Marina Aidova was a young girl when her father, Slava, was imprisoned for plotting to set up a printing press. While he served time in one of the U.S.S.R.’s most notorious camps, Marina and her mother, Lera, were very much alone. Lera’s coworkers left rooms when she entered. Neighbors crossed the street to avoid her. Even old friends were afraid . . .
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s bag — containing the outline and notes for her next novel — was stolen at the Royal Festival Hall last week.
I’ve winnowed down the 87 books I wanted to take on my trip. Now I’ve got a manageable stack of five. One of these is Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince, recommended by the same friend who steered me toward The Sea, The Sea, a strange and discursive novel fashioned as the semi-sociopathic journal of a former theater director. It’s become . . .
Andrew O’Hagan opened the Sydney Writers’ Festival with recollections of his parents’ contradictory recollections of the one book — possibly a telephone directory — they owned. (Via.)
Miniature Books: 4,000 Years of Tiny Treasures, an exhibition at the NY Grolier Club, runs through July 28. (Via, via.)