Out this week: Bed-Stuy Is Burning by Brian Platzer; Gork, the Teenage Dragon by Gabe Hudson; Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong; A Life of Adventure and Delight by Akhil Sharma; Knots by Gunnhild Øyehaug; Pages for Her by Sylvia Brownrigg; and Moving Kings by Joshua Cohen. For more on these and other new titles, go read our just-published book preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Platzer; Hudson; Khong; Sharma; Øyehaug; Brownrigg; Cohen
Your Life Will Change
"Your shipment of personal copies will never arrive. Your publisher will not be able to track their fate, nor replace them. A week will pass and you will wander into the animal shelter at a nearby strip mall and find a dog cage lined with the urine-soaked pages of your book. Your eyes will meet the eyes of the miniature schnauzer that resides in your shredded work. You’ll think: this is fate. But the adoption center won’t approve your application because you can’t claim any substantial income." Electric Literature has compiled the "The Ten Ways Your Life Will Change After You Publish Your First Book," so you can't say you weren't warned.
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Holiday Gift Guides
BoingBoing's holiday gift guide has lots (and I mean lots!) of great things for just about anyone in your life. They even highlighted two different whiskeys. Then again, if you're only looking to give gifts to your favorite writers, Hannah Gersen has you covered.
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Guilty As Charged
"Why do readers, those who are bereaved and those with happy families alike, love orphans?"
Reading Dickens in Lagos
George Packer at Lapham’s Quarterly writes of meeting a young Burmese reader of Charles Dickens: “‘All of those characters are me,’ [he] explained. ‘Neither a British nor American young man living in the twenty-first century can understand a Dickens as well as I can...I am more equipped to understand Dickens than modern novels. I don’t know what is air conditioning, what is subway, what is fingerprint exam.’” (via Book Bench)
Mississippi Music Issue
The Oxford American's thirteenth annual music issue is on shelves now, and it comes with a 27-track mix CD. This year, the OA folks have focused on Mississippi musicians. You can get a free sample on their website.