Melville House Books

Writing & music

• Eight years later Jonathan Lethem still fuming over James Wood’s review of “The Fortress of Solitude”

  How bad does a negative review sting, how much does it get beneath the skin? it’s been eight years since Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude was reviewed in The New Republic… 6 / Read more »

• “Shimmies and shakes” and other literary theme-songs

  While on a summer road-trip to promote his debut novel How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, Christopher Boucher and his wife Lisa Bastoni wrote this beautiful duet as a theme-song… 1 / Read more »

• Pitchfork picks "How to Wreck a Nice Beach" as one of its "60 Favorite Music Books"

  We are pleased as punch that the music website Pitchfork selected Dave Tompkins’ How to Wreck a Nice Beach (which we co-published with Stop Smiling) as one of its “60… Read more »

• Steve Almond on Gil Scott-Heron

  At The Rumpus Steve Almond writes about the lasting influence, political power, and musical genius of Gil Scott-Heron who died on Friday: This isn’t his obituary. An obituary would require… 1 / Read more »

• Suzanne Vega writes a play about Carson McCullers

  New York rock star and icon of 80s- and 90s-era “alternative music” Suzanne Vega has written a play about Carson McCullers that’s about to go up in New York. “I… Read more »

• Steve Earle harnesses myth of Hank Williams for fiction

  Yesterday David Ulin reminded us why we love Texas. Which is nice, since some other people have been working hard to make us forget we loved it in the first… Read more »

• The Jackal gets Dylan a book deal

  Bob Dylan fans wondering what’s taking him so damn long to complete the follow-up to Chronicles: Volume One received something of an answer this week. It appears that, according to… 4 / Read more »

• For whom the poet croons . . .

  “John Donne was the Cole Porter of his day, a writer of subtle popular songs rather than just the author of cerebral poetry, according to new research,” says a Times… Read more »