Long List for the Man Booker Award

At the New York Times, and more authors at the Guardian U.K. below:

The Man Booker longlist announced! https://t.co/v7RyrrIEAd

— Pamela Paul (@PamelaPaulNYT) July 23, 2018

Not the Booker longlist: vote now to decide the 2018 shortlist https://t.co/Zg30zAZsL3

— Guardian Books (@GuardianBooks) July 30, 2018

Graham Greene, The Human Factor

At Amazon, Graham Greene, The Human Factor (Penguin Classics).

Bernard Malamud, The Fixer

At Amazon, Bernard Malamud, The Fixer: A Novel.

Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Penitent

At Amazon, Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Penitent: A Novel.

Shopping Today

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BONUS:  Katie Williams, Tell the Machine Goodnight: A Novel.

John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

Monterey is the most literary city I can ever recall visiting. There were literally five used bookstores within a mile from each other downtown, and a coffee house bookstore over in Pacific Grove (about a mile from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Here's Steinbeck, Cannery Row, at Amazon.

I'm reading the old mass market paperback below.

Pat Conroy, Beach Music

I'm currently reading Beach Music.

And I just realized I haven't read anything else of Conroy's besides The Prince of Tides, which was phenomenal.

Here's the current paperback, at Amazon, Pat Conroy, Beach Music: A Novel.

And the mass-market paperback, Beach Music (Paperback).

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At Amazon, Today's Deals. New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.

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BONUS: Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead.

Critics and Historians Pick Philip Roth's Best Book

This is really great.

At the New York Times, "Philip Roth’s Best Book":

Philip Roth’s Best Book:
Gary Shteyngart, Richard Ford, Ron Chernow, Lorrie Moore, Stephen King, Michael Lewis, Joseph O’Neill on their favorite Roth books. https://t.co/Xixsh8NeYc

— Michiko Kakutani (@michikokakutani) May 25, 2018

The death of Philip Roth this week led to near instantaneous debate about which of his books was his best. There was the transgressive Roth; the epic, historical Roth; the personal, memoiristic Roth; the postmodernist playful Roth. His genius has been an inspiration and a prod to a few generations of writers now. And it usually comes down to the individual book, that one book, which first opened their mouths in awe.

In that spirit, we asked a number of great, contemporary novelists, critics and historians, to make their own case for Roth’s greatest book. It’s silly to have to choose, of course, but for those only now coming to his work, consider these good places to start.

Steven Saylor, Roma

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Steven Saylor, Roma: A Novel of Ancient Rome (Novels of Ancient Rome).

Also, Empire: The Novel of Imperial Rome.

These two are grand sweeping epics, covering centuries. Start with Saylor as you jump into this fiction literature on Ancient Rome. Saylor and then Colleen McCullough.

Lilith Saintcrow, Afterwar

First there was Omar El Akkad's, American War. And now here comes another in this burgeoning genre.

At Amazon, Lilith Saintcrow, Afterwar: A Novel.

Charles Frazier, Varina

At Amazon, Charles Frazier, Varina: A Novel.

Neal Stephenson, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

*BUMPED.*

Neal Stephenson, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.: A Novel.

ICYMI: Matthew Sullivan, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Matthew Sullivan, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore.

Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent: A Novel.

Philip Roth Still Has Plenty to Say

An interview with Philip Roth, from January, at the New York Times, "No Longer Writing, Philip Roth Still Has Plenty to Say":

In an exclusive interview with The New York Times, Philip Roth shared his thoughts on Trump, #MeToo and retirement (from January) https://t.co/LTsow8o6q6

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 23, 2018

I have interviewed Roth on several occasions over the years, and last month I asked if we could talk again. Like a lot of his readers, I wondered what the author of “American Pastoral,” “I Married a Communist” and “The Plot Against America” made of this strange period we are living in now. And I was curious about how he spent his time. Sudoku? Daytime TV? He agreed to be interviewed but only if it could be done via email. He needed to take some time, he said, and think about what he wanted to say.

C.M. [Charles McGrath] In a few months you’ll turn 85. Do you feel like an elder? What has growing old been like?

P.R. [Philip Roth] Yes, in just a matter of months I’ll depart old age to enter deep old age — easing ever deeper daily into the redoubtable Valley of the Shadow. Right now it is astonishing to find myself still here at the end of each day. Getting into bed at night I smile and think, “I lived another day.” And then it’s astonishing again to awaken eight hours later and to see that it is morning of the next day and that I continue to be here. “I survived another night,” which thought causes me to smile once more. I go to sleep smiling and I wake up smiling. I’m very pleased that I’m still alive. Moreover, when this happens, as it has, week after week and month after month since I began drawing Social Security, it produces the illusion that this thing is just never going to end, though of course I know that it can stop on a dime. It’s something like playing a game, day in and day out, a high-stakes game that for now, even against the odds, I just keep winning. We will see how long my luck holds out.

C.M. Now that you’ve retired as a novelist, do you ever miss writing, or think about un-retiring?

P.R. No, I don’t. That’s because the conditions that prompted me to stop writing fiction seven years ago haven’t changed. As I say in “Why Write?,” by 2010 I had “a strong suspicion that I’d done my best work and anything more would be inferior. I was by this time no longer in possession of the mental vitality or the verbal energy or the physical fitness needed to mount and sustain a large creative attack of any duration on a complex structure as demanding as a novel.... Every talent has its terms — its nature, its scope, its force; also its term, a tenure, a life span.... Not everyone can be fruitful forever.”

C.M. Looking back, how do you recall your 50-plus years as a writer?

P.R. Exhilaration and groaning. Frustration and freedom. Inspiration and uncertainty. Abundance and emptiness. Blazing forth and muddling through. The day-by-day repertoire of oscillating dualities that any talent withstands — and tremendous solitude, too. And the silence: 50 years in a room silent as the bottom of a pool, eking out, when all went well, my minimum daily allowance of usable prose.

RTWT.

Philip Roth, 1933-1918

I read American Pastoral last year and was highly impressed. However, Portnoy's Complaint turned a lot off people of to Roth's writing. I'm still agnostic on that front.

Either way, requiescat in pace.

At the New York Times, at Memorandum, "Philip Roth, Towering Novelist Who Explored Lust, Jewish Life and America, Dies at 85."

Breaking News: The literary giant Philip Roth has died at 85. He explored themes of lust, vanity and Jewish identity in novels like "Portnoy's Complaint." https://t.co/5ZRj4bGxM5

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 23, 2018

Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Min Jin Lee, Pachinko.

Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

At Amazon, Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

Russell Banks, Cloudsplitter

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Russell Banks, Cloudsplitter: A Novel.