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Post by Dante on Oct 15, 2017 16:32:23 GMT -5
( Full size) In case you couldn't read the subject line, but clicked on this thread anyway, Daniel Handler's next novel will be Fox in the Bottle Bottle Grove Stern Grove Bottle Grove, to be released on 28th August, 2018 5th March, 2019 16th July, 2019 27th August, 2019. Source: An Amazon.co.uk listing, plus a few others around the web, none of which provide more information about this title besides, well, the title, along with the author, the release date previously listed, and the publisher: Bloomsbury USA, as with Handler's previous two novels. So, we're early birds to this one. There is, however, a little more we can deduce about the original title. A couple of years ago, Daniel Handler indicated that his (or Snicket's) next work would have something to do with Pu Songling, the seventeenth/eighteenth-century Chinese writer, and as it happens, "Fox in the Bottle" is the title of one of the works in his Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio collection. It can reasonably be inferred that Handler's upcoming novel is inspired by or derived in some way from Songling's tale. I haven't been able to locate a copy myself, but searching around indicates that it concerns incorporeal fox spirits which possess people by day and reside inside bottles by night. Edit: As pointed out farther on in the thread, the release date has been revised to March 5th, 2019. Edit Again: Amazon.co.uk's listing has altered the book's title, from Fox in the Bottle to Bottle Grove. Edit Once More: Steven Barclay Agency lists the title as Stern Grove, so honestly, who knows? Edit Yet Again: Amazon.co.uk now opines a release date of 16th July, 2019. Edit the Fifth: General revisions for recent updates. Edit the Sixth: Added cover art. Edit the Seventh: New description courtesy of Amazon: This is a story about two marriages. Or is it? It begins with a wedding, held in the small San Francisco forest of Bottle Grove--bestowed by a wealthy patron for the public good, back when people did such things. Here is a cross section of lives, a stretch of urban green where ritzy guests, lustful teenagers, drunken revelers, and forest creatures all wait for the sun to go down. The girl in the corner slugging vodka from a cough-syrup bottle is Padgett--shes keeping something secreted in the woods. The couple at the altar are the Nickels--the bride is emphatic about changing her name, as there is plenty about her old life she is ready to forget.
Set in San Francisco as the techboom is exploding, Bottle Grove is a sexy, skewering dark comedy about two unions--one forged of love and the other of greed--and about the forces that can drive couples together, into dependence, and then into sinister, even supernatural realms. Add one ominous shape-shifter to the mix, and you get a delightful and strange spectacle: a story of scheming and yearning and foibles and love and what we end up doing for it--and everyone has a secret. Looming over it all is the income disparity between San Francisco's tech community and . . . everyone else.
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Post by A comet crashing into Earth on Oct 15, 2017 16:50:34 GMT -5
This is nice! I appreciate not having to go for very long without having a new Handler novel to look forward to.
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Post by Hermes on Oct 15, 2017 16:52:36 GMT -5
Interesting. The earlier interview definitely suggested that it was Snicket, not Handler, who was working on something from Pu Songling. Change of plan, or just a looseness of speech (surprising if so, given that he is normally quite careful to keep the Handler and Snicket personas apart)?
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Post by Reba on Oct 15, 2017 20:19:29 GMT -5
he's pumping them out ever since he lost dough on watermelongate
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Oct 16, 2017 9:19:54 GMT -5
Happy to see the Pu Songling project coming along, just because it sounds interesting!
Also, I noticed a peculiar thread in Handler's recent output: animal spirits. First a Goldfish Ghost, then the Ghost of the Dead Rabbit, and now a Fox in the Bottle possibly concerning "incorporeal fox spirits".
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Post by Violent BUN Fortuna on Jan 28, 2018 14:53:23 GMT -5
Just had a look and the Amazon uk listing has changed the release date to 5th March 2019.
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Post by Grace on Jan 28, 2018 15:38:29 GMT -5
He is low key prolific...
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Post by Dante on Jan 29, 2018 17:16:56 GMT -5
Just had a look and the Amazon uk listing has changed the release date to 5th March 2019. I see that you are right. Thank you for pointing this out.
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Post by Violent BUN Fortuna on Jan 30, 2018 7:18:02 GMT -5
Just had a look and the Amazon uk listing has changed the release date to 5th March 2019. I see that you are right. Thank you for pointing this out. No problem!
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Post by Dante on Feb 27, 2018 3:52:24 GMT -5
In a further refinement, the Amazon UK listing has revised the book's title, from Fox in the Bottle to Bottle Grove. Source.
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Post by Dante on Mar 6, 2018 15:26:09 GMT -5
...And in yet another possible revision, while Amazon UK hasn't changed its listing, Handler's agents at Steven Barclay Agency are listing the book's title as Stern Grove ( Source).
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Post by Dante on Jun 27, 2018 15:55:48 GMT -5
Amazon.co.uk is once again at the forefront of dubious "news" about this book, now revising its release date to 16th July, 2019.
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Post by Dante on Oct 14, 2018 16:27:00 GMT -5
Just in case you'd forgotten this book's existence, the latest is that Handler's agents have surrendered to the Bottle Grove title ( Source), and Amazon.co.uk is now listing the publication date as August 27th, 2019 ( Source). Plot details remain conspicuous by their absence.
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Post by Dante on Nov 8, 2018 16:27:15 GMT -5
Amazon has updated with, at long last, cover art - and therefore presumably a definitive title: ( Full size)
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Post by Hermes on Nov 8, 2018 16:54:44 GMT -5
Oh wow. Foxy, this may interest you. So is it actually a talking animal story, which would certainly be a departure for adult DH, or is this symbolic?
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