jtrent238 test blog: Books Briefing: Was Pablo Neruda murdered?

February 21, 2023

Pablo Neruda in Paris after being awarded the 1971 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of the 20th century.Laurent Rebours/Associated Press

Hi readers,

To circulate in this world is to tolerate some amount of risk. Me? I grasp the subway pole and then mindlessly gnaw at a hangnail. I leave the house without sunscreen, forgo my seatbelt in a short cab ride. Sometimes I make reading suggestions so wildly off-base that they prompt full-blown identity crises.

In my off-hours, I'm running at about a 65 percent success rate when it comes to recommending books for the people I actually know. Loved ones are usually safe from grievous errors, but when those suggestions go south, they can be catastrophic. (A close friend, whose tastes jog parallel to mine, has not fully forgiven me for suggesting a novel several years ago that she found "meritless.")

At least for me, the soundest recommendations tend to be snap assessments — all id. In those moments, you are saying to someone: I am coming to you from the future, a future in which you, too, will have imagined the author's father, a priest, shredding the guitar in nearly translucent boxers, and I know you will love it.

(Do read that book, Patricia Lockwood's "Priestdaddy," if you haven't already.)

See you next week,

Joumana Khatib

P.S.: For Times subscribers, colleagues of mine from the Book Review offer hyper-specific book suggestions in a regular newsletter, Read Like the Wind. It's well worth the price of admission — and I've found some jewels thanks to it.

Continue reading the main story

The news:

Unionized HarperCollins employees returned to work today after a three-month strike.
Was Pablo Neruda murdered? The circumstances of Neruda's death have been murky for decades, with some claiming that he'd been intentionally killed by Chile's military dictatorship, and hadn't died of cancer. Last week, a team of international forensic experts gave a Chilean judge their final report about their analysis of Neruda's exhumed remains. They turned up tantalizing clues — but no firm conclusion.
New editions of books by Roald Dahl, including "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," have been rewritten to cut potentially offensive language. A backlash ensued.

FICTION

A Podcaster Goes Back to School, Ready to Listen

In "I Have Some Questions for You," Rebecca Makkai dispatches her protagonist to a remote campus to teach — and seek justice.

By Hamilton Cain

NONFICTION

An Unlikely College Bromance That Has Lasted a Lifetime

In his new memoir, Will Schwalbe — theater nerd and bookworm — describes the bond he continues to share with a former Navy SEAL turned eco-warrior.

By Alexandra Jacobs

NONFICTION

An Extraordinary Memoir of a Black American Boyhood

Joseph Earl Thomas's remarkable debut, "Sink," recounts the coming-of-age of a young man for whom poverty, violence, drug abuse and racism were simply facts of daily life.

By Bryan Washington

NONFICTION

The Marquis de Sade's Filthy, Pricey 40-Foot Scroll of Depravity

A new book by Joel Warner traces the fate of the parchment on which the infamous author wrote "120 Days of Sodom," a trail involving scholars, aristocrats and thieves — and lots of money.

By Kevin Birmingham