{"id":29506,"date":"2025-08-28T22:10:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T22:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/29506\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T22:10:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T22:10:12","slug":"hooked-on-books-silk-purse-from-a-sows-ear-ian-mcewan-can-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/29506\/","title":{"rendered":"Hooked on Books: Silk purse from a sow\u2019s ear? Ian McEwan can do it\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pipeline the publishing world manages quite reliably to maintain flowing is pumping along as predictably as usual, but three works nearing publication in the next several weeks may well strike the equivalent of literary black gold. Chief among them\u2014and the only one I can personally vouch for, being two-thirds into it already on an advance copy\u2014is the next novel from the prolific and brilliant Brit Ian McEwan, author of 19 novels and two short-story collections to date. At the outset, I was more than a little doubtful that \u201cWhat We Can Know\u201d (Knopf, $27, 320 pages)<\/strong>, which publishes on Sept. 23, could long hold my attention, let alone captivate me. Its narrator, after all, is a middle-aged, somewhat dweeby academic at a middling English university whose specialty is the literature of the late 20th\u00a0and early 21st centuries, and his passionate obsession is searching for a famous but lost poem written more than 100 years before he was born.\u00a0Well, that\u2019s a ticket to Dullsville, methought. But I was not even 10 percent into the story when I had to wryly (and gratefully) conclude, that, as McEwan\u2019s title implies, what we think we might know and what is true could be two different things entirely. Protagonist Thomas Metcalfe, it turns out, is not a denizen of the 21st century of his professed expertise. He is living in 2122 and looking rather longingly backward. Meanwhile, two catastrophic developments for humankind have transpired in the elapsed time. One is referred to as the \u201cInundation,\u201d which has rendered island living not a chosen luxury but an inevitability, and the other is remembered as the \u201cDerangement,\u201d which McEwan wisely lets us come to our own conclusions about. What unfolds over the next 250 pages is a multi-genre tale completely relevant to our own times. It\u2019s part speculative fiction, part love story, part detective story and eventually, even a sort of crime narrative, all buoyed by McEwan\u2019s literary stock-in-trade arsenal: his keen eye for human behavior and foibles, his thought-provoking observations on the effects of human decisions and indecisions, and his\u00a0crisp and dry trademark wit, which often had me laughing aloud over a brief single sentence. As a case in point on that sudden-attack sly humor, consider this apt summing up of an over ardent suitor totally unaware that his love is unrequited: \u201cHe is the willing prisoner of an ecstatic solipsism.\u201d McEwan, who won the Booker Prize for his 1998 novel \u201cAmsterdam,\u201d is the author of \u201cAtonement,\u201d \u201cOn Chesil Beach,\u201d \u201cSaturday,\u201d \u201cNutshell,\u201d \u201cMachines Like Me\u201d and many others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Oakland writer Mary Roach\u2019s new title releases in September. (W.W. Norton) <\/p>\n

Oakland-based writer Mary Roach, the irrepressible and often hilarious author of \u201cGrunt,\u201d \u201cBonk,\u201c \u201cStiff\u201d and \u201cFuzz,\u201d has turned once again to matters biological for her next science-based nonfiction investigations. \u201cReplaceable You\u201d (W.W. Norton, $28.99, 288 pages)<\/strong>, publishing Sept. 16, is subtitled \u201cAdventures in Human Anatomy\u201d and plows deep into the exploration of the myriad ways humans have tried to extend life by borrowing, manufacturing or transplanting substitutes for their own malfunctioning body parts. Nothing seems off limits to her bright-eyed curiosity \u2014\u00a0limbs, hearts, kidneys, noses, vaginas and more are all subject to her search for the hard facts. Amusingly enough, the as-yet unreleased book is, at this writing, the No. 1 seller in the \u201cTransplant Surgery\u201d category on Amazon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Ha Jin\u2019s new novel is slated for publication in October. (Other Press via Bay City News)<\/p>\n

