The Fall of Arthur
by J.R.R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $25)
It may be a rough draft, but this epic poem about the last days of Camelot is “recognizably the work of J.R.R. Tolkien,” said Andrew O’Hehir in The New York Times. Its 40 or so pages of verse, which predate the 1937 release of The Hobbit, provide intriguing hints of Tolkien’s later work. His archaic phrasings occasionally prove frustrating, but readers will understand why Tolkien’s son, who provides commentary, calls the poem “one of the most grievous of his many abandonments.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Algerian Chronicles
by Albert Camus (Harvard/Belknap, $22)
The “sane and compassionate position” that Albert Camus staked out in this essay collection pleased no one when the book was first published in 1958, said Troy Jollimore in CSMonitor.com. Decrying both French oppression in Algeria and rebel violence, the great French novelist was quickly branded both a traitor and an imperialist. But his indictment of imperial violence deserves a second life. In a post-9/11 world, “we Americans would be well-advised to pay it serious attention.”
Cotton Tenants
by James Agee (Melville House, $25)
This rejected 1936 magazine story laid the foundation for James Agee’s “oddball masterpiece,” Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, said Malcolm Jones in TheDailyBeast.com. Written for Fortune, Agee’s 30,000-word profile of three Alabama sharecropper families was presumed lost until 2005. Reading it now “sheds considerable light on the origins of a classic.” Agee at times tries too hard to make the piece magazine-friendly, but “when he relaxes a bit,” the results are poetic.
Galateo
by Giovanni Della Casa (Univ. of Chicago, $15)
Written by a poet and former clergyman, this celebrated Renaissance-era etiquette guide contains a “surprising mix of the elevated and the down-to-earth,” said Michael Dirda in The Washington Post. Translator M.F. Rusnak includes commentary that “usefully fills out some of the book’s historical context.” Yet “the counsel itself remains timeless.” Who hasn’t been repulsed by dinner guests who, as Della Casa puts it, attack their food “oblivious as pigs with their snouts in the swill?”
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”