The Sellout opens up with the most fraught of American judicial paradigms: a black man appearing before the Supreme Court to hear if what he's done with his life is legally allowed. It's not just any old offense being considered either. We're talking slavery and segregation, remixed for 2015.
In this week's New Yorker, Adam Gopnik questions the bizarre existence of the Warburg Institute. "It is a library like no other in Europe—in its cross-disciplinary reference, its peculiarities, its originality, its strange depths and unexpected shallows." But can the library's private vision endure?
Time has a way of revealing unexpected legacies.
More than one person has told me that they've become physically affected while reading a Roberto Bolano novel. The symptoms are always the same: agitation, irritability, a sense of dread or impending doom, and, finally, exhilaration. His prose has a haunting magic—even in the mundane—leaving the reader unmoored and set adrift.
When Robert Repino pitched Mort(e) to agents he was told, "This book can't make up its mind about what it is," but it turns out they were wrong because Repino's debut is weirdly fantastic. "I like to think that maybe it's time for some science fiction books that aren't just, you know, a white guy on a quest." Agreed.
In a 2013 interview with Joe Fassler, horror fiction maestro Stephen King reflected on the magnitude of a novel’s introductory sentence. “An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story,” he said. “It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.” The first sentence sets the stage—however long or short the text—and hints at the “narrative vehicle” by which the writer will propel the book forward. King continued:
In a new interview with Paradoxa, Pulitzer-winning author Junot Diaz speaks at length with Taryne Jade Taylor about the allure of genre fiction, colonialism disguised as sci-fi, and immigrating to the U.S. at an early age (he refers to it as “a profound fracture of my reality, a temporal and spatial anomaly”). During the interview, Diaz also said that his attempt to write his new novel—which was excerpted in a 2012 issue of The New Yorker—has “ground to a halt,” admitting, “I’m probably going to have to abandon it.”
We went looking for the best books to read this year and a wonderful thing happened: we discovered they were all written by remarkably talented women. A particular chorus of men will publish some decent books, but women, by far, will own 2015. Below, 10 books to fall in love with before year’s end.
Ernest Hemingway once remarked, "There is no friend as loyal as a book." This year's literature felt a lot like that: books that followed you around even after you'd finished reading them; books you carried everywhere, telling friends and colleagues of their magic; books that greeted you warmly in those fleeting moments of solitude; books that, for one reason or another, consumed you fully.
“I wanted a picture of Jamaica that isn’t in books, and certainly not in novels.” Author Marlon James set out to depict a thoroughly vibrant portrait of the Jamaica he knew: one fissured by drug warfare and dirty politics, but a country plentiful in culture and history. The result was A Brief History of Seven Killings, an expansive and near-mythic survey of his homeland. It is, without question, one of 2014’s best books.
Many things were published in 2014—things we liked; things we hated; things we didn't understand. And since it's that time of year where we shame you for reading all the wrong things, we've collected our favorite books, essays, short stories, lists, and blog posts into one place. We've also included selections from years past that caught our attention in 2014. Enjoy.
This was a year when I couldn't get away from the idea of America. Every time I turned around, something rushed at me, forcing me to consider whether, for however long we as a nation have been traveling, we've been covering real ground or merely going in circles.
Toni Morrison doesn't need to write another book. She's published 1o celebrated fiction titles and won nearly every award there is to win as an author (a Nobel, Pulitzer Prize, and Presidential Medal of Freedom are among her honors). But, no matter! Toni Morrison is pulling a Toni Morrison—again. The distinguished author is set to release her new novel, God Help the Child, in April.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, President Obama, along with daughters Sasha and Malia, stopped by Politics and Prose, an independent bookstore based in the nation's capital. The First Family purchased 17 books in total—ranging from Jacqueline Woodson's brave memoir in verse Brown Girl Dreaming to Katherine Rundell's magical Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms.
On September 16, John Darnielle—best known as the singer/guitarist and essential constituent of the band the Mountain Goats—released his debut novel, Wolf in White Van. A day later, the National Book Foundation announced it had been nominated to the long list for the 2014 National Book Award for fiction.
