New books worthy of your attention this week:
Dissident Gardens by Jonathan Lethem - "Spanning 80 years and three generations, it realistically portrays an enchanted — or disenchanted — garden of American revolutionaries." (N.Y. Times)
Someone by Alice McDermott - "McDermott's new novel follows one Irish American family's migration from Brooklyn in the '30s to the Queens and Long Island of the '60s. Even as a child, the book's narrator, Marie, learns that life is unfair and unpredictable. A teenage neighbor suddenly drops dead; a bride is jilted; her best friend's mother dies in childbirth." (San Francisco Chronicle)
Nine Inches: Stories by Tom Perrotta - "Perrotta isn’t confronting the smugness or entitlement of suburbanites; he is their compassionate voice, the cryptographer of their sorrows." (Boston Globe)
Subtle Bodies by Norman Rush - "The plot of Subtle Bodies will no doubt, superficially, remind people of The Big Chill." (L.A. Review of Books)
And some bookish articles that merit your time:
"Broader, Better Literary Conversations" by Roxane Gay - "When we look at the numbers, it is plain that some writers have to hustle much harder than others. The real problem though is that the harder hustle still might not get these writers anywhere." (The Nation)
"It’s Almost Time To Throw Out Your Books" by Jon Evans - "The publishing industry’s long war against technology, the future, and its customers may finally be coming to a close." (TechCrunch)
"Why We Lie About Reading Great Books" by Arit John - "More than 60 percent of people pretend to have read books they haven't...And based on what we've learned in the past, we all lie about reading the same books over and over." (The Atlantic Wire)