New this week: Moonglow by Michael Chabon; I’ll Take You There by Wally Lamb; Morning, Paramin by Derek Walcott and Peter Doig; Selected Poems 1968-2014 by Paul Muldoon; and a new Richard Pevear translation of Alexander Pushkin’s complete prose. For more on these and other new titles, go read our latest fiction and nonfiction book previews.
Tuesday New Release Day: Chabon; Lamb; Walcott; Muldoon; Pushkin
From Chernobyl
Recommended Reading: An excerpt from Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster at n+1. Read more about Alexievich at The Millions.
Chicken Soup for the Stall
As literary genres go, bathroom graffiti ranks somewhere between obscenities carved into desks and poorly spelled comments in terms of respectability. Yet it’s still a form that could reveal interesting things, which is why a group of researchers took a series of fact-finding trips to public stalls across America. Their takeaway? “The mere fact of being in a public bathroom could be skewing how people choose to present themselves when they uncap that Sharpie.” Related: Buzz Poole on The History of American Graffiti.
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Who Wrote the First Mystery Novel?
“Never mind whether the butler did it. Here’s a real mystery for you: Who wrote the first detective novel?” Paul Collins at the New York Times takes another look at the usual suspects.
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World Book Night’s Book Giveaway
World Book Night is scheduled for this Tuesday, and 25,000 volunteers will gather to distribute free books to “light and non-readers across America.” Last year, our own Edan Lepucki participated in the event and wrote about it for our site. However this year, if you’d like to participate on your own, you can enter the organization’s book giveaway to receive “5 free WBN editions to share with others.” Get out there and spread some literary love.
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A very colorful Queen!
Pantone has released a Queenly color wheel, made especially to mark Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee. The wheel is made up of the Pantone referents for the colors her Majesty has worn throughout her reign, and each chip bears a historical note on the particular hue’s tie to her wardrobe. This is especially good news if, like Slate, you think that the Queen is the most fashionable woman in the world.
All Voices Must Be Heard
“The last two years have given long overdue visibility to trans / non-binary realities, pushing us to re-imagine what centering the margins truly means. Being intentional, though, is more than a special issue of a literary journal for the ‘marginalized;’ it’s about creating a space for folk to curate, create, and declare their own bodies: of work, of resistance, of survival.” Editor Jayy Dodd introduces the new issue of The Offing, devoted to trans and non-binary artists. Pair with our own Sonya Chung’s piece on literary activism.
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