Out this week: Thus Bad Begins by Javier Marías; Fish in Exile by Vi Khi Nao; Virgin and Other Stories by April Ayers Lawson; Valiant Gentleman by Sabina Murray; Pull Me Under by Kelly Luce; Faithful by Alice Hoffman; and Commotion of the Birds by John Ashbery. For more on these and other new titles, go read our latest fiction and nonfiction book previews.
Tuesday New Release Day: Marías; Nao; Lawson; Murray; Luce; Hoffman; Ashbery
To Learn Norwegian
“I find it amusing that people think trying to read a book in a language you do not understand is the most boring activity in the world. If you are interested in how literature works, these things are interesting.” On Lydia Davis‘s interest in learning to read Norwegian literature and writing at the end of the world, from the newly-launched Lit Hub.
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Don’t Shy Away
Bad news for writers: shyness can’t be cured. Good news for writers: shyness makes us more creative.
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Wild Ride
A lot of women feel a connection to Cheryl Strayed, but one reader’s connection was personal. Strayed’s lost half-sister found her when she just happened to check out Wild because she liked travel narratives. “She didn’t know anything about me except when she read the description in my book of my early life, my mother and my father, she knew that father was hers, too. I don’t name my father in the book but she recognized him,” Strayed told NPR.
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The Fleshy School
It looks like it’s a poetry kind of morning. Spring is on its way, and what better way to celebrate than with Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “The Sun’s Shame,” a poem of death and desire … and also sunshine: “All soulless now, yet merry with the Spring!”
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Amazon Books Expands?
I directed your attention to the opening of the first Amazon Books in Seattle. Now, reports are coming in that Amazon could have plans to open 300-400 more stores across the country. Other sources say the expansion could be more modest.
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