In June 1989, a solitary, singularly determined protester stood defiantly in front of a column of military tanks leaving Beijing\u2019s Tiananmen Square in China, shifting his position to block its attempts to go around him and even climbing atop one tank to talk with the soldiers. Eventually pulled aside by bystanders, he remains unidentified to this day, but images of him went viral, sending shock waves around the world, and are still censored in China today. On Oct. 21, mainland China-born Ha Jin, a professor at Boston University and the National Book Award-winning author of \u201cWaiting,\u201d publishes his new novel \u201cLooking for Tank Man\u201d (Other Press, $19.99 softcover, 368 pages)<\/strong>. Its protagonist is Pei Lulu, an international student at Harvard who learns of those tumultuous events in her home country when a different solo protester shows up on campus to defy the visiting Chinese premier.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Authors in the stream: <\/strong>Washington D.C. is gearing up for the Sept. 6 National Book Festival, its 25th annual iteration since First Lady Laura Bush co-founded it in 2001. While not that many West Coasters likely will attend in person, all events, featuring more than 90 authors, will be videotaped for viewing online afterward. Even better, some of the most popular will be livestreamed. For instance, recent past U.S. poets laureate Joy Harjo and Tracy K. Smith will be joined onstage at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center by the current officeholder, Ada Lim\u00f3n, at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time to talk with Washington Post book critic Ron Charles. Other livestream events\u00a0include actress Geena Davis presenting her new children\u2019s book, \u201cThe Girl Who Was Too Big for the Page\u201d; Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow, on \u201cMark Twain\u201d; and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, discussing her new novel, \u201cDream Count.\u201d For more info and the complete schedule, go to www.loc.gov\/events\/<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Geraldine Brooks is the recipient of the 2025 Prize for American Fiction presented by the Library of Congress. (Randi Baird via Bay City News)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, mere days before the festival, the sponsoring Library of Congress announced\u00a0that Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u201cMarch,\u201d has been named its 2025 winner of the Prize for American Fiction. She\u2019ll appear at\u00a0the festival at 9:30 a.m. to talk about her new work \u201cMemorial Days\u201d in which she recounts her efforts to recover from the sudden loss of her husband. Acting Librarian of Congress Robert Randolph Newlen, in announcing the prize, remarked that Brooks, author of the novels \u201cPeople of the Book,\u201d \u201cCaleb\u2019s Crossing\u201d and \u201cYear of Wonders,\u201d \u201cinvites us into her narratives with such grace and energy and helps us understand the lives of characters who might have lived in other times and other places.\u201d Established in 2013, the Prize for American Fiction has been awarded to George Saunders, Louise Erdrich, Marilynne Robinson and E.L. Doctorow, among others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"TheatreWorks Silicon Valley presents the world premiere of Lauren Gunderson\u2019s \u201cLouisa May Alcott\u2019s Little Women.\u201d (Lauren Gunderson via Bay City News) <\/p>\n

Page to the stage:<\/strong> Author Louisa May Alcott as a character joins her creations Meg, Beth, Jo, Amy and their beloved Marmee March onstage at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in playwright Lauren Gunderson\u2019s \u201cLouisa May Alcott\u2019s Little Women.\u201d The play, co-commissioned by TheatreWorks and three other companies, is told from the point of view of Jo, as she re-creates her version of the story for her sisters. The show runs Sept. 24-Oct. 12 at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, and tickets, $49-$89 are on sale at theatreworks.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Page to the screen:<\/strong> Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro and Regina Hall appear in director-screenwriter Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s \u201cOne Battle After Another,\u201d a new movie loosely based on Thomas Pynchon\u2019s darkly comic novel \u201cVineland,\u201d published in 1990 after a long dry spell for the famed but almost paranoically reclusive author of 1973\u2019s \u201cGravity\u2019s Rainbow.\u201d Generally described as Pynchon\u2019s most politically charged novel, \u201cVineland\u201d was summed up by fellow satirist Salman Rushdie in a review for the New York Times as \u201cfree-flowing and light and funny and maybe the most readily accessible piece of writing the old Invisible Man ever came up with.\u201d Anderson\u2019s film adaptation, which hits theaters on Sept. 26, is set in the 1980s in Northern California and revolves around ex-revolutionaries from the Nixon-Reagan era trying to rescue the daughter of one of them. It\u2019s an action thriller with a thick satirical edge. Check out the trailer here.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hooked on Books is a monthly column by\u00a0Sue Gilmore<\/strong>\u00a0on current literary buzz and can\u2019t-miss upcoming book events. Look for it here every last Thursday of the month.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The pipeline the publishing world manages quite reliably to maintain flowing is pumping along as predictably as usual,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[266],"tags":[23498,359,23499,18,117,23500,14774,23501,14766,19,17,23502,23503,23504,23505,23506,23507,23508,23509,1341,23510,23511,23512,23513,23514,7561,23515,23516,23517],"class_list":{"0":"post-29506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-ada-limon","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-geena-davis","14":"tag-geraldine-brooks","15":"tag-ha-jin","16":"tag-ian-mcewan","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-joy-harjo","20":"tag-lauren-gunderson","21":"tag-looking-for-tank-man","22":"tag-louisa-may-alcott","23":"tag-mary-roach","24":"tag-memorial-days","25":"tag-national-book-festival","26":"tag-one-battle-after-another","27":"tag-paul-thomas-anderson","28":"tag-replaceable-you","29":"tag-robert-randolph-newlen","30":"tag-ron-charles","31":"tag-ron-chernow","32":"tag-theatreworks-silicon-valley","33":"tag-thomas-pynchon","34":"tag-tracy-k-smith","35":"tag-vineland","36":"tag-what-we-can-know"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}