Out this week: Mean by Myriam Gurba; They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib; Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda; Radio Free Vermont by Bill McKibben; a new translation of Homer’s The Odyssey; and Heather, the Totality by Matthew Weiner. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Gurba; Willis-Abdurraqib; Pochoda; McKibben; Homer; Weiner
One After the Other
It’s been seventeen years since Judy Blume published a book for adult readers. Her latest, In the Unlikely Event, brings that streak to an end. In the Times, Caroline Leavitt reviews her new book, which depicts a small town in the fifties reeling in the wake of three consecutive plane crashes. FYI, our own Lydia Kiesling wrote an essay on Blume’s book Forever.
Saving Civilization Through Stories With Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro discusses his latest novel, Klara and the Sun, and affirms the importance of literature and storytelling in society.
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Wilkinson on American Imposters
Millions staff writing appearing elsewhere: At In Character, my essay about Derrick Borte’s The Joneses and the idea of the American impostor (ECW).
Talking with Makkai
BOMB Magazine sits down with Rebecca Makkai, author of Music for Wartime and The Hundred-Year House. “People love to underrate plot, because it makes them sound like they’re beyond it, like plot is best left to Danielle Steele.“ For more Makkai, check out our interview with her.
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Grid World
“He is for the most part interested in documenting the sources of our unusual suffering, those initial shocks that brought about the trauma in the first place. Nothing ‘languishes listlessly’ in his music; all those slowly orbiting fragments are drawn back together in furious rotation, sucked inexorably in, towards a volatile core. The mood never stabilizes; madness reigns supreme.” This piece by Tom Regel at The Rumpus on realism in the work of DJ/Producer Flying Lotus is both thorough and convincing.
Lipsyte Interviewed
Fiction Daily has added a give and take with The Ask author Sam Lipsyte to its growing collection of author interviews.
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