Finding an Audience Abroad: Who’s Read in France 17

Most literary novelists feel relatively confident they can sell copies of their newly published book to their parents, probably to their siblings, maybe (if they haven’t sparred too often over loud music or lawnmowers or leaf blowers) to their neighbors. Whose work gets read outside of America?

Philip Roth Retires: 10 Lessons from the Professor of Desire 15

People are animals. The flesh is weak. Beware of ideology. And New Jersey is beautiful.

Staff Picks: Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth 8

With its gallons of bodily fluids and its frankness about the attendant pneumatics, Sabbath's Theater makes Nicholson Baker's "manstarch" look like marzipan, and The Rosy Crucifixion look like Make Way for Ducklings.

Ether Between the Covers: Gifting Books in a Digital Age 13

Ask a Book Question (#59): Books for Recent Graduates 4