Because you need to know which fictional characters boast the most wealth.
"Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn’t ask ourselves what it says but what it means…"
—
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
Vote for THE NAME OF THE ROSE for 1book140’s June book!
Available today from Paul Theroux, the master of travel writing, THE LOWER RIVER is a ”riveting” and “provocative” (New York Times Book Review) novel of Western illusions and African reality.
Ellis Hock never believed that he would return to Africa. He runs an old-fashioned menswear store in a small town in Massachusetts but still dreams of his Eden, the four years he spent in Malawi with the Peace Corps, cut short when he had to return to take over the family business. When his wife leaves him, and he is on his own, he realizes that there is one place for him to go: back to his village in Malawi, on the remote Lower River, where he can be happy again.
Arriving at the dusty village, he finds it transformed: the school he built is a ruin, the church and clinic are gone, and poverty and apathy have set in among the people. They remember him—the White Man with no fear of snakes—and welcome him. But is his new life, his journey back, an escape or a trap?
Interweaving memory and desire, hope and despair, salvation and damnation, this is a hypnotic, compelling, and brilliant return to a terrain about which no one has ever written better than Theroux.
Read an excerpt.
"The speed at which I write with a pen seems to be the speed at which my imagination finds the best forms of words."
— Paul Theroux, on always writing a first draft with pen and paper
"Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it."
— Donna Tartt, The Secret History (from ShortList’s 50 Pieces of Wisdom From Novels)
"The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown, to bear witness to the consequences, tragic or comic, of [people possessed by the narcissism of minor differences."
— Paul Theroux (The Tao of Travel)
"Who am I? Perhaps it is better to ask me about my passions, rather than what I’ve done in my life. Whom do I love? No one comes to mind. I know I love good food: just the name Tour d’Argent makes me quiver all over. Is that love?"
— Umberto Eco (The Prague Cemetery)
FATHER’S DAY by Buzz Bissinger: TOUR
FATHER’S DAY comes out tomorrow, and author Buzz Bissinger (of Friday Night Lights fame) will hit the road on Wednesday. Is he visiting you?
PHILADELPHIA
Philadelphia Free Library, May 16, 7:30 pm
BOSTON
Brookline Booksmith, May 17, 7:00 pm
WASHINGTON DC
Politics & Prose, May 18, 7:00 pm
Gaithersburg Book Festival, featured author, May 19
HOUSTON
AUSTIN
DALLAS
LOS ANGELES
SAN FRANCISCO
Book Passage, Corte Madera, May 30, 7:00 pm
Books Inc, Opera Plaza, May 31, 7:00 pm
SEATTLE
Olympia Timberland Library, June 2, 7:30 pm
PORTLAND
Powell’s, Cedar Hills, June 3, 2:00 pm
CHICAGO
Printers Row Book Festival, June 9
Anderson’s, Naperville, June 10, 2:00 pm
ST. LOUIS
Maryville Talks Books series, Maryville Univ, June 11
NEW JERSEY
B&N Cherry Hill, June 16, 12:00 noon
NASHVILLE
Southern Festival of Books, October 12-14
Since its inception in 1915, The Best American Short Stories has become the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction.
Past editors of have included: Michael Chabon, Lorrie Moore, Ann Patchett, Stephen King, Richard Russo, Salman Rushdie, Alice Sebold, and Geraldine Brooks.
Happy Short Story Month!
