Another reason to buy this issue is the excerpt from Paul Auster's forthcoming novel, Invisible (to be published in November). I have recently had the intense pleasure of reading this novel in galleys and it's among Auster's best — headlong, sexy, funny with a real villain and the most memorable ending in all his fiction. Howe, Lahiri/Gallant, and Auster alone are well worth the $16.99 Granta cover price.
I don't want to stint the other fictioneers in this issue, but it seems wrong to review single stories. I can say this: the range is broad enough so that most readers will be introduced to at least one writer whose work they will want to follow. In my case, it is the fiction of William Pierce whom I have known as Agni's Senior Editor. His story "American Subsidiary" deals with an American working for a German company. If, as Calvin Coolidge once famously said, "The chief business of the American people is business," Pierce caused me to think of how little recent American fiction I have read that has anything to do with the nation's national preoccupation. When his novel A Man of Restraint appears I will buy a copy to see what Pierce is up to.
Related:
Spelling lessons, More sex, more Lincoln, Exploring deep within, More 
- Spelling lessons
A fair number of college students are turning to Wicca for spiritual identity.
- More sex, more Lincoln
The subject of Lincoln is like catnip to publishers (and readers), but the only things missing from our winter list are actual cat books.
- Exploring deep within
Hannah Holmes, the Maine-born, Portland-dwelling science writer, naturalist, and friend to all animals has turned her lens deeply inward in her latest book, The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself .
- Budgeting your time
There are two possible reasons Friday is the best day of the week for a college student.
- Congress bans kids from libraries?
Is it possible that Congress has just inadvertently turned millions of children’s books into contraband?
- Water Dogs
A sort-of mystery novel that may or may not involve a crime, Water Dogs is also the story of a family broken by the death of its patriarch, "Coach," whose three children (fail to) cope with his death in highly individualized and complicated ways.
- Daughter of Venus
Suffolk and BPT birth Daughter of Venus
- The recording industry vs. free speech
Download of Nonsense
- Maine creators at the New York Comic-Con
If you've never attended a large comics convention, it's difficult to get a sense of the enormity and nonstop sensory onslaught.
- Digital language at the PRC
How important would you say Ansel Adams is to the modern trends of digital art? If your first inclination is to answer, "Not at all," you're probably right.
- Meant to be
The Books are, more and more, making their work something you can see.
- Less
Topics:
Books
, Media, Books, Summer Guide 2009, More
, Media, Books, Summer Guide 2009, SummerGuide2009, Poetry, Boston University, Boston University, Calvin Coolidge, Jhumpa Lahiri, John Banville, Less
