Jonathan Buckley’s The Great Concert of the Night is the next title from the New York Review Books imprint (all new books), and comes out January. We want to get Americans (and others) reading this under appreciated but deserving English novelist.
We are saddened to hear of the death of Larry Korn, who in 1978 was responsible for bringing Masanobu Fukuoka's One-Straw Revolution to English-language readers. He spent the rest of his life spreading the word about the possibly planet-saving methods of natural farming. In addition to editing The One-Straw Revolution, Larry edited Fukuoka's Sowing Seeds in the Desert and wrote Fukuoka's biography, The One-Straw Revolutionary, both published by Chelsea Green Publishing. We here will miss hearing his calming voice on the telephone and following his travels around the world as he tirelessly taught natural farming workshops from Oregon to Colombia and Spain, and beyond.
"In fact, what most struck me about this book—why I loved it—was that in a difficult year for me individually and Americans collectively it laid open the possibility of repair, of repair that could succeed once more beyond our wildest intentions, even in this doomsday moment, when everything feels 'too late'. It was a reminder that we might yet surprise ourselves."
Tess Taylor on Isabella Tree's Wilding. At the end of her article, Tess points out little ways that she used the lessons of re-wilding in her daily life, and suggests that we could all do similar, or "maybe just read the book, and remember again the pleasure in saying plant names, in saluting the world, in savoring it."
We're gathering to celebrate the harvest season, and for that I am grateful, says Tess Taylor. In a year filled with personal and collective difficulty for her and for America, she writes, Isabella Tree's book "Wilding" inspired in her radical hope for the future.
Tim Parks's Out of My Head, reviewed in The New York Times.
"A wide-ranging, thought-provoking book." What more could one want.
In “Out of My Head,” Tim Parks turns to scientists, philosophers and psychologists to explore ideas about human perception.
Josephine Livingstone reviews Sylvia Townsend Warner's The Corner That Held Them for The New York Times Books:
"Warner’s style is delicate and arch, consisting of a gentle skewering of religious ladies that recalls Barbara Pym. Though she teeters on the edge of satire, she lands instead (like Pym or Evelyn Waugh) on poignancy. The nuns strive to be good, and to live up to the ecclesiastical demand that they absent themselves from history altogether. But — whether by dint of plague, unsympathetic bishop, flood or vanity’s insistent whisper — the world just keeps happening to them."
“The Corner That Held Them,” by Sylvia Townsend Warner, and “Medieval Bodies,” by Jack Hartnell, consider the pleasures and perils of life in the Middle Ages.
Molly Lambert, Kate Wolf, and Medaya Ocher on Eve Babitz, in particular her journalism that is collected in I Used To Be Charming. Many good stories and topics here, like calling Eve and getting hung up on; the disastrous 1974 film version of The Great Gatsby; writing and editing in journalism, for hire, on the internet, and otherwise. Check it out.
Subscribe on iTunes | Spotify | SoundCloud | Eve Babitz, our LA Woman, was one of the heavyweights of the 1970s New Journalism. Now, thanks to the New York Review of Books Classics series, Babitz’s vibrant prose is collected in I Used To Be Charming: The Rest of Eve Babitz. Molly Lambert, who wrot...
“He’s since been shortlisted five times for the global Grundgingly Respected If Privately Disliked.” — Denise Riley’s “Prize Cultures”
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In the latest, and newly designed, issue of @the.tls. The collection Say Something Back with the new prose work Time Lived, Without It’s Flow, comes out from NYRB Poets on January 21.
Can't get enough Eve Babitz? Well you're in luck: See Babitz's biographer, Lili Anolik tomorrow (Tuesday, November 19) at The CUNY Graduate Center. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lili-anolik-on-eve-babitz-with-elizabeth-frank-tickets-70455398995?utm_source=eventbrite&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=reminder_attendees_48hour_email&utm_term=eventname&ref=eemaileventremind
The goddaughter of Igor Stravinsky and a graduate of Hollywood High, Babitz posed in 1963, at age twenty, playing chess with the French artist Marcel Duchamp. She was naked; he was not. The photograph, cheesecake with a Dadaist twist, made her an instant icon of art and sex. Babitz spent the rest of...
