Hilary Mantel added a Costa Book Award to her evermore decorated mantle following a unanimous vote in favor of her latest historical novel, Bring Up the Bodies.
Mantel Takes the Costa
Remarks on Color
Recommended Reading: On Walter Benjamin and Ludwig Wittgenstein. “They have many things in common, but where they connect most strikingly is in their shared suspicion of theory and their emphasis on the visual.”
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‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ Turns 50
Since its publication 50 years ago, Eric Carle's classic picture book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, has been translated into more than 62 languages.
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Thrill Ride
Stephen King’s next book is a thriller set in a Midwestern town suffering from unemployment. Before this sounds a little too close to home, the synopsis reveals it’s about a retired cop trying to stop a mass murderer. Mr. Mercedes will be out June 3rd. Pair with: Our own Lydia Kiesling’s essay on her love of King novels.
New Deborah Eisenberg Story
In a 2010 profile, Deborah Eisenberg told us, of her current efforts at writing fiction, “I’m sort of desperately throwing myself against pieces of paper and only coming up with what look like bug smears.” Now, as will shock none of her readers Eisenberg has come up with something considerably more appetizing: a new short story called “Recalculating.” It’s available, free, at the NYRB (!).
On Pauline
“It is impossible to ignore the ways in which [Pauline] Kael’s gender makes her a target,” writes Amanda Shubert as she reviews the oft-criticized movie critic, subject of the new book Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark.
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Levente Szabó’s Great Book Cover Project
The Opposite of Bleak
In 1847, Charles Dickens founded a house for homeless women in the Shepherd’s Bush neighborhood of London. After setting up the center’s amenities, he publicized the house using leaflets and, upon hearing that London society was shocked that the center had a piano, spread a rumor that the center boasted a piano for every resident. At The Guardian, a look at a letter Dickens wrote to the matron of the house, to be sold at Christie’s in May. (h/t The Paris Review)
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