Out this week: Family Trust by Kathy Wang; Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink; Well-Read Black Girl ed. Glory Edim; The White Darkness by David Grann; I Might Regret This by Abbi Jacobson; and Elevation by Stephen King. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Wang; Fink; Edim; Grann; Jacobson; King
Two New Marilynne Robinson Books In the Works
Marilynne Robinson is at work on a book about the Old Testament, says Casey N. Cep on Twitter. Word on the street is that it won’t come out until after she finishes Lila, her third book set in the Gilead universe.
●
●
Passive-Aggressive Presents
We fully expect all Christmas-observant Millions readers to have gifted (and received) at least one book this week. The Toast expects the same of their readers, and have provided a very handy key to choosing and/or deciphering passive-agressive literary presents.
●
●
Ask Ayn (Rand)
“I took maybe ten more speed pills and sat in a stall and wrote a new chapter of Atlas Shrugged,” writes Ayn Rand (er, um, John Hodgman). “Perhaps twenty-five thousand words, all on toilet paper.”
●
●
Title Games
Penguin is celebrating its eightieth anniversary this year. How well do you know its classic book covers? At The Telegraph, a quiz on the better-known titles in its library. You could also look back on one of our book cover battles.
●
●
Genuinely Weird
Jeff Vandermeer‘s Southern Reach trilogy: a genuinely weird work of ecological fiction, a hyper-object, or a strangely beautiful “glimpse of a whole that’s, by its nature, unknowable”? Joshua Rothman argues for all three in a review for The New Yorker. For more from Vandermeer himself, check out his Millions interview with Richard House, author of The Kills.
Feeling Lonely Tonight?
Jeff Ragsdale (Jeff, One Lonely Guy) produced, shot and edited an “immersion documentary” in which he accompanied Canadian escorts on hundreds of calls over a span of several months. The half-hour film is entitled “30 Nights with a Call Girl.” Millions readers may recall Ragsdale’s work from its mention in our own Sonya Chung’s essay “On Loneliness.”