In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others. Emily Hilliard's Making Our Future: Visionary Folklore and Everyday Culture in Appalachia is a fascinating exploration of folklife in West Virginia as well as the role folklore plays in culture. The Southern Review of Books wrote of the book: "A fascinating example of folklore fieldwork in West Virgin ..read more

Mai Nardone discussed her new story collection Welcome Me to the Kingdom with Electric Literature. What I liked about the title is that it can sound like a plea and it can also sound like a demand, a kind of insistence. The title story is about two women who are trying to find their place in the world geographically and also socially. One is older and one is much younger; it’s the younger one who is reeling from dislocation. In that particular story “the kingdom” is the men’s world of gambling. The title is the older woman joking about entering that kingdom. Stream a new song by Bully. eBooks ..read more

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others. Jesica Fields' collection When a Grasshopper Whispers is filled with poems of trauma and survival. In her own words, here is Jesica Fields' Book Notes music playlist for her poetry collection When a Grasshopper Whispers: Kelly Clarkson | Because of You The collection begins with poems about childh ..read more

Literary Hub shared an excerpt from Sonora Jha's novel The Laughter. Stream a new song by PONY. eBooks on sale for $3.99 today: The Last Holiday by Gil Scott-Heron The White Album by Joan Didion eBook on sale for $4.99 today: Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino Today's eBook deals February's best eBook deals. The Vapors' Dave Fenton discussed the band's hit "Turning Japanese" with the Guardian. When people ask if the song’s become an albatross, I say no. I’m pleased it happened to us. I’d rather be a one-hit wonder than a no-hit wonder. The Beat shared an excerpt from Rob Kirby's graphic memoi ..read more

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others. Anne K. Yoder's novel The Enhancers is a smart, surprising, and imaginative debut. Patrick Cottrell wrote of the book: "Animated by the absurdity of a Yorgos Lanthimos film, The Enhancers is a wildly original and contemporary tale about chemical augmentation, memory, yearning, and loss. Imagine the fe ..read more

The New Yorker shared a previously unpublished interview with Clarice Lispector. Ruhail Qaisar discussed his debut album Fatima with The Quietus. Time takes on a strange character in Fatima. Field recordings capture moments in time (dogs bark, children chatter), which float amidst time-warped samples and alien, atemporal drone. Qaisar suggests this was influenced by the way Fatima’s creation took place in the contrasting environments of rural Leh and the claustrophobic apartment he keeps in New Delhi. “Urban life out there is very straining. When I get home to Leh and look at the landscape, i ..read more

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others. Curtis White's Transcendent: Art and Dharma in a Time of Collapse is an smart and timely exploration of the West's fascination with Buddhism. Publishers Weekly wrote of the book: "Provocative...[Transcendent] amounts to a convincing case that will resonate with progressives seeking to 'free ourselves ..read more

Charmaine Graig discussed her novel My Nemesis with Shondaland. As a parent of girls and an educator now, I have too often noticed the way that girls who don’t happen to be of the dominant ethnicity or culture are made to feel insufficiently assertive, as if a quiet voice or demeanor isn’t also having a voice. As if you need to raise your voice to have a voice, to be strong. In the book, I wanted to explore how Tessa’s allegiance to certain notions — about what strength looks like — risks being intolerant. Even her ideas about feminism have a certain strain of misogyny, or at least of anti-fe ..read more

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others. Miriam Darlington's The Wise Hours is a fascinating and poignant blend of nature writing and memoir. The Wall Street Journal wrote of the book: "Unfailingly precise and lovingly poetic. . . . Nature writing of the first order." In her own words, here is Miriam Darlington's Book Notes music playlist f ..read more

Rebecca Makkai shared rules for literary etiquette. SPIN profiled the band Quasi. Weiss and Coomes have been linchpins in the Pacific Northwest music community since the 1980s. Weiss was a fan of Coomes’s wry, erudite San Francisco-based folk rock band, The Donner Party. They met, married, and started making music together. While the marriage only lasted four years, their friendship and creative collaboration has endured for decades. Along the way they’ve each made significant contributions to indie rock, working with dozens of other musical partners. Weiss has drummed with Stephen Malkmus, B ..read more