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
Book Learnin’
“This is the first time that the college has embarked on such a robust process for measuring Core Educational Competency In Reading Things In Books And Writing About Them, and we really can’t do it without your mandated participation. We have devised this rubric in consultation with the Office of Institutional Research About the Institution, which tirelessly gathers data and then enters it into spreadsheets. Please see their Statement of Very Worthy Goals in attachment 6.”
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Silly Prizes
In a piece with which our own Mark O'Connell probably agrees, Tim Parks explains the Nobel Prize for Literature's inherent silliness.
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Remembering You
Year in Reading alumna Terry McMillan discusses “why she chooses to focus on Black women, her writing process, her latest book I Almost Forgot About You, and how Black women are treated in the publishing world” at Black Media Minute.
Working Against the Narrative
“If I was working against any existing Detroit narrative, it is the one where working-class black people exist as numbers or victims and not as fully-realized, complex people.” Angela Flournoy on her most recent work, The Turner House, a National Book Award finalist. We interviewed the author and reviewed the book.
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The Last Train from Hiroshima
Henry Holt & Company stopped printing and selling Charles Pellegrino's The Last Train From Hiroshima last week, following allegations of fraudulent sources and fabrication in the work. The New York Times examines the debacle: “If book publishers are supposed to be the gatekeepers,” novelist and Studio 360 host Kurt Anderson asks, “tell me exactly what they’re closing the gate to.”