The Winner Stands Aloneby Paul Coelho
In The Alchemist author’s latest, characters fall disastrously short of their dreams at Cannes.
Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, sets his latest book, The Winner Stands Alone, at the Cannes Film Festival. Taking place in a single day, it describes the quest of Igor, a Russian entrepreneur, to recover his ex-wife. Writing about the novel for his blog, Coelho said “One of the recurrent themes of my books is the importance of paying the price of your dreams. But to what extent can our dreams be manipulated? For the past decades, we lived in a culture that privileged fame, money, power—and most of the people were led to believe that these were the real values that we should pursue.”
Once the Shoreby Paul Yoon
A debut story collection about loss on an imaginary Korean island.
A noteworthy debut: Paul Yoon’s Once the Shore collects eight stories, all of which are set on the imaginary island of Solla off the coast of South Korea. In an interview with The Rumpus, Yoon explained the theme of loss in his stories: “it was a theme I wanted in the book because of the two wars—the Second World War and the Korean War—that hover over these stories. All the characters in these stories are connected to someone who was taken away by those wars; and I wanted that unity within the island, that connection among all the characters and their stories. There is loss, but through that loss there is a certain commonness, some attempt at comfort.” The title story—Yoon’s first—was selected for Best American Short Stories 2006.
The Big Oneby David Kinney
The down and dirty world of fishing tournaments.
In 2005, David Kinney won a Pulitzer for breaking news as part of the Newark Star-Ledger team that reported on the resignation of New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey. His new book, The Big One, leaves Newark behind for Martha’s Vineyard. It tells the story of the Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, a five-week fishing tournament with a $30,000 prize. Publishers Weekly writes, “The book is a lot of fun as Kinney's day-in, day-out descriptions of the tournament itself—complete with accusations of cheating, bitter rivalries, health concerns, and Cinderella stories—play out like a frenzied baseball season condensed into one month of triple-headers.”
Watching the Doorby Kevin Myers
A brutal, bloody, and black humorous memoir of 1970s Belfast.
Murders in Northern Ireland in March had onlookers worried that the region might return to the violence of old. Kevin Myers’ Watching the Door is a memoir and unofficial history of 1970s Belfast, where Myers worked as a reporter. The Times of London raves: “A likeable drinking companion and enthusiastic seducer, he somehow gets access to both sides; the line between friend and foe constantly shifts. The book's subtitle, Cheating Death, is no empty boast, for his life seems to be charmed: Last-minute tip-offs ensure he escapes his would-be killers, while others, less lucky, fall around him. … His narrative, searingly sharp and honest, macabre in its black humor, does not hide his moral and spiritual deterioration as he becomes numb to the everyday atrocities he witnesses. Myers is lucky to have escaped with his life; we are lucky he has decided to tell his story.”
The Wonderful Wizard of Ozby L. Frank Baum
Do Dorothy and friends explain contemporary politics?
Can The Wonderful Wizard of Oz explain contemporary politics? In 1964, Henry M. Littlefield published an essay arguing that the novel was a parable for 19th-century monetary politics. Talking to NPR, scholar Quentin Taylor tries to freshen up the metaphor. He can’t fit President Obama into the equation, but Barney Frank works as the Lion, Nancy Pelosi as queen of the field mice, and as Dorothy—“attractive, wholesome, somewhat provincial”—is, of course, Sarah Palin.
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