Novelist Chuck Palahniuk is the best-selling author of Fight Club, Choke, and Invisible Monsters. His 10th novel, Pygmy, has just been published by Doubleday.
Honored Guest by Joy Williams (Vintage, $14). Don’t let the praise
by highbrow critics scare you away from this 2004 story collection. We’re so much more likely to feel sympathy for an animal than for another person, thus the best fiction uses animals to define truly humane behavior. No one does this better than Joy Williams.
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Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock (Anchor, $14). Every decade, we get a stunning collection of dynamic, heartbreaking short stories. In the past, those collections came from Barry Hannah, Mark Richard, and Thom Jones. For the next 10 years, Pollock’s work will be tough for any writer to beat.
Flannery by Brad Gooch (Little, Brown, $30). Why do the lives of writers seem so … train-wrecky? Mary Flannery O’Connor was no exception. She survived the back-to-back snake pits of the Iowa Writers Workshop and the Yaddo colony only to find herself trapped at home with her strong-willed mother and crippling lupus. The life of this Southern Gothic belle makes the somber existence of Emily Dickinson look like a barrel full of monkeys.
Gladiator: A True Story of ’Roids, Rage, and Redemption by Dan Clark (Scribner, $25). Clark played the character “Nitro” on the television series American Gladiators, and if you read only one book on vacation this year, this has to be it. After a dark childhood, steroids launch the author into a new life as a national celebrity built from mountains of chemically enhanced muscle. The dream falls apart as he sprouts breasts he can’t conceal inside his skimpy spandex costume, then suffers high colonics in order to pass mandatory drug tests. Of course, there’s redemption, but not before a ton of laughs.
Joan Crawford: Hollywood Martyr by David Bret (Da Capo, $15). The perfect salacious beach read. And, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, if it falls in the ocean … what the hell, it falls in the ocean.
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Will California’s Proposition 50 kill gerrymandering reform?Talking Points Or is opposing Trump the greater priority for voters?
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‘The trickle of shutdowns could soon become a flood’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
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Wikipedia: Is ‘neutrality’ still possible?Feature Wikipedia struggles to stay neutral as conservatives accuse the site of being left-leaning
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Gilbert King’s 6 favorite books about the search for justiceFeature The journalist recommends works by Bryan Stevenson, David Grann, and more
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Nathan Harris’ 6 favorite books that turn adventures into revelationsFeature The author recommends works by Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McGuire, and more
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Marisa Silver’s 6 favorite books that capture a lifetimeFeature The author recommends works by John Williams, Ian McEwan, and more
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Lou Berney’s 6 favorite books with powerful storytellingFeature The award-winning author recommends works by Dorothy B. Hughes, James McBride, and more
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Elizabeth Gilbert’s favorite books about women overcoming difficultiesFeature The author recommends works by Tove Jansson, Lauren Groff, and more
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Fannie Flagg’s 6 favorite books that sparked her imaginationFeature The author recommends works by Johanna Spyri, John Steinbeck, and more
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Jessica Francis Kane's 6 favorite books that prove less is moreFeature The author recommends works by Penelope Fitzgerald, Marie-Helene Bertino, and more
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Keith McNally's 6 favorite books that have ambitious charactersFeature The London-born restaurateur recommends works by Leo Tolstoy, John le Carré, and more
