Eileen Myles’ anthology PATHETIC LITERATURE published this week to critical acclaim. David L. Ulin wrote a stunning review of the book for The Los Angeles Times, raving: “PATHETIC LITERATURE is an anthology rich in allusions: One piece speaks to another across geography and time. Moving fluidly from Jorge Luis Borges, Chester Himes and Victor Hugo to contemporary figures such as Michelle Tea, Justin Torres and Layli Long Soldier (whose poem ‘38’ is a vivid tour de force), the book is arranged alphabetically by first name, as if to turn our preconceptions inside out…The weave is so all-encompassing, the associations so multilayered, that I feel like fireworks are popping off inside my head. I want to think about these lines of communication: Kafka to Weil to Chantal Akerman, all writing on parents; Maggie Nelson also quoting Shōnagon: ‘Whatever people may think of my book, … I still regret that it ever came to light.’ I want to think about all this pathos, this emotion taking place between the lines and across the centuries. I want to think about these writers in conversation not only with one another but also within the imagination of the editor. More than anything, of course, the echoes belong to Myles, which is what gives PATHETIC LITERATURE a sensibility that is authorial as much as curatorial…PATHETIC LITERATURE represents not so much a collection as it does an ethos: ‘almost a poem,’ its creator observes. These texts and voices take us someplace unexpected, beyond the individual and into the realm of a collective, a tapestry of words that add up to a way of being in the world.” Meanwhile, Oprah Daily featured the anthology on its 2022 Holiday Gift Guide. The citation reads: “For the quirky and the weird—and who among us is not?—this singularly unexpected assemblage curated by Lambda Award–winning poet and writer Eileen Myles is an anthology like no other. This melange of work from writers of widely varying genres and forms—from Jorge Luis Borges to Rumi to Djuna Barnes—is ‘pathetic’ in the sense of being linked to pathos. In her introduction to the volume, Myles writes: ‘Each of these writers has a discomfort or a restlessness’ and has produced work that ‘acknowledges a boundary and then passes it.’ What Myles has captured here is simply this: the power of literature.” Grove Press published the anthology on November 15, 2022

MY FIRST POPSICLE, an anthology of essays edited by Zosia Mamet, published this week to a whirlwind of media attention. Mamet appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Today Show, All Things Considered, the Your Last Meal with Rachel Belle podcast, and the Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books podcast to discuss the book. She was also interviewed for ELLE’s Shelf Life column, and the book was selected for Lit Hub’s November roundup. Excerpts from the collection have been featured in Slate, Bon Appetit, and TIME. Penguin Books published the collection on November 1, 2022.

README.txt, the highly-anticipated memoir from Chelsea Manning, published this week to a wave of media attention. Jordy Rosenberg for The Washington Post praises the “electrifying opening” of the memoir, adding: “README.txt serves as an insider confessional turned inside out for the 21st century. The perverse secret of our era, one that Manning details in multiple surreal encounters with military bureaucracy, is that everything is already known. Manning is canny in her refusal to simply embrace the confessional mode often demanded of trans writers and whistleblowers alike...Manning’s memoir may thus give us less, not more, of what we may think we know about her. But this is an artful refusal, and an important one…The narrative progression that unfolds over these pages forms a sublime arc.” Meanwhile, Margaret Sullivan for The New York Times Book Review writes: “Manning weaves together her role as a whistle-blower — utterly disillusioned by what she saw and experienced in the military — with her sad personal story…Manning’s memoir fills in some blanks and, most important, adds a searing personal element. The writing in README.txt is vivid, as its narrative moves from an Oklahoma childhood to community college in Maryland to an unpredictable decision to enlist — brought about partly by dire financial need — which eventually brought her to the Middle East.” Elsewhere, Manning sat down with ABC, CBS, WBUR and NPR Fresh Air’s podcast to discuss her memoir and her polarizing public image. Farrar, Straus and Giroux published the memoir on October 18, 2022.

