary Kelly’s review of Confessions of a Young Novelist.
Stocking Self Published Novels
A guide for booksellers on working with self published authors.
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Philosophy’s Monster
Frankenstein was originally a philosophical novel, Michael Saler reveals in his review of The Annotated Frankenstein. Mary Shelley used her monster to comment on the terrors of the French Revolution, patriarchy, social justice, and slavery, he writes.
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What Is Grief?
“Is grief a condition of love? Does grief prevent us from making peace within ourselves and with each other?” For the Kenyon Review, Rosebud Ben-Oni writes on grief as waiting. Pair with Lidia Yuknavitch’s Millions essay on grief and art.
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The Best of Last (Crusade)
I’m shocked that this is even open to debate. Emily Asher-Perrin on why Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is the best of all Indy films.
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Liminal Literature
Vol. 1 Brooklyn‘s Tobias Carroll presents a roundup of the best new literature blurring the lines between writing and the visual arts, including works that made cameos in Paul Auster‘s Leviathan and Valeria Luiselli’s The Story of My Teeth. We reviewed the latter novel a year ago here.