Julia Child fans may enjoy a new collection of her correspondence with her friend and “unofficial literary agent” Avis DeVoto. The letters follow Child through her life overseas. Also out now is a snazzy new Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray with a cover illustrated by Ruben Toledo.
Tuesday New Release Day
Jane Austen in New York
At the Morgan Library in NYC: “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen‘s Life and Legacy.” Read the NY Times review of the show here. And, if your hankering for eighteenth and early nineteenth century English art isn’t sated by the Austen, the Morgan is also offering “William Blake‘s World: ‘A New Heaven Is Begun'”.
●
●
‘Lost’ Novel Found
Does it come as any surprise that Lost creator J.J. Abrams would write a book that his editor describes as “the most high concept novel I have ever come across“?
●
●
Moonlighting as Ian Fleming
It’s rare that you find someone as eclectic as William Boyd. Not only did the British writer’s new play (based on two of Chekhov’s short stories) debut in London this week, his upcoming novel will star none other than James Bond. (If you’re wondering, his friend Daniel Craig is not how he pictures the superspy.)
A Review in Comics
Book reviews are great and all, but even we sometimes feel they’re missing something. Enter Kevin Thomas, whose HORN! illustrated reviews for The Rumpus are beautiful and informative in under 9 panels. Compare his pieces on Roxane Gay‘s An Untamed State or Leslie Jamison‘s The Empathy Exams to our reviews here and here, and be sure to check out the just-published HORN! The Collected Reviews.
●
●
Greed is Good Again
There’s a trailer out for the upcoming sequel to Wall Street. Gordon Gekko and his giant mobile phone are back. He is joined, regrettably, by Shia LaBeouf.
●
●
A Profile of the Profilist
Whether you’re a fan of the Boss or not, David Remnick’s recent 17-page look at the life of Bruce Springsteen is a delight to read and a masterful example of the profile piece. Remnik joins Storyboard to talk about the art of the profile.
●
●
Perfectly Imperfect Proust
In a piece for the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik writes about a new life of C. K. Scott Moncrieff, the first translator of Proust into English, and about the strange success and beauty his imperfect translation of Remembrance of Things Past achieved. The essay as a whole pairs well with both our own Bill Morris‘s essay against literary biography and Barclay Bram Shoemaker‘s Millions review of Mo Yan‘s Frog and “the trouble with translation.”