Jackie Collins, the novelist who wrote over thirty books, all of which were bestsellers, passed away on Saturday at the age of 77. Collins battled breast cancer since her diagnosis six and a half years ago. A prolific writer for over four decades (beginning with The World is Full of Married Men, published in 1968, and spanning to The Santangelos, published in June 2015), Collins’ work primarily explores the dark underpinnings of our culture’s most sought-after lifestyles and aspirations. According to The Washington Post, “her work came to symbolize the fictional re-creation of the lives of Hollywood’s handsome and haunted as they …
This past fall, Academy Award nominated actor Jesse Eisenberg released his debut short story collection, Bream Gives Me Hiccups. Though an actor releasing a book can arouse the skepticism of the reading public, Eisenberg’s collection garnered much praise. Helen Macalpin of NPR praises the collection’s “panoply of neurotics and narcissists and its smart mix of stinging satire and surprising moments of sweetness” and suggests that “it also offers a youthful new twist on what one of Eisenberg’s hopeless dreamers refers to — ironically, of course — as the cruel ‘irony of life.’” Eisenberg seems to subvert the stereotype of Hollywood celebrities writing bad books. …
For books fans, being graced by the presence of a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of fiction is a thrilling experience. Last night, Brooklyn, New York’s Greenlight Bookstore put on an event featuring two Pulitzer winners—Adam Johnson, who won in 2012 for his novel The Orphan Master’s Son, and Jennifer Egan, who won one year prior for her novel/story collection hybrid A Visit from the Goon Squad. The event centered around Johnson’s recently released and critically acclaimed short story collection Fortune Smiles. Johnson began by reading the opening pages of the collection’s first story, “Nirvana,” in which the protagonist divides his time …
