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
Oh Henry
Over thirteen years, John Berryman wrote his famous Dream Songs, composing his most innovative and well-known poetry while his own life began to unravel. In a piece for the LRB, August Kleinzahler reappraises the poet to mark a raft of new editions of his work, citing Randall Jarrell, Saul Bellow and other contemporaries in the process. Pair with Stephen Akey on The Dream Songs.
Ever Thus
Recommended Reading: Gary Krist on the friendship-gone-wrong of John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway.
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Thoughts of the Enemy
In the new Granta, Adam Johnson writes about the mind-bending experience of traveling to North Korea, an experience which informed his Pulitzer-winning novel The Orphan Master’s Son. Perhaps the saddest anecdote -- and there are a lot of sad anecdotes -- is the one about the North Korean tour guide who couldn’t believe the author didn’t want to buy knockoff goods.
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Thanks, Nick
After roughly three years and an astounding 2,373 posts, Nick Moran is handing off his duties on the Curiosities blog. When we re-launched the site in 2009, we had the idea that a faster-paced mini-blog would add a lot to The Millions, giving readers fresh material to check out and give us a more "newsy" feel, but we weren't able to really fully execute on that idea until Nick came along and took it over. First as an intern, and then later as our Social Media Editor, he created the Curiosities blog's voice and hammered out a process that subsequent contributors have followed. He has brought a lot of readers to The Millions this way. Nick will, thankfully, be sticking around to continue to oversee our social media efforts, intern program and help with various projects and posts, including our Top Ten lists.
An Experimental Review of an Experimental Translation
Matthew Jakubowski’s “experimental review” of Yoko Tawada’s Portrait of a Tongue is unlike anything you’ve read in months, and I promise you that.
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