Several new paperbacks are available this November and December, featuring works by Benjamin Myers, Rabih Alameddine, and a collection of John Updike's letters.
Benjamin Myers's latest novel, *Jesus Christ Kinski*, delves into the mind of German actor Klaus Kinski during a 1971 stage performance. The book blends Kinski's documented words with imagined recollections, exploring aspects of his life including his wartime capture and time in a psychiatric clinic. The narrative also features an unnamed writer in West Yorkshire during lockdown, who decides to write about Kinski despite other commitments.
Rabih Alameddine's seventh novel, *The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)*, is now in paperback. This book, which won the 2025 US National Book Award for fiction, follows 63-year-old Raja, a gay philosophy teacher and drag entertainer. The story, opening and closing in 2023, covers events such as the Lebanese civil war, the Covid pandemic, and the 2020 Beirut port explosion, offering a queer coming-of-age narrative and a meditation on storytelling.
Additionally, *John Updike: A Life in Letters* compiles the correspondence of the literary figure. The volume highlights letters from the first half of the 1970s, revealing Updike's prose style and his reactions to criticism.