Dear Life
by Alice Munro (Knopf, $27)
At 81, “the greatest living short-story writer in the English language” is still improving, said Charles McNulty in the Los Angeles Times. Alice Munro’s latest tales are shorter and more quick-paced than ever.But “the austere Lake Huron setting” hasn’t changed, nor has Munro’s genius “for selecting details that keep unfolding in the reader’s mind.” The final four stories, which Munro says contain “the first and last—and closest—things” she has to say about her own life, are alone worth the book’s price.
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.
The Unreal and the Real
by Ursula K. Le Guin (Small Beer, $24)
“A century from now, people will still be reading the fantasy stories of Ursula Le Guin with joy and wonder,” said Damien Walter in The Guardian (U.K.). This new two-volume collection showcases the “full diversity” of her work. The first volume collects Le Guin’s realist and magical realist stories, while the second focuses on the stories often derided as genre sci-fi. Yet these “employ the fantastic to step past the confusion of the mind and appeal directly to the heart.”
Astray
by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown, $26)
Readers of Emma Donoghue’s blockbuster Room will recognize the “visceral power” of that novel in these short stories, said Heller McAlpin in The Washington Post. They’re based on real-life tales of historical wanderers—people who strayed across boundaries both physical and moral. Whether she’s in 1776 New Jersey or 1850s London, Donoghue slips easily into each period, while never letting go her signature preoccupations—“with captivity, sexual predation, prostitution, and the grip of parenting.”
Blasphemy
by Sherman Alexie (Grove, $27)
Sherman Alexie’s latest story collection couldn’t be more aptly titled, said Mona Moraru in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. For some 20 years, the American Indian writer has seemed to delight in “knocking down” stereotypes. In these 31 stories, both new and old, we walk in the shoes of various Native Americans both on and off “the rez,” but their concerns are universal. When Alexie adopts a woman’s perspective, he generally isn’t his freewheeling self, but his characters are consistently lovable.
-
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.”