This Monday, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra will read from his new NYRB Poets collection and talk about translation with Laetitia Zecchini. This is a really special opportunity to see Mehrotra in person in the US, so go if you can. #poetry #translation #bookevent
New York Review Books's cover photo
The painter Celia Paul is the subject or recent articles by Zadie Smith and Rachel Cusk. Her memoir Self-Portrait has just come out in the UK with @jonathancape. And we’re pretty chuffed to be publishing it in the US next fall.
J. Hoberman on Victor Serge and his Notebooks: 1936-1947 in The Point Magazine:
"An outcast (and a Bolshevik) to the end, Serge might be considered Marxism’s Jeremiah, an idealist and a skeptic. We ignore his history at our peril. This exemplary man was jailed and exiled both as a revolutionary and a revolutionary dissident—a citizen without a state, a victim of left groupthink without a group to think for, who nevertheless continued to think for himself."
Victor Serge was born into exile in 1890 and died in exile 57 years later. The child of Russian radicals who fled to Belgium in …
Watch Robert Chandler discuss Vasily Grossman and the process of translating Stalingrad alongside his wife, Elizabeth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlZ8uxjalko&fbclid=IwAR2ys9sn8aNEI_T39xu7SjqKSLO2F2TtOIfy1BQd8568hUHQdCjuEPwD3aM
Robert Chandler talks about Vasily Grossman and how he (Robert) and his wife Elizabeth went about translating the novel Stalingrad.
Photograph © Vince Manapat
http://ecstaticdiscourse.tumblr.com/
New York Review Books's cover photo
The Red Thread reviewed in RTÉ, in a way which could describe the NYRB Classics series that it samples:
"So, legends come to life in this fine collection and stirring sights from the past are evoked again. The range is diverse, from the utterly unique sci-fi of Moderan, the title story in David R Bunch's collection, first published in 1971, to the work of Jessica Mitford and Mavis Gallant. There are pieces by the Russian author Vasily Grossman, the Sicilian Leonard Sciasia and the Finnish Tove Jansson, and everything is engrossing and piquant in a bite-sized way."
An itinerary or road book, rather than a 'greatest hits', according to its editor Edwin Frank, The Red Thread assembles choice cuts form 20 years of the unfailingly discerning publishing institution, NYRB Classics.
Vanity Fair: You’ve been writing about Lawrence for years. How and why did he become such a central figure in your own work?
Geoff Dyer: I’ll substitute “life” for your word “work.” When you’re getting into reading, you get into certain kinds of writers—but Lawrence has exerted a special hold on people, just by the force of his personality. So it’s completely common for young men and women to not just really like his books, but to be infatuated by him. And that was certainly the case for me when I was 16 or 17, whenever I was reading it.
To compile a new edition of Lawrence’s essays, writer Geoff Dyer had to grapple with the offensive, the unsettling, and the beautiful in the work of one of the 20th century’s most transgressive figures.
Two collections of essays by D. H. Lawrence and Vladimir Nabokov are reviewed together by Dwight Garner in today's The New York Times. A couple of stand-outs:
"His 1925 essay, “Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine” (the animal perished after Lawrence, who disliked guns, shot it), deserves to be more widely anthologized.
His 1921-22 essay, “Memoir of Maurice Magnus,” is perhaps the best portrait of a sponge I have read."
“Think, Write, Speak” collects Vladimir Nabokov’s interviews and incidental prose. “The Bad Side of Books” collects D.H. Lawrence’s most memorable essays.
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’s poetry and D. H. Lawrence’s essays, selected by Geoff Dyer, go on sale today! The Lawrence essays were reviewed with Nabokov’s by @dwightgarner in today’s @nytimes. #pubday #essaysandpoems #buylocal
Curious about Eve Babitz's favorite writers, dishes, and music (including a streamable playlist)? Courtesy of Girls At Library. https://www.girlsatlibrary.com/5qs-eve-babitz?mc_cid=448e4a4976&mc_eid=26d0faa7bd
I’m sure my definition is different than others because my version is the same as ever, secure, smart, and not intimidated, but that’s how I’d like to think of all women.
