My Head is Too Full Edition: 9/26/2021
There's only so many things one can think about.
This weekend I’ve been immersed in working on a longer freelance piece for an outlet I’ve never published with before, which has caused me to forget to think about writing something even remotely interesting here. I even almost forgot to send out a newsletter at all. This kind of absorption can be quite enjoyable from a work perspective, but makes it very difficult to switch tasks. It’s like you’re on a deep sea dive, and the time you take to ascend to the surface to do something else when you could just keep exploring for treasure seems too great.
That said, I do have some links and a recommendation. Hopefully I’ll be back among the fully functioning next week.
In my column this week, I took some time to highlight five titles from smaller publishers and lesser known authors that I hope we don’t overlook during the fall bounty of new books.
A Dream of a Woman by Casey Plett
Child in the Valley by Gordy Sauer
History in One Act by William Arkin
What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. Chancy
Death at Greenway by Lori Rader-Day
Check out these books at my dedicated Fall 2021 Books Not to be Overlooked store at Bookshop.org.
Links
At the Tribune, Christopher Borelli provides a fall preview of 60 books. 60!
The New York Times recommends 8 new books this week.
The John Dos Passos prize has announced its nominees. It’s an interesting, rather unique award for a mid-career writer based on their body of work, rather than a single book.
Today is the start of Banned Books Week. Ron Charles of The Washington Post looks at the 10 most challenged books and notes what they have in common. You can probably guess.
At Print Magazine, R.E. Heller notes an interesting phenomenon about the trend of of “book blob” covers.
At The Millions, Dave Eggers is interviewed about his publishing experiment with his forthcoming novel, The Every, and how hard it is to avoid Amazon. I just decided that this is what I’ll be writing about in this space next week.
All links to books on these posts go to The Biblioracle Recommends bookshop at Bookshop.org. Affiliate income for purchases through the bookshop goes to Open Books in Chicago. ICYMI: I interviewed Eric Johnson, executive director of Open Books last week.
Very solid increase in affiliate income this week to $166.45 for the year. Considering we’re heading into peak book buying season, We should be able to double that by the end of the year, which would be amazing.
If you’d like to see every book I’ve recommended in this space this year, check out my list of 2021 Recommendations at the Bookshop.org bookshop.
As always, recommendations are open for business. Wait times are minimal.
1. The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
2. The Best of Me by David Sedairs
3. Out on a Limb by Andrew Sullivan
4. The World According to Garp by John Irving
5. Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow
Liam P. - San Diego, CA
Liam is clearly a fan of essays, which makes me comfortable recommending another collection of essays. In this case, I’m going with a contemporary observer of the world who I believe is approximately 90 gazillion times more interesting and challenging than Andrew Sullivan: The World Ending Fire by Wendell Berry.
Going back under…
John
The Biblioracle