New this week: A Gambler’s Anatomy by Jonathan Lethem; The Fall Guy by James Lasdun; No Knives in the Kitchens of This City by Khaled Khalifa; Mister Monkey by Francine Prose; The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa; Truevine by Beth Macy; Love for Sale by David Hajdu; and The Loved Ones by our own Sonya Chung. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half 2016 Book Preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Lethem; Lasdun; Khalifa; Prose; Correa; Macy; Hajdu; Chung
Levente Szabó’s Great Book Cover Project
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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 Trees! They’re Glowing!
Some amateur biologists are at work replacing lamps with bio-luminescent trees and flowers, reports Andrew Pollack for The New York Times. Meanwhile South Korean scientists have barking up an entirely different tree for the past two years. (I’m sorry for the pun; here’s an image of a glowing beagle to make amends.)
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Lovecraft’s Disappearing Act
A manuscript by H.P. Lovecraft has recently been re-discovered among a collection of magic memorabilia. The book was “an investigation of superstition through the ages” commissioned by Harry Houdini. (Maybe all of this magic had something to do with its disappearing act?)
The FBI Analyzes Gone Girl
Recommended viewing: an FBI agent takes a look at Amy Dunne’s story from Gone Girl and, surprise!, finds it a little lacking.
Byron-ness
Which Lord Byron is the most Byron-y? Let Mallory Ortberg tell you in her rankings of Byron portraits.
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Marcel Proust Paid for Positive Book Reviews
“The French writer Marcel Proust paid for glowing reviews of the first volume of his Remembrance of Things Past to be put into newspapers.” Letters by Proust, which will be auctioned off at Soethby’s in Paris next month, reveal he was willing to pay handsomely for flattering references to his novel. See also: the first entry of The Millions’ Hannah Gersen‘s column, The Proust Book Club.