In 2014, Édouard Louis published his first book, The End of Eddy, about his traumatic childhood in northern France. He was 21. This year, he published his third, titled Who Killed My Father. The title, he tells The Guardian in an interview, is “not a question; it’s a declaration.” Louis talks about violence, poverty, and the gilets jaunes movement: “I was bowled over when the movement started and suddenly I saw these bodies we see very little in public spaces and that I try to make visible in my books. The gilets jaunes movement made reality smash right into politics.”
Bodies in Public
Reading Proust
For the Atlantic, Sarah Boxer recounts her experience reading In Search of Lost Time on her cell phone. Pair with Hannah Gersen’s year of reading Proust.
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The Road to Progress
Over at Full Stop, Sean Minogue argues that social media can have a positive influence on a writer’s creative development. He mentions Twitter extraordinaire Teju Cole, who thinks his involvement in online discussions “comes from the non-American part of me which is saying that novelists in every other country, with the exception of the American or the Anglo-American sphere, actually consider it part of their work to engage.” Pair with our piece on the best of literary Twitter.
On Velvet
Recommended Listening: Mary Gaitskill talks about her new book The Mare with host David Naimon. Pair with Chelsea Voulgares’s Millions interview with the author.
Hemingway Double Shot
Got a couple thousand bucks lying around? You can place a bid on one of Ernest Hemingway’s love letters. Or, for a more modest price of “free,” you can read Tim Weed’s rumination entitled “Chasing Hemingway’s Ghost in Havana.”
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Amazon App Store Action
Ever-expanding Amazon is getting in on the app store action with an app store of its own, launching today (and featuring, what else, Angry Birds). Some analysts believe the move presages a plan for Amazon to launch a more fully featured tablet, modeled on the Kindle, but able to play all the movies, music (and now apps) that Amazon now sells in digital form.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Thiong’o; Mason; Gerard; Romm; Grøndahl; Grant
Out this week: Devil on the Cross by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o; Void Star by Zachary Mason; Sunshine State by Sarah Gerard; Double Bind, edited by Robin Romm; Often I Am Happy by Jens Christian Grøndahl; and Cave Dwellers by Richard Grant. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Feeling Very Still
Can you hear me, Major Tom? The world lost one of the good ones today in David Bowie; celebrate his enormous contributions to art as we know it and take a look at this list of Bowie’s 100 essential books which includes everyone from Camille Paglia to Anthony Burgess. Bonus: here’s a link to Bowie singing “Changes” in what became his final live performance.