Out this week: The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti; Compass by Mathias Enard; The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck; Simulacra by Airea D. Matthews; and the Later Essays of Susan Sontag. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Tinti; Enard; Shattuck; Matthews; Sontag
Long Lost Gross
“Long before the term ‘graphic novel’ was coined to explain long-form comic strips, the artist Milt Gross was making precursors to the format,” and one of his lost works is finally being republished. The work, Milt Gross’ New York, was written for the World’s Fair in 1939 and “follows the adventures of the sausage-nosed, conniving, yet amiable con man Pop.”
Speed is Addictive
If you were like this writer when you were growing up, you knew — nay, believed — that Sonic the Hedgehog was better than Mario, full stop. At The Verge, Trent Volbe explains the Blue Blur’s greatness, including a sample from the Green Hill Zone soundtrack to illustrate the games’ sick bass grooves.
Honor My Profession
For Your Viewing Pleasure: an animated lecture by Kurt Vonnegut in which he talks about man-eating lampreys and warheads filled with sperm. It is a lot like what it sounds like.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Hadley, ESPN, Gladstone
New Yorker darling Tessa Hadley has a new novel out this week, The London Train. Also out is the controversial oral history of ESPN, Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, which reportedly offers up ample doses of insider gossip and bad behavior. And finally, there’s The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media, in which contemporary journalism is explored in a graphic novel format. Here’s a taste.
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