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Book news: Carlos Fuentes, Gastronomica, L.A. Kings and more

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Though the publishing business slows down on Fridays, interesting book news does not.

Guernica has a previously unpublished interview with Carlos Fuentes, who died May 15 at age 83, conducted in 2008. ‘I am a writer,’ he says. ‘I spend all my day sitting before a notebook with a pen in hand, writing and writing and writing and reading and reading and reading. This is my life. From time to time I need a break. Giving lectures, traveling, going to the universities is a way of coming out of the solitude of writing, which I enjoy, I like, but I have to break it from time to time, and it is getting to know new people and young people, without consequences. So, it’s not bad. It’s simply my spring break.’

Food and culture journal Gastronomica has relaunched its website. To kick things off with special Web-only content, the magazine asked food writer Ruth Reichl, novelist Francine Prose, writer Elizabeth Graver and poets Ellen Doré Watson and Patty Crane to reflect on a 1936 Walker Evans photograph, ‘Kitchen Wall, Alabama Farmstead.’ It’s a better-than-average way to connect writing, art and food. Annual subscriptions to the print quarterly are $50.

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The Huffington Post is launching a magazine for the tablet called Huffington. ‘At HuffPost, we now have nearly 500 editors and reporters who produce between 70 and 80 original reported stories each day,’ Arianna Huffington writes. ‘Think of Huffington as HuffPost’s more stylish offspring. Same DNA, different presentation.’ The app is free, but individual downloads of the magazine cost 99 cents to $1.99. Huffington notes that the tablet magazine will be ‘far away from the maddening crowds of banner ads, pop-ups, and drop-downs.’ What she doesn’t say is that’s exactly what the Huffington Post website delivers.

Twenty-one books by Patricia Highsmith are available as e-books for the first time, including ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ and its sequels. With a catalog that large, publisher W.W. Norton has built the Highsmith recommendation engine, which guides readers to the Highsmith book that’s best for them with such questions as, ‘Would you rather read about a strangulation, a shooting, or would you rather avoid a murder all together?’

Hachette Book Group announced Redhook, a new imprint within its science fiction and fantasy-focused Orbit publishing division. The emphasis will be on ‘commercial fiction,’ and the lead title is a historical epic, which is kind of confusing. ‘I have read the press release about Orbit’s new commercial fiction imprint Redhook five times now, and I still have no idea what it’s about,’ tweeted publishing observer Sarah Weinman.

After L.A. Kings’ Stanley Cup victory, The Times has published ‘Crowning Glory: The Los Angeles Kings’ Incredible Run’ as an 128-page paperback and an e-book.

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

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