Laura Warrell's debut novel SWEET, SOFT, PLENTY RHYTHM has received an abundance of critical acclaim following its publication. The book was longlisted for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and is one of six shortlisted candidates for the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize (after also being selected as Barnes & Noble’s Discover Pick for the month of October), which "celebrates the very best new authors, elevating the joy of spotting fresh voices early on in their careers.” The novel was also featured on a flood of most-anticipated lists, widely praised as a “sensual and sinuous debut...a kaleidoscopic character study, a polyphonic riff on the modern-day Casanova” (Oprah Daily), “an enticing exploration of jazz music and the inner lives of women” (The Hollywood Reporter), and “a big-hearted multicultural world” (Apartment Therapy). A review from The Boston Globe raves: “Warrell excels at describing…points of contact — more often bruising impact than connection — conveying the varying degrees of longing, loneliness, and even aversion that can bring two people together, at least for a night…She’s also skilled at describing jazz — and, perhaps more important, what the music means to a musician…[T]his sprawling and ambitious book [is] an improvisation, and at its best, it’s beautiful.” Meanwhile, The New York Times praises: “Structured like a jam session, the novel favors a series of riffs over any one melodic theme...[E]legant, unexpected and wrenching…[A] literary high-wire act.” The Los Angeles Times featured a full profile of the author, and Lit Hub published a piece by Warrell titled “Why Jazz? Laura Warrell on Devotion to a ‘Dying’ Art Form,” where she delves into the inspirations for her novel. Lastly, the novel is an Indie Next List pick, as well as a Good Morning America Buzz Pick. Pantheon published SWEET, SOFT, PLENTY RHYTHM on September 27, 2022.

LIFE IS EVERYWHERE by Lucy Ives published to a wave of glowing reviews from Bookforum, The Los Angeles Times (“brilliantly berserk,” “often hilarious,” “a novel of academia…Its depiction of department dynamics is so pitch perfect as to be truly disconcerting to anyone with personal experience”) and The Rumpus, which hails Ives as “a Big Ideas writer on the level of Gaddis, or DeLillo, or Wallace…[O]ne of our greatest under-the-radar geniuses,” the novel an “achievement [that] demands attention.” The Chicago Review of Books places it "among the most audacious, effective, and ambitious books of recent vintage," "a novel of multitudinous brilliance and luminosity...as wide-ranging and risk-taking a novel to be found this side of Infinite Jest." The novel has also been recommended on new book roundups from Bustle, Inside Hook, and Lit Hub, the latter of which also published a new excerpt of the novel. Graywolf Press published LIFE IS EVERYWHERE on October 4, 2022.

THE FURROWS by Namwali Serpell published this week to a chorus of critical acclaim. A stunning review from Lynn Steger-Strong for The Los Angeles Times raves: “On the terms THE OLD DRIFT set out for itself, it was absolutely an accomplishment. Had I been assigned to write about it, I would have focused on all the ways, on its specific terms, it succeeded wildly. I bring in taste only to tell you that her second novel, THE FURROWS, out this week, is also a success on the terms it set out for itself. But it is a further testament to Serpell’s abilities and alacrity as an artist that, this time, I was completely in the thrall of the thing she made. The bombast of THE OLD DRIFT has been replaced with intimacy, intense emotionality and specificity, but the ambition, the acuity of the intelligence, remains… If THE OLD DRIFT put Serpell in conversation with Rushdie and García Márquez, THE FURROWS seems to stand on the shoulders of Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison.” The New York Times ran a profile on Serpell, where Lauren Christensen writes: “Confronting sudden loss in her own life, Namwali Serpell has written THE FURROWS, a disquieting portrait of the human mind, warped by grief... [H]er breadth of expertise puts her in the intellectual minority. ‘Let’s put it this way,’ her colleague and former professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. said. ‘It’s rare to find a creative writer who also has a Ph.D. in literary studies.’” Mary Retta’s review for New York Magazine’s Vulture raves: “The sort of grief Serpell depicts is complicated and unruly, which makes it feel tangibly real…THE FURROWS is, overall, a triumph. Serpell’s deft prose and languid narration come through beautifully throughout the novel.” Serpell sat down in conversation with Juana Summers for NPR’s WNYC Radio to discuss THE FURROWS. Elsewhere, Entertainment Weekly, Lit Hub, USA Today, Oprah Daily and others featured the book on roundups of the best new releases of September. Hogarth published THE FURROWS on September 27, 2022.

