Out this week: My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite; Asymmetry by Adam Zagajewski; Hannah Versus the Tree by Leland de la Durantaye; Walking Backwards by John Koethe; and Art Matters by Neil Gaiman. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Braithwaite; Zagajewski; de la Durantaye; Koethe; Gaiman
Tuesday New Release Day: Basu; Fuller; Bollen; Spencer; Fallon; Laird
Out this week: The Windfall by Diksha Basu; Quiet Until the Thaw by Alexandra Fuller; The Destroyers by Christopher Bollen; River Under the Road by Scott Spencer; The Confusion of Languages by Siobhan Fallon; and Modern Gods by Nick Laird. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
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Sic
We’ve published essays before on the importance of good grammar, but it’s rare that something comes along that illustrates its value so clearly. A couple weeks ago, the Times published a blurb about This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, a recent essay collection by Ann Patchett, that led to the author sending in what may be the best correction of all time. For more on Patchett’s work, you could read Kevin Charles Redmon on her book State of Wonder.
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Getting the Word Out
In his write up here of an important, but overlooked essay on copyright by Lewis Hyde, guest contributor Craig Fehrman noted that the Hyde essay had been downloaded only 746 times in nearly four years. Now, after the piece here about it, and subsequent linking by Boing Boing, the essay is the second most popular on the Social Science Research Network.
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Isabelle Eberhardt, Dependent on Chance
The Paris Review's excellent column, "Feminize Your Canon," returns with Isabelle Eberhardt, a cross-dressing Swiss explorer and author who published under a male pseudonym as a teenager.
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“Working on some short stories but … not that into it”
HTML Giant contributor Jimmy Chen has written a masterful and hysterical piece for McSweeney’s entitled “Raymond Carver’s OKCupid Profile, Edited by Gordon Lish.”
Wyatt Mason on Lipsky/Wallace
The David Foster Wallace interview, Although of Course…, comes under the scrutiny of one of Wallace’s most attentive readers, in the NYRB.
Some Thursday Links
Literary gold: Don Baiocchi’s list of books that are responses to other books.The top 50 film adaptations of books. The Guardian never seems to tire of such lists.Benetton, whose Colors magazine is one of my favorites, is participating in the New York festival of Internatonal Literature by hosting a conversation series. They’re looking to get people involved: “Through the BenettoTalk blog it is possible for everyone to join the conversations, posting questions and generating debate, some days before they happen. Authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Lethem, Rodrigo Fresan, Helen Oyeyemi and many others will answer you.” You can post a question here.
RIP Joe Frazier
The sports world lost a legend this week in Joe Frazier. In honor of Smokin’ Joe’s indelible mark on the sport of boxing, Byliner has gathered thirteen great stories on the sweet science. Also worth reading is George Plimpton‘s classic Sports Illustrated story on the Frazier vs. George Foreman fight in Kingston.
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