September Issues

New issues of a bunch of my favorite magazines (online and in print) came out this week. Here’s a quick summary:

The new Bookforum is a three-month issue, so thankfully there’s a lot of great stuff. Ben Anastas on faith in fiction, a review by Matthew Shaer of Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s The Informers, a “review by Tayt Harlin” of Ben Moser’s Why This World, and a review by Kate Zambreno of Christine Montalbetti’s Western. (On the non-international literature side of things, there’s a review by Paul LaFarge of Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, a review by Hari Kunzru of Jonathan Lethem’s Chronic City, and a review by John Domini of Richard Powers’s Generosity. And much more . . .)

The new World Literature Today really deserves its own post. This is a special issue edited by Larry Venuti and dedicated to Catalan Literature. There’s a piece by J. Madison Davis on “The Inventive Crime Writers of Catalonia,” a story by Quim Monzo entitled “A Day Like Any Other” (which will appear in the Guadalajara collection Open Letter is publishing next year), several poems by Miquel Bauca, Francesc Parcerisas, and Maria-Merce Marcal, Anna Montero, Andreu Vidal, Ernest Farres, and Eva Baltasar, and a story by Albert Sanchex Pinol. There’s also an extremely interesting introductory essay by Venuti that’s available online.

This month’s Believer kicks ass. A number of interesting pieces—Damion Searls on the abridged Moby-Dick, a piece by Stephen Elliott, a reconsideration of V.C. Andrews—and reviews of two Open Letter books: a review by Lara Tupper of Jan Kjaerstad’s The Discoverer and a piece by the aforementioned Kate Zambreno on Elsa Morante’s Aracoeli. (And check out the review by Laird Hunt of Percival Everett’s I Am Not Sidney Poitier as well.)

New Open Letters Monthly (unaffiliated—it’s just a coincidence, or example of great minds thinking alike) is also available online and features a nice range of pieces, including a special “Music Portfolio.”

Finally, the September issue of Words Without Borders is up now as well, and is focused on “Walking the World”:

This month, in collaboration with Orion magazine, we embark on “Walking the World,” the second installment of our two-month focus on international nature writing. The writers in our September issue record their walks to give us a unique ground-level perspective on our natural and urban surroundings. Whether a remembrance of a haunting episode on the streets of Paris, or an account of a trek through Milan toward a distant peak, these pieces provide a rare glimpse into the realm of the writer on foot, in his element, and speaking about the world that we all navigate. This month we present the work of Siegfried Kracauer, Troub’s, Davide Sapienza, Agur Schiff, Antonio Ungar, Alexei Ivanov, and Marjan Strojan. We hope you’ll also head over to Orion to read their fantastic selections for this co-publication.

Lots of good stuff to be reading . . .