Authors, including Jennifer Egan, George Saunders, Ali Smith, and our own Chigozie Obioma, chose their Best Books of 2017 in a two-part series for The Guardian. If you enjoyed that list, make sure to check out our Year in Reading: 2017 series all throughout December.
The Best of the Best
“The C closest to the center”
In the LA Times, Jim Ruland reviews Middle C, the new book by Year in Reading alumnus William H. Gass. For another take on the novel, go read “best-read man in America” Michael Dirda in the Washington Post, or else check out Greg Gerke on the author’s Life Sentences.
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The Modern Memoir
Recommended Reading: On the memoir, “the offspring of the slave narrative,” as a literary form from the Black tradition. Recent examples range from Ta-Nehisi Coates and Margo Jefferson to Clifford Thompson and Rosemarie Freeney.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Patchett, Stein, Brandon
The big literary new release this week is Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder. Also recently out is Gertrude Stein’s long-lost oddity for children, To Do: A Book of Alphabets and Birthdays. New in paperback is John Brandon’s Citrus County.
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Time and Again
“In Proust, the rhythm, the phrasing, the movement of the sentence, even the grammar—it’s all so complex that it would be almost impossible to repeat anyone else’s work. Because of that I’m all the more aware of the differences, and of how admirable Scott Moncrieff’s work often is.” George Plimpton interviews Richard Howard about translating Remembrance of Things Past, for the Summer 1989 issue of The Paris Review. The interview was reissued to mark Richard Howard’s birthday, who turns eighty-six today.
Saving the Wicked Stepmother
Recommended Listening: “I wanted to rescue the wicked stepmother,” Helen Oyeyemi said in an interview with NPR about her new book, Boy, Snow, Bird (which made our 2014 book preview.)
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“Smudge between the lines, fill the sexy man up.”
Mark your calendars. Thrill Murray, a Bill Murray-inspired coloring book, goes on sale this August.
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