“I was offered ten thousand dollars as part of a new award funded by the chairman of Barnes & Noble. But I was not supposed to tell anyone about it.” — from Daniel Gross in The New Yorker
Category: Fiction
Sally Rooney’s Normal People wins Book of the Year
I first came across Sally Rooney in The New Yorker this year. “Color and Light” was an amazing, unsettling story. If you like, you can devote 35 minutes of your life to listening to Rooney herself read the story here. While you’re listening to things, Dan & Eric had a good discussion on the story… Continue reading Sally Rooney’s Normal People wins Book of the Year
The discipline of Danielle Steel
An author profile in Glamour magazine? Yeah. Not Nicholas Sparks? Yeah. A wonderful 1,500-word profile of Danielle Steel? Yeah. If they’d set the over/under on her output at 100 books, I’d have taken the under. I think most of us would have. Well, she’s written 179 books. I’ve read as many of her books as… Continue reading The discipline of Danielle Steel
What Monty Python taught George Saunders
LitHub had a Q&A with George Saunders, which provided this gem -> Which non-literary piece of culture—film, tv show, painting, song—could you not imagine your life without? Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It comes out of a very smart place that is political and yet never forgets to entertain and self-lacerate and be silly. For… Continue reading What Monty Python taught George Saunders
Denis Johnson’s final novel
J. Robert Lennon, who teaches at Cornell and is a heck of a story writer himself, has a piece in The Nation about Denis Johnson’s The Largess of the Sea Maiden and this book’s relation to Jesus’ Son. “I’ve gone looking for that feeling everywhere,” Fuckhead tells us in “Car Crash,” a line that also… Continue reading Denis Johnson’s final novel
Island fiction
Laura Elliot (Guilty, Grand Central Publishing) has a clever piece over at CrimeReads in which she runs through the hows and wheres and whys of setting a novel on an island. From the Falklands to the Faroe Islands, from Lehane to Golding, the essay covers some ground. Read it here
New Jay Stringer
The lovely and talented Jay Stringer has a new novel coming out, and you’re going to love it. I dug it when I read it in draft form a while back and Booklist loved it, too. Starred review and all. Well, get on with it, then. Archaeologist-turned-relic-runner Marah Chase, who’s acquired a “reputation” in the Middle… Continue reading New Jay Stringer
Steve Weddle 