Out this week: Evening in Paradise by Lucia Berlin; Those Who Knew by Idra Novey; A Stranger’s Pose by Emmanuel Iduma; The Naked Woman by Armonía Somers; Northwood by Maryse Meijer; and The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Berlin; Novey; Iduma; Somers; Meijer; Lethem
Celtic Tiger’s Collapse
Gabriel O’Malley‘s “Letter From Dublin” for n+1 is an interesting primer on the current state of Ireland following the collapse of the Celtic Tiger.
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The 2015 IMPAC Dublin Longlist
This morning, the longlist for the 2015 IMPAC Dublin award came out, and the nominees include some familiar names. Year in Reading alum Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah is on there, as is Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane (reviewed here by our own Tess Malone), Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch (which won this year’s Pulitzer) and The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (whom you can learn more about in this essay by our own Bill Morris).
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Here We Go, I Guess
Bret Easton Ellis was apparently serious when he said he wanted to adapt Fifty Shades of Grey for the big screen. He even has a cast and director in mind.
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Badly Drawn Authors
Hooray, consumerism! Or, Happy Valentine’s Day, rather. For all you literary saps out there, here are seven valentines of badly drawn authors that are sure to thaw any frozen hearts. Don’t worry, there are plenty more badly drawn authors where those came from.
‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ Turns 50
Since its publication 50 years ago, Eric Carle's classic picture book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, has been translated into more than 62 languages.
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Murakami’s Translator
Jay Rubin, who spent a year and a half translating the first two books of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, has some interesting things to say about the prolific author.
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Visible Man
Want to reverse a book ban? Start giving away free copies of the novel at your bookstore. Earlier this week, we reported that Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man was taken out of the Randolph County, NC school curriculum. But less than week later, the ban has already been lifted due to intense community backlash and a local bookstore undermining the decision. Board member Matthew Lambeth said, “I felt like I came to a conclusion too quickly.”