Out this week: The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch; Imagine Wanting Only This by Kristen Radtke; A Line Made by Walking by Sara Baume; The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic by Nick Joaquin; and My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Yuknavitch; Radtke; Baume; Joaquin; Statovci
A Song of Ice and Input
Tired of waiting for George R. R. Martin to finish his next Game of Thrones novel, a software engineer has developed a neural network to write the book instead (via The Digital Reader). Pair with this consideration of how the HBO series is going off-book and breaking all the rules.
“Global” or “World Literature” vs. Internationalism
The success of international authors like Orhan Pamuk, Ma Jian, Haruki Murakami, and Tash Aw – each capable of “transcend[ing] their homelands and emerg[ing] into a planetary system where there work can acquire a universal relevance” – has caught the attention of n+1’s editors. In a lengthy piece from their last issue, they suggest that we should be less concerned with such examples of “World” or “Global Literature,” and instead focused on more diverse, politically-charged and unique international works. “Global Lit tends to accept as given the tastes of an international middlebrow audience; internationalism, by contrast, seeks to create the taste by which it is to be enjoyed,” they argue.
Writerly Advice
The Trollope Trend
Why is Trollope trending? Adam Gopnik argues it’s because “Trollope is right here where we are. His subject is always politics and his material is always gossip.” Pair his piece in the New Yorker with Sarah Henary‘s look at “Trollope at 200.”
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Pincushion
Recommended Reading: This fantastic flash fiction piece by Cole Bucciaglia at the Tin House Open Bar. Here’s a list of 45 really great short story collections to sustain your interest in the form.
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Competence without comprehension
If you read one piece on early computer scientist Alan Turing that’s come out in celebration of his 100th birthday last Saturday (if you were wondering about Friday’s Google Doodle) you might do very well to make it this one in the Atlantic on how his reading of Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution influenced his work and continues to shape the way we work with computers. It’s also about the limits of artificial intelligence.
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LA Review of Books Launches Standalone Site
The swanky new LA Review of Books website is live, and it’s a multimedia experience worth checking out. Users can select content by genre or article type, and the site’s author, contributor, and staff pages even come with fancy head shots to boot. Be sure to check out their upcoming events page as well.
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