After journalist murder, Pamuk cancels trip
Orhan Pamuk has cancelled a trip to Germany due to safety fears.
On Rosamond Lehmann
Niall Griffiths admires the quiet despair of Rosamond Lehmann’s stories. (Hermione Lee has called Lehmann’s early 20th century novels “Doomed Chick Lit.” Excerpts here.)
Molly Ivins, hell-raiser, passes on
God, it hurts to write this: RIP, Molly Ivins, one of Texas’ finest. (The Observer offers a tribute, and The Nation suggests a participatory one.)
The Smart Set: Lauren Cerand’s weekly events
The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, [...]
The Mighty Boosh and the book deal
While laid up, I can only do so much sleeping and reading and stroking of cats before the pacing starts.
Mr. Maud (and YouTube) have come to the rescue with The Mighty Boosh, a hilariously surreal British TV show that began on stage, went to radio, and finally aired as a BBC3 series several [...]
Coetzee reads Norman Mailer
J.M. Coetzee rejects Mailer’s view of history “as a war between good and evil” plotted by supernatural beings, but admires his new book as historical fiction.
Notes from behind bars
Filtering news and reading Solzhenitsyn in a New York prison. (Thanks, Christian.)
Kureishi on pleasure and death in Tanizaki
Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Key rocks my world. Hanif Kureishi, who’s adapted another Tanizaki work for the screen, makes me wonder why I haven’t read more.
A sleek drama of his story
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, one of this year’s NBCC finalists, contributed her best short story yet to last week’s New Yorker.
Scalpelled classics
Great books in half the time? See also.
Science for the few
Some publishers are enlisting public relations and lobbying firms to help fight open access to scientific literature.
British library cuts mean patrons will pay
The British Library plans to charge researchers for access to its reading rooms.
Until next week
I’ve been so sick, I believe I’ve tried every remedy but Mark Twain’s health tonic.
Livy my darling, I want you to be sure & remember to have, in the bath-room, when I arrive, a bottle of Scotch whisky, a lemon, some crushed sugar, & a bottle of Angostura bitters. Ever since I have been in [...]
The Smart Set: Lauren Cerand’s Six-Day Forecast
The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, [...]
Ehrhardt between covers
I’ve been reading Pia Z. Ehrhardt’s stories online since 2002. Soon her old and new fiction will be available in convenient book form. (Title story here.)
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