Out this week: The King Is Always Above the People by Daniel Alarcón; In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende; The Kites by Romain Gary; Blood Brothers by Deanne Stillman; The Art of Loading Brush by Wendell Berry; and a new edition of our own Garth Risk Hallberg’s A Field Guide to the North American Family. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Alarcón; Allende; Gary; Stillman; Berry; Hallberg
Meteor Shower
Check out Clint Smith’s poem “Meteor Shower” at the Diverse Arts Project. Not into poetry? We have ten poems for people who hate poetry.
Biography: The Story of Our Times
“There is one rule [to writing biography] that all who try their hand at it come to know: until the protagonist reveals his or her character—his or her inner self—what the biographer produces is less a life than a report, an autopsy rather than the record of a séance.” David Levering Lewis writes for The American Scholar about biography and writing “the lives of African-American figures, and [finding] in them the story of our times.”
Colson Whitehead, Book by Book
Elevator inspectors, beach vacations, zombie movies: these are just a few of the things that have inspired Colson Whitehead's books over the years.
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Music for Book Lovers
The publishers of the 33 1/3 series have made public the entire list of suggested albums submitted by their readers for the next book. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss your chance–the “Under-22” category is open through May of 2016. Pair it with our own Emily Colette Wilkinson’s hilarious musical soundtrack for her graduate school screenplay.
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A Disturbance in the Force of the Joyce Estate
Our own Mark O’Connell likens James Joyce’s grandson to a “highbrow Darth Vader.”
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Lonely Writers
Recommended Reading: Michele Filgate on the loneliest artists of all: writers. Pair with Angela Qian’s piece on a lonely writer, Olivia Laing.
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