Greil Marcus’ Mystery Train is a book for geeks, in the best way. Marcus writes distinctly about American musicians -- Harmonica Frank, Robert Johnson, The Band, Sly Stone, Randy Newman, and Elvis -- and what they and their music reflect about this country.

Here’s the geeky part: In the recently released fifth edition (it was first published in 1975), the Notes and Discographies section is longer than the book proper. The primary section of essays comes in at an economical 177 pages, while the discography, in which Marcus goes through each featured artist’s catalog, track by track, spans 192 pages. It includes passages like this one, about A Legendary Performer, an Elvis compilation:

In 1980, Marilynne Robinson published Housekeeping, a precise, affecting novel that earned her a legion of fans. Then, as sometimes happens, she left those fans waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

In 2004, she published Gilead, and she could have been forgiven for taking a hundred years to write it. It verges on perfection. The main character of that novel, John Ames, is a preacher, and as James Wood wrote, "Robinson's words have a spiritual force that's very rare in contemporary fiction."

Well, it turns out her fans won't have to wait as long this time. Her next novel, Home, will be out in September. According to her publisher, the story is directly linked to Gilead. It "transpires concurrently in the same locale, this time in the household of Reverend Robert Boughton, Ames's closest friend."

Speaking of concurrently...given what a perfectionist she seems to be, I have to imagine Robinson wrote these books more or less together over the course of several years. That makes the shared characters, etc., seem much less gimmicky to me, and I'm looking forward to this book more than I can say.

Good news: This fall, The Paris Review will publish its third collection of the magazine's rightly famous author interviews. I think the first two are must-owns.

In the meantime, small snippets of the interviews are available on the Review's web site, like this from a talk with Walker Percy in 1987:

INTERVIEWER: Could you tell me how you feel about your inspiring beliefs, how faithful you have remained to them?

PERCY: If you mean, am I still a Catholic, the answer is yes. The main difference after thirty-five years is that my belief is less self-conscious, less ideological, less polemical. My ideal is Thomas More, an English Catholic—a peculiar breed nowadays—who wore his faith with grace, merriment, and a certain wryness. Incidentally, I reincarnated him again in my new novel and I’m sorry to say he has fallen upon hard times; he is a far cry from the saint, drinks too much, and watches reruns of M*A*S*H on TV.

On the Atlantic's terrific web site, I just found an essay from 2006 that looked back at some of the advice given by writers throughout the magazine's history. It includes thoughts from Francine Prose, Wallace Stegner, and John Kenneth Galbraith, who wrote in 1978:

"All writers know that on some golden mornings they are touched by the wand—are on intimate terms with poetry and cosmic truth. I have experienced those moments myself. Their lesson is simple: It's a total illusion. And the danger in the illusion is that you will wait for those moments. Such is the horror of having to face the typewriter that you will spend all your time waiting. I am persuaded that most writers, like most shoemakers, are about as good one day as the next (a point which Trollope made), hangovers apart. The difference is the result of euphoria, alcohol, or imagination. The meaning is that one had better go to his or her typewriter every morning and stay there regardless of the seeming result. It will be much the same."