"Some books, like most summer holidays, feel entirely undeserved and all too brief." Also, "one of the most cheerful masterpieces of modern German literature". And, "The novel comes in Michael Hofmann’s exquisite translation, which emulates all the tenderness, sadness, and irony of the original."
"Perhaps because the novel was written after decades of a hectic, deadline-prone journalist’s life, Tucholsky allowed himself all the ease and calm suitable for his languorous subject. It was a lull in his life, and a lull in his oeuvre, beautiful, light-hearted, thoroughly enjoyable, a little gem that relates very little incident without one dull moment. It is his best work."
—Jan Wilm reviews Kurt Tucholsky's CASTLE GRIPSHOLM, recently reissued in Michael Hofmann's "exquisite" translation by New York Review of Books Classics, "likely the only novel in German that is dedicated to the license plate of a car—that of Tucholsky’s girlfriend at the time."
http://www.musicandliterature.org/reviews/2019/11/11/kurt-tucholskys-castle-gripsholm
"Babitz’s style feels prescient yet anachronistic, like a precocious child who’s been trapped in a time capsule for several decades: arrogant, disbelieving, unapologetic, willfully abrasive." In a good way.
Heather Havrilesky on Eve Babitz in @airmailweekly
By Heather Havrilesky - Los Angeles has always been treated like the frivolous youngest child in a large family. While its more respected, over-achieving siblings New York and Chicago...
"Berlin Alexanderplatz is a literary montage, a vicious collage, an explosion of colors, a carnival of noise and chaos and entropy, told by a narrator who occasionally tries to sort the pieces out for the reader, but usually is more content to drop a metaphorical bomb on us and then spend a dozen or so pages explaining how the bomb got there and who planted it and why the saboteur was so hellbent on destruction in the first place."
—Biblioklept's review of Berlin Alexanderplatz is a stunner.
“Unbe-f**king-lievable,” interjects the ominvalent narrator of Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz at one point. I’m not sure if the original German (Ist gar nicht zu glaub…
Spring/Summer 2020 catalog is here. Email us at [email protected] if you want to see what’s coming up.
"Readers may associate NYRB Classics with highbrow obscurities from the world of international belles-lettres....but Nada is fully a product of commercial art: short and fast with flat characters and plenty of action."
We'll take it.
The cheapest type of movie you can make is a movie that takes place on paper–that is, a novel. Cinema and prose fiction are different art forms with different strengths, but don’t tell that to Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942-1995), the French crime novelist whose 1972 literary sensation Nada recent...
Joan Acocella, Robyn Cresswell, Edwin Frank, Jenny McPhee, Daniel Mendelsohn—on—Stefan Zweig, الطيب صالح Tayeb Salih, Richard Hughes, Natalia Ginzburg.
Tomorrow (Thur., Nov. 7; 6 pm) at New York Institute for the Humanities (20 Cooper Sq., 7th floor). Will be good. Come if you can.
Our friends at Point Reyes Books had to close up shop for a few days last week when power was cut off to their area in Marin County. If you're looking to order a book this week or next, why not order from them? https://www.ptreyesbooks.com/
We are thrilled to introduce the new owners of Point Reyes Books, Molly Parent and Stephen Sparks. Experienced booksellers and heartfelt bibliophiles, they met seven years ago at Green Apple Books in San Francisco where they both worked.
Left to right: English gnomes, a Norwegian cat named Vivaldi (and a girl named Tyra), and lots of dogs (via Tracey Ullman and @nottinghilleditions)—three new books that go on sale today!!!
Quick reminder for NYC residents and visitors: Daniel Mendelsohn and Vinson Cunningham are in discussion about what criticism means—this evening (Mon., Nov. 4; 7 pm) at McNally Jackson Books at the South Street Seaport (4 Fulton St.). Come check out the new bookstore (which serves alcoholic drinks, if that's your thing) and stay for what will no doubt be a fascinating talk.