LISTEN, WORLD! is one of USA Today’s must-read titles for this week, deemed a “rousing biography of an overlooked figure.” The book received a glowing review from Glynnis MacNicol for The New York Times, who writes: “Scheeres and Gilbert attempt to resurrect Elsie [Robinson], fill in her biography and place her in the pantheon of women we should know about. The result is an engaging tale that doesn’t gloss over the extreme adversity and restrictions Robinson faced as a woman of much ambition and few means…At times LISTEN, WORLD! reads less like biography than a heavily annotated, if enjoyable, memoir.” Seal Press published the book on September 27, 2022.

Elliot Ackerman’s THE FIFTH ACT received a wealth of critical acclaim leading up to its publication this week. A glowing review from Booklist reads: “[A] powerful testimony…Ackerman’s tales are compelling and heartfelt; this title will stand the test of time as a warning against further military misadventures.” Ackerman sat down in conversation with Kori Schake of The Washington Post to discuss the book, which Schake describes as a “searing condemnation of both the conduct and abandonment of the war effort.” The Atlantic published an op-ed by Ackerman titled “The Rivalry That Defines America: How the U.S. dealt with Russia in Afghanistan is informing how Russia is dealing with the U.S. in Ukraine.” Lastly, Amazon Books selected THE FIFTH ACT as one of its Editors' Picks in the Best History category. Penguin Press published the book on August 9, 2022.

Liska Jacobs’s third novel, THE PINK HOTEL, published to a raft of great press this week. Esquire selected the novel as its July Book Club pick, and published an interview with Jacobs alongside glowing praise: “In this glittering satire about greed, excess, and human folly, Jacobs takes aim at our tenuous class system and sinks a kill shot.” Jacobs was also interviewed by The Orange County Register, where she discussed the inspiration for THE PINK HOTEL: “I love to write books that take place in pressure cookers, and you can’t have anything better than riots and wildfires outside a very luxurious hotel…Under lockdown, I was taping my windows closed because smoke was getting in. It was incredibly toxic. But isolated at the Beverly Hills Hotel, it was $44 salads and underwater music. It felt like a different world.” THE PINK HOTEL received glowing praise from Alta’s Monday Book Review (“THE PINK HOTEL is by turns a love story, a social satire, an elegy for the planet, a farewell to the glamour of Old Hollywood, and, above all, a morality tale…If Jacobs’s descriptions of the staff are insightfully nuanced, her depiction of the wealthy is anthropological”), and was featured as a Lit Hub must-read. Elsewhere, The Los Angeles Times published an essay by Jacobs titled “What do artists and their fans owe each other?” in which Jacobs reflects on the oft-troubled relationship between author and reader: “Every one of us is searching for what it means to be us. And, in that search, artists and their work become something for us to inhabit, to explore who we are...which can sometimes make the artist, who created from a place of need for understanding and intimacy, feel even more alone. But maybe the beauty of art is that it can serve as a bridge, a space where — even briefly — we see one another.” Lit Hub also published a piece by Jacobs “on Leaving Los Angeles, City of ‘Impermanence and Unreliability’ [and] finding Kinship with Eve Babitz and Joan Didion.” MCD published THE PINK HOTEL on July 19, 2022.

DARK EARTH by Rebecca Stott
Book Launches
Rebecca Stott’s DARK EARTH published to fantastic press. The book was featured on must-read lists from Lit Hub, Publishers Weekly, and The Lesbrary. Danik Ellis of Lesbrary raves: “With an intimate yet cinematic scope, DARK EARTH re-creates an ancient world steeped in myth and folklore, and introduces us to unforgettable women who come to vibrant life on the page. A heart-in-mouth adventure full of moments of tenderness, this is a beautiful, profound novel about oppression and power that puts a female perspective on a historical period dominated by men’s stories.” Random House published the novel on July 19, 2022.