Washington Post book critic Carlos Lozada reviews the writings of Vladamir Putin. “His motives can also be gleaned in part from his book and his frequent essays and major speeches, all seething with resentment, propaganda and self-justification,” Lozada states. “In light of these writings, Russia’s attack on Ukraine seems less about reuniting two countries that Putin considers ‘a single whole,’ as he put it in a lengthy essay last year, than about challenging the United States and its NATO minions, those cocky, illegitimate winners of the Cold War.”
The debut issue of Astra, a new international literary magazine, will be on sale on April 12. Says Nadja Spiegelman in her editor’s note: “Within these pages, writers of prose and poetry, cartoonists, translators, and artists enter into a conversation that rejects borders. They do not each represent a nation. Here you will encounter writers who have lived in many countries, who speak through all of them, speak for none of them, who don’t speak your language, yet speak directly to you.” The issue, titled Ecstasy, will include writing by Ottessa Moshfegh, Mieko Kawakami, Solmaz Sharif, Catherine Lacey, Leslie Jamison, Dahlia de la Cerda, Maria Clara Drummond, and Nada Alic.
At the New Left Review, Anton Jäger writes about Michel Houellebecq’s new novel, Anéantir, which was released in France in January: “If this is indeed Houellebecq’s last novel, as he proclaims in the acknowledgements, it is an underwhelming finale. Incensed as he may be by the indignities of the dying, he has remarkably little to say about the causes or material circumstances of their suffering. The pandemic is ultimately just an avenue for his growing spiritual preoccupations, increasingly detached from brutalities of the social.”
Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson raised $15.4 million in twenty-four hours to self-publish four new books.
Flatiron has purchased Beto O’Rourke’s new book, We’ve Got to Try. The book, which will be released in August, tells the story of Texan Lawrence Aaron Nixon, the son of a slave who went on to become a civil rights leader.