“The role of the critic,” Daniel Mendelsohn writes, “is to mediate intelligently and stylishly between a work and its audience; to educate and edify in an engaging and, preferably, entertaining way.” His latest collection exemplifies the range, depth, and erudition that have made him “requ...
Writing biography is like stalking, not easy. Lili Anolik on Eve Babitz on The Maris Review Podcast.
This week on The Maris Review, Lili Anolik joins Maris Kreizman to discuss her latest book, Hollywood’s Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A., now available in paperback from Scribne…
Los Angelenos, Daniel Mendelsohn will be in conversation with Richard Kramer to discuss culture, present and past, this evening (10/29; 7:30 pm) at the Kirk Douglas Theatre as part of the Aloud conversation series. Topics might include feminism in Game of Thrones; how people have read Sappho over the years; our anxiety over robots; the novels of Ingmar Bergman; etc.
Stay safe out there. Come to this wonderful event.
Daniel Mendelsohn, the award-winning author, critic, translator, and Editor-at-Large at The New York Review of Books, shares from his new collection of essays that casts an eye at literature, film, television, and the personal essay. Reflecting on how we continue to look to the Greeks and Romans ...
If you think the news media has it bad in America today, you should read Gabriele Tergit's Käsebier Takes Berlin and see what it was like (loosely fictionalized) in Berlin in 1930. And if you think NYC real estate and construction is insane (and maybe on the cusp of a financial bubble), well, again, read this satirical novel. Tonight (Mon., Oct. 28; 6 pm) we'll launch the book with a panel discussion at Deutsches Haus at New York University, featuring the translator Sophie Duvernoy, Eric Jarosinski (of @NeinQuarterly fame), and Eric Banks. Laugh, cry, and learn of a great writer from the Weimar era.
Deutsches Haus at NYU and the New York Review of Books present “Käsebier Takes Berlin: The Weimar Republic and Satire in Times of Crises,” which will focus on Sophie Duvernoy’s new translation of Gabriele Tergit’s Käsebier Takes Berlin and the vital function of satire in times of cris...
A perfect little book for fall reading. Follow the adventures of Sneezewort, Baldmoney, and Dodder, the last known gnomes in England, as they travel up the Folly stream in search of Cloudberry, their long-lost brother. An appreciation of nature is the ultimate destination to this magical trip for parents and kids.
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#BeautifulBookAlert ..... Lost Transmissions: The Secret History of Science Fiction and Fantasy by @thedesirina comes out tomorrow! And we’re pleased as punch that Moderan and The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe are included.
Marion Fayolle’s gorgeous The Tenderness of Stones (@nyrcomics) went on sale yesterday and we just wanted to share a short preview.
You know you’re reading a d’Aulaires book when.....
One is the story of the wind from around the globe (and outer space) and throughout time; the other is a modern Swedish fairy tale; both go on sale today! #publicationday
Looking for a summer read for the whole family? We’d like to suggest The Curious Lobster by Richard W Hatch, with illustrations by Marion Freeman Wakeman. The book follows the many adventures of Mr. Lobster who swims up a river, goes on land and into a forest, hangs out with bears and beavers and turkeys, and even sails to an offshore island.
What you see is all we have left here at #awp19. Stop by booth 3043 while we still have books! #goodbooks
The awesome artist Joanna Neborsky made a video from versions of the covers to Uwe Johnson’s Anniversaries: A Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl. They all look great! ・・・ I tormented @nyrbooks (and myself) making these many options for the covers of Uwe Johnson’s two-volume Anniversaries. See where we landed when the boxed set lands in stores Oct 18 — their biggest book ever!
A little video from @mairakalman’s party at @bklynlibrary this past Sunday, celebrating the re-release of her Max the Dog books and her latest, Cake. Everyone square danced the morning away, then stuffed themselves with cake. Watch till the end to see Maira.
Dominique Goblet in action! 🙌🏼 She's signing books at the NYRC table right. now. #moccafest2018
This is all we have left on this last day of #awp18, so come and get it!
And the award for cinematography goes to...THE NYRB CLASSICS WINTER SALE! http://bit.ly/NYRBWinterSale
End, grim winter, end! #henricole #noreaster
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