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, with the date in the . . .
Of the six books shortlisted for the Booker, five had sold 1500 or fewer copies before the list was released. (Via.)
As my Newton great-grandfather got older, he liked to have a towel draped over his shoulder. I don’t know whether it was always this pinkish-burgundy one. Apparently Grandaddy also enjoyed sitting on the couch in the semi-darkness, and saying “Ho ho ho, hum” at the top of his voice, over and over again. Once he and his wife, Mamma, stayed . . .
Last month I took some time away from the site to deal with various things, including eye troubles.* While worrying about everything that was piling up — all the books I’d never get to and the email I couldn’t answer — I pulled Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem from the shelf and rediscovered her essay “On Self-Respect.” Anyone trying to . . .
Paper Cuts unearths the trailer for the Coen brothers’ adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men.