Meet Shondaland, a new website created by Shonda Rhimes and dedicated to storytelling that launched this week. One of their most recent posts highlights 28 books to read this fall. We know there’s a lot of reading recommendation lists around this time of year (like our September preview) but we appreciate the diversity of this list in particular and its willingness to hold back judgment if we don’t finish all the suggestions. Pair with our interview with Jesmyn Ward (whose Sing, Unburied Sing made the list), along with Year in Reading alum Eleanor Henderson’s Twelve Mile Straight.
Shondaland’s Fall Reading Recommendations
Michael Silverblatt Interviewed
Bomb turns the tables on Michael Silverblatt, the host of KCRW’s Bookworm–this time he’s the one answering questions.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Powers; Oates; Hua; Snyder; Angelou
New this week: Orfeo by Richard Powers; Carthage by Joyce Carol Oates; Boy in the Twilight by Yu Hua; What We’ve Lost is Nothing by Rachel Louise Snyder; and His Day is Done by Maya Angelou. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great 2014 Book Preview.
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Unhappy Birthday to White Noise
What’s with the Don DeLillo pile-on? The folks at Slate post a long audio conversation about White Noise, with one participant calling the novel “flagrantly bad.” I disagree…but then, I kind of liked Point Omega, too.
On the Short Story
Sara Majka’s debut collection Cities I’ve Never Lived In is forthcoming from Graywolf Press. At Longreads, check out one of her short stories from the collection on working in soup kitchens across the country. Pair with our celebration of Short Story Week for recommendations, reviews, and more.
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Hail to the Chief (Librarian)
During the riots in Baltimore following Freddie Gray’s death, the city’s chief librarian insisted her neighborhood branch remain open. Yesterday that librarian, Dr. Carla D. Hayden, was sworn in as the 14th librarian of Congress, the first woman and African-American to hold the position. We wonder what Dr. Hayden might make of our own Jacob Lambert‘s “Open Letter to the Person Who Wiped Boogers on My Library Book.”
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A Note from the Author
It was probably inevitable that Rap Genius would spawn Poetry Genius, but it was not so inevitable that Junot Díaz would make an appearance on the latter. On Saturday, Díaz annotated a number of passages from his own The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, including a footnote where he says he went “buckwild.”
Are You Sure?
“Are you sure you need to give me that summer reading list-library flyer-academic camp brochure? Are you sure that I can’t just let my kids get dumber by 1/3rd until they come back here in the fall like we all used to?” Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do? Welcome to every teacher’s nightmare, courtesy of McSweeney’s.
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Don’t Let Amy Tan Walk All Over You
Sometimes things get a little kinky at Rock Bottom Remainders shows, the little known rock band with some big members including Amy Tan, Stephen King, and Dave Barry. Tan’s signature song is “These Boots are Made for Walking.” “For ‘Boots’ I’m especially gifted. I wield a whip and at the end of the song, I tell the boys to bend over,” she told The Daily Beast for a “How I Write” interview.
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