Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin

by
Staff
From the July/August 2016 issue of
Poets & Writers Magazine

Some people hate cats.” How to Set a Fire and Why (Pantheon, July 2016) by Jesse Ball. Fourteenth book, seventh novel. Agent: Jim Rutman. Editor: Jenny Jackson. Publicist: Josefine Kals. 

“When I was a child, I had reoccurring nightmares about wolves—tall beasts the size of skyscrapers that walked on their hind legs around New York City blocks, chasing and eventually devouring me.” Sex Object (Dey Street Books, June 2016) by Jessica Valenti. Fifth book, first memoir. Agent: Laurie Liss. Editor: Julia Cheiffetz. Publicist: Katie Steinberg.

“It matters what you call a thing: Exquisite a lover called me.” Look (Graywolf Press, July 2016) by Solmaz Sharif. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Jeff Shotts. Publicist: Caroline Nitz. 

“In ninth grade English, Mrs. X required us to memorize and recite a poem, so I went and asked the Topeka High librarian to direct me to the shortest poem she knew, and she suggested Marianne Moore’s ‘Poetry,’ which, in the 1967 version, reads in its entirety: ‘I, too, dislike it. / Reading it, however, with a perfect / contempt for it, one discovers in / it, after all, a place for the genuine.’” The Hatred of Poetry (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2016) by Ben Lerner. Fifth book, first nonfiction book. Agent: Anna Stein. Editor: Lorin Stein. Publicist: Brian Gittis.

“I don’t like small talk.” I’m Just a Person (Ecco, June 2016) by Tig Notaro. First book, memoir. Agent: Marc Gerald. Editors: Gabriella Doob and Daniel Halpern. Publicist: Ashley Garland.                                                                             

“In exercises 1 through 24, mark the option that corresponds to the word whose meaning has no relation to either the heading or the other words listed.” Multiple Choice (Penguin Books, July 2016) by Alejandro Zambra, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell. Eighth book, fifth fiction book. Agent: Andrea Montejo. Editor: Lindsey Schwoeri. Publicist: Andrea Lam. 

“In twilight they passed bloody Tadoussac, Kébec and Trois-Rivières and near dawn moored at a remote riverbank settlement.” Barkskins (Scribner, June 2016) by Annie Proulx. Tenth book, fifth novel. Agent: Liz Darhansoff. Editor: Nan Graham. Publicist: Brian Belfiglio. 

“Maybe a pool filled with roses someone / uprooted before they bloomed fully.” Eventually One Dreams the Real Thing (Copper Canyon Press, July 2016) by Marianne Boruch. Twelfth book, ninth poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Michael Wiegers. Publicist: Kelly Forsythe.

“A soldier looked over the parapet and thought no army could even begin to crack open the towers that marked the corners of the city.” The Lost Civilization of Suolucidir (City Lights Publishers, July 2016) by Susan Daitch. Fifth book, fourth novel. Agent: Julie Stevenson. Editor: Elaine Katzenberger. Publicist: Stacey Lewis. 

“Perhaps there was a bit of moisture there / or a pastel shade” This Number Does Not Exist (BOA Editions, June 2016) by Mangalesh Dabral, translated from the Hindi by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, et al. Tenth book, sixth poetry collection, first U.S. publication. Agent: None. Editor: Peter Conners. Publicist: Jenna Fisher.

“A woman who adored her mother, and had mourned her death every day for years now, came across some postcards in a store that sold antiques and various other bric-a-brac.” Ninety-Nine Stories of God (Tin House Books, July 2016) by Joy Williams. Tenth book, fifth story collection. Agent: Amanda Urban. Editor: Tony Perez. Publicist: Nanci McCloskey.

“‘On or about December 1910,’ Virginia Woolf wrote more than one hundred years ago, ‘human character changed.’” Critics, Monsters, Fanatics, and Other Literary Essays (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, July 2016) by Cynthia Ozick. Eighteenth book, seventh essay collection. Agent: Melanie Jackson. Editor: Bruce Nichols. Publicist: Lori Glazer.

For author podcasts and excerpts of books featured in Page One, visit us at www.pw.org /magazine.