New year? New books. January marks a strong beginning to what looks like another excellent literary year. You’ve got thought-provoking nonfiction, transportive fiction, and candid and enduring memoir all on the table. If you’re staying close to home due to cold weather or, er, other reasons this month, you’ve got plenty of new reading material to choose from.
In our morning reading: new writing by Henry Hoke, the case for bookstore tourism, and more.
In our afternoon reading: a playlist from Henry Hoke, an interview with Adrian Tomine, and more.
HENRY HOKE is the author of The Groundhog Forever (WTAW Press, 2021), the story collection Genevieves (Subito Press, 2017), and The Book of Endless Sleepovers (Civil Coping Mechanisms/The Accomplices, 2016). Recent work appears in The Offing, Electric Literature, Hobart, Carve, and the Catapult anthology Tiny Crimes. He co-created the performance series Enter>text [enter-text.com] in Los Angeles, and has curated events at the &Now Festival, Machine Project, the Neutra VDL House, and the Poetic Research Bureau. His play, At Sundown, premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and his short film, Taking Shape, screened on HBO. Sticker, a memoir, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons. He lives in Brooklyn.
Henry Hoke’s new novel The Groundhog Forever tells the story of two film students who find themselves stuck in a time loop on a day when they attend a screening of Groundhog Day. Out of that high concept comes a thoughtful, unpredictable book about life in early-2000s NYC, identity, and art. Of personal interest is the fact that Hoke and I are both graduates of NYU’s film program, and reading this book brought back a host of memories. In advance of Hoke’s book launch at Community Bookstore this evening, we chatted about film school and all things literary.
In our afternoon reading: a review of Brandon Hobson’s new novel, an interview with Mogwai, and more.
In our weekend reading: a playlist from Vanessa Veselka, an interview with John Langan, and more.
In our morning reading: thoughts on John Hornor Jacobs’s forthcoming book, new writing from Henry Hoke, and more.