Out this week: Infinite Ground by Martin MacInnes; Shadowless by Hasan Ali Toptas; Start Without Me by Joshua Max Feldman; The Letters of Sylvia Plath: Volume I; and Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: MacInnes; Toptas; Feldman; Plath; Hanks
Bookish Postcards from Penguin
We’ve already published a pair of great lists of gifts for writers, but I know more than one book lover (ahem) who would be thrilled to get this collection of vintage Penguin book cover postcards.
“Is it possible to overcome the horrible legacy of slavery and find decolonial love?”
Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, sits down with Paula M.L. Moya for a great interview focusing on race at The Boston Review.
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Dark Matter
Next week, Martin Amis will publish Zone of Interest, a dark new novel that takes place, like his earlier Time’s Arrow, in Nazi-occupied lands during the Holocaust. In this week’s New Yorker, Joyce Carol Oates reviews the book, suggesting that Amis is most compelling when he writes as a “satiric vivisectionist.” You could also read our own Mark O’Connell on Lionel Asbo: State of England.
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Reading from the Man Booker Shortlist
We recently announced the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize. At Granta, you can read an excerpt from Sunjeev Sahota’s The Year of the Runaways, included on the list.
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The Long Goodbye to Maxwell’s
As Maxwell’s prepares for its last couple days of existence, New York Magazine brought together the place’s original founder, it’s current co-owner, and a huge number of musicians to provide an oral history of Hoboken’s best concert venue. You might recall my piece from last month on the institution’s demise.
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Trailer for Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
Part 10: Space Hygiene: “Unfortunately, removing the helmet created a situation where the body odors were forced out of the neck of the pressure suit…” Check out this funny and artful trailer for Packing for Mars by Mary Roach.
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Olio
We thoroughly enjoyed the latest episode of David Naimon‘s Between the Covers podcast featuring Whiting-Award winner Tyehimba Jess. The conversation centers on Jess’s latest book, Olio, a tour de force hybrid-genre exploration of African-American performers from the period just before the American Civil War through World War I. (Previously: We recommended Jess’s Leadbelly as perfect reading for train travel.)
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Seeing Beyond the Story
“When she began the cancer memoir, it was the fact of the writing, more than what was to be written, that mattered.” On Jenny Diski’s way of seeing beyond the story.