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Don't know if this really counts as "news," but couldn't figure out where to place it, so moderators, please feel free to move it to another section!

I discovered Emily St. John Mandel not too long ago and have now plowed through four of her five novels. Two of them have small but definite Leonard Cohen easter eggs contained within them (and I may have missed them in the other two; I might re-read more carefully).

I don't even want to go beyond that as, to me, this kind of thing is so fun to discover that I don't want to ruin it. If people don't discover them I can eventually come back and post more hints.

I will say that if you like Leonard you are probably going to enjoy Emily's work.

There is a reference to Leonard on one of her pages:

https://emilystjohnmandel.tumblr.com/po ... le-yet/amp

I've now plowed through every one of her novels and I'm pretty sure there is at least a passing nod to Leonard in each of them.

Also, something in her style oozes a certain Leonard vibe. I don't know how else to put it; imagine if style of Beautiful Losers was tempered through the lens of just-slightly-more-conventional storytelling. As I read in one interview "In your work, there seems to be a tender balance between plot and literary beauty."

I would start with The Singer's Gun if I had to choose a specific work to start with. Not sure exactly why, as I've enjoyed all of them immensely.

Here is an interesting interview where she talks a bit about Leonard (and mentions Tom Waits as well, so she really knows what she's going on about musically!):

http://usedfurniturereview.com/2010/12/ ... hn-mandel/

http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/arc ... mil_3.html

And another piece about the writing of her first novel.

At this point I am very strongly urging all Leonard Cohen fans to pick up one of her novels and give her a try. Not Station Eleven unless you are a Sci Fi fan however. It's a great book, but the genre may put you off if you aren't into that. So start with something else, possibly my aforementioned The Singer's Gun. That one strikes me as possibly being the most Leonardish of the bunch.

emily is a good novelist, isn't she - pan.

i've just started to read nomadland : the epigraph is from leonard cohen - crack in everything, the light gets in.

i've only read the first few pages so far so there may be further leonard citations further in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomadland_(book)