The Cove: A Novel

At Granta’s website, the novelist David McConnell explains his fascination with the “honor killing,” a hate crime targeted at gay men that inspired his latest book.

It’s been a good year for Alfred Hitchcock, what with Vertigo beating out Citizen Kane in the once-a-decade Greatest Movie of All Time poll conducted by Sight and Sound. At Full-Stop, Rachel Baron Singer takes a look at Hitchcock and The Girl, both of which examine “the dark side” of Hitchcock’s genius.

The Feminine Mystique turns fifty this month, and to mark the anniversary, Noah Berlatsky wonders how Agnes Grey, an Anne Bronte novel,  illustrates and critiques the arguments made in the book.

New this week are Ron Rash’s The Cove, Brian Evenson’s Immobility, and Volume Two of Susan Sontag’s Journals (all books highlighted in our January preview). Out in paperback this week is David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, from which we recently ran a previously unpublished excerpt.