There must be something in the water this spring — that’s the water the publishing industry all drinks, that is. This month, Algonquin is publishing Jill McCorkle’s novel Life After Life, and in April, Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown will come out with Kate Atkinson’s, er, Life After Life. Oops! Both novels, as it happens, are quite good (and are sharing top billing as the American Booksellers Association’s Indie Next Pick in April), and we’re looking forward to “accidentally” having to buy them both. Intrigued by this phenomenon, we dug around for other examples of two great books sporting the same title — though none of our other pairs were born so close to one another. Check them out after the jump, and let us know if we missed any of your favorite titular doppelgangers in the comments. … Read More
Jose Saramago
10 New Must-Reads For December
2012 has been a pretty great year for book lovers — and despite its bad reputation, even December is shaping up to be a pretty solid month for new releases. Click through for our… Read More
The 10 Best End of the World Novels
This week marks the release of The Dog Stars, the debut novel by adventure writer Peter Heller, a stunning, hope-riddled end-of-the-world story about a man and his dog nine years after almost everyone else on earth has been eradicated. We think this novel is bound to become a classic, and it got us thinking about a few of the greatest apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic novels of all time. Click through to check out the books that — to our minds — make up the best of the best in end of the world lit. And as ever, if we’ve left off your own personal favorite, add to our list in the comments! … Read More
10 of the Strangest Apocalypses in Literature
Nuclear war, zombies, alien attack, impact event. These are what we think about when we think about literary apocalypses (or any fictional apocalypses, for that matter). But don’t get too comfortable, folks: there are many more — and many stranger — ways that our planet could be destroyed. Case in point: Karen Thompson Walker’s debut novel The Age of Miracles hits shelves tomorrow, and while the book itself will probably do more to advance society than destroy it, the story is one of the most inventive and unusual ideas for the end of the world that we’ve ever read. Inspired, we’ve collected a few more of the strangest catalysts for apocalypses in literature — click through to check them out, and do let us know if we’ve missed your favorite in the comments. … Read More
A Brief Guide to Surviving the Most Frightening Fictional Diseases
Today marks the release of Ben Marcus’s long-awaited fourth novel, The Flame Alphabet, in which language becomes lethal, estranging families, turning children (who are solely immune) into something resembling packs of wild dogs, and requiring everyone’s complicity in a sort of social apocalypse brought on by an inability to communicate. Needless to say, the concept that language may turn toxic and slowly kill off its users is relatively terrifying for us, so we’ve put together a short guide on the most frightening fictional afflictions in literature — and more importantly, how to avoid them. Click through for a quick survival lesson, and let us know if you have any more safety tips in the comments. … Read More
10 Novels That Will Disturb Even the Coldest of Hearts
[Editor's note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we're revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published May 18, 2011.] Jezebel-writer Anna North’s debut novel, America Pacifica, is out today. The story centers around an impoverished teenage girl who is struggling to survive on an increasingly toxic island in the Pacific Ocean after a future Ice Age sets in and freezes the mainland. Though the writing can be a little clunky — especially with respect to class issues — North provides good lens into the many ways an aggrieved soul can turn against the world, and how difficult it is to get back our dignity once we’ve lost it. With this in mind, we decided to run a post on books that expose the darker side of humanity — a roundup of the most disturbing novels and short stories through time, if you will. … Read More
10 New Must-Reads for October
As we ease our way into the scariest month of the year, it’s time again for us to present our list of the most exciting books due to grace our shelves in the weeks to come. This month, take your pick from October’s virtual smorgasbord of books, and whether your pleasures lie in zombies, genetic anomalies, poetry, God, hell, love triangles or some combination of the above, you’ll find something to like here. Or maybe several somethings — after all, the weather’s getting chilly, and nothing compliments a cup of tea better than a great book. Click through to see our preview of the best bets for great reading this month, and let us know which books you can’t wait to read in the comments. … Read More
Flavorpill’s Fall Book Preview By Category
Labor Day may have marked the unofficial end of summer, but last week’s long weekend also marked the beginning of the publishing world’s fall book rush. With dozens of new titles hitting shelves in the months leading up to December’s holiday shopping spree, this is the season to celebrate books across all categories. Our highlights for fall’s upcoming releases are spread out across a variety of genres, assuring ample reading options for every literary preference. … Read More
A Response to Milan Kundera: Art Is Not Dead
Milan Kundera’s latest essay collection, Encounter, is at once enthusiastically exultant and outright curmudgeonly. Amid deserving praise for the composers, artists, and writers who have inspired him, the Franco-Czech writer also describes our era of so-called post-art as “a world where art is dying because the need for art, the sensitivity and the love of it, is dying.”
It’s a compelling claim — and one that’s now been widely over-quoted — but, as Geoff Dyer aptly noted in his Guardian review, it’s also “a form of provocative kindling” that, in keeping with Kundera’s legacy of intellectual interrogation, begs to be challenged. So, in the spirit of constructive optimism, we humbly offer contemporary counterparts to Kundera’s beloved artists — they may not be perfect approximations, but these recent innovators are at least confronting and pushing the same boundaries. … Read More
Four Pen Names and a Writer: The Many Aliases of Fernando Pessoa
Richard Price’s recent self-outing as Jay Morris, the unknown author behind a forthcoming series of detective thrillers, is a reminder that aliases can sometimes be more about artistic autonomy than anonymity. But if public pen names are used with the same self-mocking playfulness as Halloween attire, then Fernando Pessoa’s rolodex of “heteronyms” can be better understood as a costume closet for a sold out Broadway extravaganza. … Read More
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