The Year in Libraries

Did you miss 192 Books’ Geoff Dyer and John Jeremiah Sullivan conversation a few weeks back? Well, good thing for you that FSG put the whole transcript online.

“The real world is massive and chaotic beyond the scope of any story, but the novel has always been the storytelling medium that could come closest to capturing it. And the novels that dared to really try – from Hugo to Tolstoy – are often the ones that have endured.” That’s not to say, of course, that bigger is always better, and in an article for The Guardian Damien Walter argues against the current glut of epic, serialized fantasy novels taking their cues from George R.R. Martin‘s A Song of Ice and Fire. As Walter puts it, “There are great fantasy short stories, novellas and single novels that deserve much wider audiences, but are sidelined by the industry’s unhealthy fixation with the serial format. It’s time for the fantasy genre to tell some new – shorter – stories.”

When you think “Franz Kafka,” it typically isn’t his sunny disposition that comes to mind. According to Reiner Stach, this new collection of ephemera, however, seeks to challenge the tired, old conception of Kafka-as-tortured neurotic. Here’s a Millions review of Stach’s twin biographies of Kafka, himself.

Now that summer’s nearly over (I know, I know, but I’m looking forward to fall. As if you can blame me) there’s a history of summer reading in the Boston Globe.  And if you’re looking to squeeze in a good summery book this weekend, we’ve still got you covered, with our list of literary sizzlers. Get ’em while it’s hot.

From Abu Dhabi’s The National, an interesting piece on the challenges of typesetting and book design on digital platforms: “With the coming of ebooks, this invisible craft must be reinvented if it is not to disappear.”