George Saunders's newest story, published only as an audiobook and Kindle Single, is told from the point of view of Fox 8, the title character who pens his tale of friendship and loss by way of a letter addressed simply: "Deer Reeder." As the spelling gets weirder — and the voice dearer — Fox 8 implores his correspondent to "Reed my leter, go farth, ask your felow Yumans what is up." This is a really good… more »
South Park dissed them big time in a memorable episode. You've probably had them offer you a free e-meter audit at the mall. And maybe you were even one of those unlucky few who got snookered into watching Battlefield Earth. Yes, Scientology is nutty as hell — but it's also undeniably fascinating, in the best tradition of American nuttery. This winter, curious readers were blessed with the publication of two books on the infamously secretive (and litigious)… more »
Gillian Flynn has a message for her readers: She is not one of her characters. The author of this summer's best-selling thriller Gone Girl has been mistaken for one of the seriously twisted offspring of her mind since the publication of her first novel, Sharp Objects, in 2006. "I guess I should take it as a compliment that people assume all my books are true," Flynn says from her home in Chicago. Sharp Objects includes a dysfunctional… more »
Over the past few months, our audiobooks ranks have been growing even more than usual. The reason? We're thrilled to welcome our newest publishing partner, Brilliance Audio, who have been creating great audiobooks for nearly 30 years in all genres, from bestsellers like Dean Koontz and Lee Child to award-winning nonfiction and memoirs, classics, and more. The one thing they have in common is a focus on marrying the author’s voice with the narrator, creating… more »
We've all heard about the luck of the Irish, that mythological good fortune that clings to the Emerald Isle and all of its inhabitants. But we'd wager that the luckiest people around aren't Irish at all…nor are they, technically, people. Fictional characters have the highest good luck-to-mishaps ratio around, finding themselves in the most impossible of impossible situations and then, just as unexpectedly, coming out unscathed (and maybe even enlightened) on the other end. There's… more »
Ron Currie Jr. begins his second novel with a clear invitation to call him a liar: “Everything I’m about to tell you is capital-T true,” he claims, and then proceeds to relentlessly throw that statement in our faces. Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles is presented as the memoir of one Ron Currie Jr., but very quickly we doubt that it is — while the book’s Currie, taken for dead, recuperates in Sinai after a failed suicide attempt, his manuscript sells millions of copies based on the erroneous public belief that he… more »
Some Bostonians used to like to paint James Joseph “Whitey” Bulger, Jr. as a wicked-awesome folk hero. “He robbed and murdered drug dealuhs and mobstuhs!” they said. “Whitey kept Southie safe!” They seemed to forget Bulger was a mobster himself, a man who robbed and killed lots of regular people, burying them all over Beantown since the ’60s.
The authors of this masterful new biography, Boston Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, dispel the modern-day-Robin Hood storyline early, kicking things off with the sickening strangulation of the young and happy… more »
Don’t read this review before listening to Herman Koch’s novel, The Dinner. Instead, try to imagine the love child of Hitchcock’s single-take thriller Rope, a New York Times Magazine cover story on the evils of helicopter parenting, and the prissily detailed menu from the latest farm-to-table eatery. OK, have you got the picture? No? Well then read on, but beware of spoilers.
Though it’s actually set in the Netherlands, Koch’s home country, the story could just as easily take place in Brooklyn or Berkeley. Two couples, of youngish middle age, meet… more »
Manil Suri’s enormous, hysterical opus tells two seemingly disconnected stories: a plausible apocalypse and a broken marriage. It’s the near future, terrorists are exploding dirty bombs, the globe is descending into chaos, and India and Pakistan are on the brink of nuclear war. What worse time for Sarita’s husband, Karun, to run off without a word? And why is a gay Muslim named Jaz following her? Might it have something to do with Sarita and Karun’s two years of unconsummated marriage?
Suri has wisely set this larger-than-life, Bollywood-esque tale in the… more »
A Vice TV host with a law degree, a hip-hop obsession, and a NYC restaurant called Baohaus (serving Taiwanese buns, named for his favorite architects), Eddie Huang is a walking culture clash. In his memoir… more »
