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Every month, a deluge of new books comes flooding out from big publishers, indie houses, and self-publishing platforms. So every month, The A.V. Club narrows down the endless options to five of the books we’re most excited about.
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We’re big fans of essays that combine cultural criticism with memoir, and Larissa Pham’s
Pop Song especially sings when the writer turns her eye to art and pop culture. In her debut book of nonfiction memoir by way of interconnected essays Pham interweaves a recounting of her life thus far with her thoughts on James Turrell, Anne Carson, Frank Ocean, and Agnes Martin (extra points for not mentioning Maggie Nelson in “Blue,” Pham’s essay on Martin). Through her sensitive, curious telling, Pham lobbies for the way in which art can help people learn more about themselves.
PW Picks: Books of the Week, April 19, 2021 publishersweekly.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from publishersweekly.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Tejaswini Niranjana is currently professor and head, Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, and visiting professor with the School of Arts and Sciences, Ahmedabad University. She is the author of
Siting Translation: History, Post-structuralism and the Colonial Context, as well as
Mobilizing India: Women, Music and Migration between India and Trinidad. Her translation of Jayant Kaikini’s
No Presents Please was jointly awarded the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature Tejaswini Niranjana
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante: The first of the so-called Neapolitan novels, a veritable modern masterpiece, the book is an intense story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship.