October 2016: Books to Read and Review
This month I took a turn through the 2016 Man Booker Prize shortlist, with reviews on Run Spot Run of Graeme Macrae Burnet’s fantastic His Bloody Project and David Szalay’s All That Man Is. The prize will be announced on October 25, and I’m really excited to see who gets it — this was a very strong year with lots of worthy contenders. Some literary comics also showed up on my doorstep from Pantheon and Drawn and Quarterly, as well as new books from Anne Carson and Ha Jin. That Carson looks absolutely amazing: it’s twenty-three chapbooks that can be read in any order, ranging in subject from lectures to poems. Having absolutely adored The Albertine Workout pamphlet that she did with New Directions about Proust, I’m very much looking forward to this.
Here’s a look at what’s on deck for me:
The Boat Rocker by Ha Jin (Pantheon)
Universal Harvester by John Darnielle (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Am I Alone Here? by Peter Orner (Catapult)
Float by Anne Carson (Knopf)
Cheap Novelties by Ben Katchor (Drawn and Quarterly)
Last Look by Charles Burns (Pantheon)
- The Black Cathedral by Marcial Gala - March 15, 2020
- Indelicacy by Amina Cain - March 2, 2020
- Abigail by Magda Szabó - February 22, 2020
