CRP's Blog

CRP’s pre-Labor Day reads include some audiobooks and lots o’ links. Have a great holiday weekend!

In honor of this week’s release of Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, Purity, I started the audiobook of his last novel, the highly praised Freedom. It’s read by David LeDoux who is just fabulous at conjuring up the voices of the story’s dysfunctional characters and has me laughing out loud at parts. I’m only a few chapters in but I’m completely consumed. It’s a doorstop at 608 pages though, so this could be my Friday Staff Read for quite awhile. —Caitlin Eck, publicity manager

Nothing quite reminds me of the fact that I came of age in the ’90s like my EXTREME, DEVOTED LOVE for Quentin Tarantino’s films. I’m incredibly excited about the eventual release of The Hateful Eight and got a huge kick out of Vulture’s recent interview with QT. I was especially tickled by his impassioned defense of Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue writing (not only for itself, but also because it perhaps unintentionally harks back to Jules and Vincent’s conversation about TV show pilots from Pulp Fiction). —Allison Felus, production manager

Sat down after work with The New Yorker recently to read Evan Osnos’s “The Fearful and the Frustrated,”  a long look at Donald Trump’s push for the Republican presidential nomination, and I didn’t stand back up till I was done. Trump’s politics and tactics are scary enough, but when you read about the sort of base he’s pulling together (composed, in no small part, of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, border-patrol zealots, and the rest of the nation’s xenophobes), he becomes even scarier. —Geoff George, publicist

An article in The Paris Review, “On the Pleasures of Not Reading,” really struck a chord with me. We all have books or authors that we know we’re never going to read, and that assurance can almost be gleeful to share—but the article’s author asks: is that how we really feel or just something we’ve grown to believe for elitest or other reasons? Are we denying ourselves genuine reading enjoyment by continuing to not read? Of course then I went to Goodreads and added some books to my To Read list (but there are still some books I’m never going to read). —Mary Kravenas, marketing manager

 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers is one of my brother’s favorites and I am enjoying reading it on my commute. I’m only a few chapters in so I’m slightly afraid that it will start to go downhill soon, not because it’s showing signs of it, but because the author warns readers on the first page: “many of you might want to skip much of the middle…” and “…those first four chapters stick to one general subject, something manageable, which is more than what can be said for the book thereafter.” If only all books had a preface that suggested which parts to skip. —Emily Lewis, marketing intern

While researching our forthcoming The American Slave Coast I read this (July) Salon.com Q&A with Margaret Biser, who used to be a tour guide at a plantation. Her original Vox.com post about her experiences is called “I used to lead tours at a plantation. You won’t believe the questions I got about slavery.” —Meaghan Miller, senior publicist

Picture Shows: The Life and Films of Peter Bogdanovich by Andrew Yule. After rewatching What’s Up, Doc? with the director’s commentary, I was inspired to learn more about Bogdanovich.  —Jerome Pohlen, senior editor

I bicycle to work and back, and during my ten-mile rides I’m currently listening to the audiobook of Steven Millhauser’s latest story collection Voices in the Night. My favorite story so far is a very creepy one, sort of Kafkaesque, called “Sons and Mothers” about a man who drops by his mother’s house after not seeing her for years and finds her fragile, weak, and almost dead. It’s a story about the excuses we make and the lies we tell ourselves. I’ve always enjoyed Millhauser’s work—especially his first novel, Edwin Mullhouse, but also Martin Dressler and In the Penny Arcade. —Yuval Taylor, senior editor

Fun Fact: 1/3 of our staff was born in September. We have a birthday treat schedule!