William Styron. Charles Bukowski. Vladimir Nabokov. Books from these great, late authors will be published this Fall. The big news - and the interesting story - is Nabokov's book.
Author: The Longest Chapter
Kassie Rose is the book critic for NPR member station WOSU 89.7 FM in Columbus, Ohio.
William Styron, the Marines & me
A collection of fictional Marine Corps stories by the late William Styron will be published in October. I collect Styron, and his first book about the Marines is when it all began.
The true subject of “Wanting”
Richard Flanagan says his new book is about desire. But it's the historical events and characters (the novelist Charles Dickens and the explorer Sir John Franklin) that make it memorable.
Appignanesi’s book of madness
Lisa Appignanesi's "Mad, Bad & Sad" is coming out in paperback end of August. This history of female mental illness got great reviews from its hardcover days. Worth a look.
Dear Gertrude
A book about Gertrude Tennant published by Yale University Press offers up 24 new letters written by Gustave Flaubert to the Victorian lady. A rare discovery.
Rotation update
I've moved books from The Reading Table to the Currently Reading List, plus added books to The Reading Table. Here's an update.
Garrison Keillor reads George Orwell
In his famous Prairie Home Companion voice, Keillor reads "A Hanging" for Lapham's Quarterly. A must listen 10-15 minute audio.
Why read Rumer Godden?
She was a prolific writer during the 20th Century. As much as I'm enjoying "In This House of Brede," published in 1969, she's not striking me as an author to pursue.
Ponder me, remember me
"Do Not Deny Me" is a new short story collection whose characters are drawn from everyday life. Facing distressing circumstances, they reach for hope and new ways to go forward.
A bookshop across the pond
While reading the London Review of Books, I discovered some upcoming Fall releases in the U.S. are already available in the U.K. I also found a new place to spend my money - at the London Review Bookshop.
Come on back to the typewriter
An impulsive mid-day trip to a bookstore on the other side of town connected me to unexpected treasures of Anne Sexton's poetry. Here's what I bought, and why I thought of Kathleen Norris's "Acedia & Me."
The greatest war novel of all time
Erich Maria Remarque fought in the horrific trench warfare of World War I and survived to write "All Quiet on the Western Front." He gives his narrator, a German soldier, insight that, in moving, simplistic prose, expresses loss of emotional youth and wisdom of war's follies. Some passages and scenes, so personal, so lyric, call to be reread several times.
Headlights on September
Publisher's Weekly issued "The Road to Fall Books" this week. From the looks of the lists within, we'll be bombarded with a slew of new selections. Here's what caught my attention.
How romance adds up
The June 22nd issue of The New Yorker features a profile of mega-selling romance writer Nora Roberts. My experience with the romance genre is limited (best we make that "extremely limited"), but the profile interested me for its data on the genre.
A winning debut
Michael Thomas recently received the 2009 International Impac Dublin Literary Award for his debut novel, "Man Gone Down." It was chosen out of a final list of eight novels from the United States, Norway, India, Pakistan and France. If this stellar novel is not on your reading table, it should be.
The Longest Chapter 