Out this week: The Perfect Nanny by Leïla Slimani; Fire Sermon by Jamie Quatro; A Girl in Exile by Ismail Kadare; The Job of the Wasp by Colin Winnette; The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin; Peculiar Ground by Lucy Hughes-Hallett; Neon in Daylight by Hermione Hoby; This Could Hurt by Jillian Medoff; The Afterlives by Thomas Pierce; Grist Mill Road by Christopher J. Yates; and King Zeno by Nathaniel Rich. For more on these and other new titles, go read our brand new book preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Slimani; Quatro; Kadare; Winnette; Benjamin; Hughes-Hallett; Hoby; Medoff; Pierce; Yates; Rich
Simms Taback Dies at 79
Simms Taback, the children’s author and illustrator known for his version of There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, has died at age 79.
Iraqi Speculative Fiction Comes to the US
“It comprises 10 short stories written by Iraqis, all of whom were guided by a simple yet fertile premise: What might Iraq look like a century from now?” The Atlantic review’s Tor’s anthology Iraq + 100 (originally published last year by Comma Press in England), which was released stateside last month—in an attempt to bring visibility to an underrepresented group of writers in America. Read The Millions’ review of the “ambitious short story collection” from March.
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum
The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is adapting Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale into a ballet.
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Get the Stories
When you sit down with Junot Díaz , “lunch conversation runs like an advanced literary seminar taught by a bilingual stand-up comedian.”
Error 404: Identity Not Found
At Full-Stop this week, an interview with Joshua Cohen, whose new book, Four New Messages, spans “a wide geographic and narrative terrain.” Back in August, Johannes Lichtman gave his own take on the collection, as did Shannon Elderon at The Rumpus.
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The Written World
The Written World is a five part radio series put together by Melyvn Bragg as part of the In Our Time BBC radio project. The programs look at the history of written word, and how it has shaped our intellectual history.
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