A recent Observer article on Britain’s Orange Prize for women’s fiction referred to critical statements Charlotte Brontë made about Jane Austen’s tendency to write “in miniature.” Yesterday I said I wanted to track down Brontë’s remarks, and Jenny Davidson, a novelist who teaches an undergraduate seminar on Jane Austen at Columbia, is on the case. She forwards relevant excerpts from . . .
During Mr. Maud’s stint at the FSU film school in the late 90’s, I served as script supervisor on a couple of student film sets. The ostensible duty of the script supervisor is to ensure continuity — i.e., that the director gets the eye lines right, that an actor doesn’t have food on her plate in one shot and an . . .
This year’s shortlist for the 100,000 euro (£69,000) Impac prize includes works from Jonathan Lethem, Shirley Hazzard and Damon Galgut. “Would Dostoevsky have got additional material for The Idiot if he’d had to spend a week mixing with sycophants at the St Petersburg Festival of the Writer?” Are left-wing writers bolstering right-wing media consolidation when they publish books with major . . .
The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that appears Mondays 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 submit details to lauren@maudnewton.com. The “Going Coastal” Edition: This week, the itinerary is split between New York and Los Angeles . . .
Ricky Gervais, star of The Office (the funniest TV show of all time), appeared on Letterman recently to discuss his new children’s book, Flanimals. (One of the little critters — flanimals, I mean, not children — is pictured at right.) Gervais admitted to tracking the book’s success on Amazon. Noticing that Flanimals was rated less than five stars overall, he . . .