End-of-Summer Reads
Last week, we published Web profiles of Jonathan Safran Foer and Ron Rash, whose new novels are among the most hotly anticipated September books. Here’s a quick taste of both.
“I’m just tired. Like, really tired. What’s the expression, to leave nothing on the table? Is that what it is? It’s good in the sense that I’ve left nothing on the table. But now I have this hunger to do more, and I don’t know what it would be.”
—Jonathan Safran Foer, on how it felt to finish Here I Am (FSG), his first novel in a decade. Read the complete profile.
“One thing that’s important for me in my work is to remind people that there is a natural world. It’s very easy to think we are not connected to it anymore, but we are, whether we want to be or not.”
—Ron Rash on The Risen (Ecco) and eco-literature. Read more.
From the Newsletters
Esther Allen talks about the six-year process of translating the classic Argentine novel Zama (New York Review Books), which is finally available in English 50 years after its original publication.
How debut novelist Katharine McGee hit the jackpot with The Thousandth Floor (HarperTeen), due out in September, with ABC Studios picking up TV rights and foreign rights sold in 25 territories—not to mention the blowout launch party featuring the book’s trailer playing on a Times Square Jumbotron.
Publishers are marking the 20th anniversary of the death of Henri Nouwen, the Catholic priest and popular writer, with a wave of new and reissued titles by and about him. We round them up.
The scoop on Edouardo Albinati’s The Catholic School (Rizzoli), a 1,000-page nonfiction novel that’s been topping the bestseller charts in Italy for months.
Podcasts
PW senior writer Andrew Albanese on the evolution of library reference service.
Barbara O’Connor discusses her middle grade novel Wish (FSG), about a girl who relies on daily wishes, an unexpected friend, and a stray dog as she faces an uncertain family situation.
Author Jacqueline Woodson discusses her new novel for adults, Another Brooklyn (Amistad). PW editorial director Jim Milliot presents this year’s ranking of the world’s largest publishers. (You can see it for yourself.)
