“Where I live in Brooklyn, there’re always a lot of books being set out on the sidewalk, and there’re also a lot of authors walking around the neighborhood,” Adrian Tomine says of this week’s cover, “Recognition.” “Lifelong New Yorkers may take for granted the sight of people setting stuff on their steps to give away, but I still notice it. I’ve had the experience of seeing stacks of New Yorkers with my cover out on the street, though I haven’t seen my books put out—but then, I also don’t have a giant photo of myself on the back cover,” he says with a laugh.
He continues: “My new book, ‘Killing and Dying,’ is a collection of short stories. Since I was a teen-ager, I’ve had an ongoing interest in realistic modern fiction, inspired equally by comics and prose fiction. I love reading about the grim, mundane details of life that’s often captured in those stories. It actually never has the effect of making me feel depressed–rather, I find it strangely uplifting.”
Here are a few of the short-story collections that Tomine pulled off his bookshelf:
