At Galerie, Michelle Sinclair Colman reveals the contents of Toni Morrison’s 1,200-plus book collection at her Manhattan apartment, which is currently for sale. The details (and the photographs!) of the Beloved author’s personal library are a book lover’s dream: “Her entire multi-stack collection is alphabetized by the author’s last name. She edited as she read. She owned a beautiful, gold, illustrated copy of Song of Solomon with the bookmark on Chapter Four.” Colman continues, “The three books on her bedside table are Robert A. Caro’s Lyndon Johnson biography, David Maraniss’s Barack Obama: The Story, and Stephen King’s Revival. She had a few never-returned library books; the most interesting was a copy of her own book, The Bluest Eye, from the Burnaby Public Library, with copious notes, underlines, and cross-outs on every single page.”
For Sale: Toni Morrison’s Apartment and Personal Library
“I Do (Plan To Read That)”
Attention, lovebirds! Amanda Bullock put together a list of “29 Things You Must Read Before You Get Married.”
The Hobbit, Animated
Sure, the trailer for Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Hobbit got everyone talking, but it’s so three weeks ago. Here’s something really fresh: a twelve-minute “animatic” version of The Hobbit produced by legendary animator Gene Deitch in 1966.
The Wright Kind of Mess
In her review of Joe Wright’s cinematic adaptation for Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Amanda Shubert writes, “Anna Karenina (2012) is, in fact, a mess. But it’s the kind of mess probably only Wright could make.” She goes on to look at how Wright has adapted work by Jane Austen and Ian McEwan, and how he has continued to face the problem of representing literary style (and form) on the screen.
Children Coming Together
Lynda Barry illustrates Carrie (of horror fame) and Heidi (of childhood book fame) meeting for the first time.
“They lined up the translators and shot them.”
Recommended Reading: George Szirtes’s “Afterword: The Death of the Translator,” which is available on The White Review’s website.
Has Odds, Will Bet
As previously reported, Haruki Murakami is favored to win the Nobel Prize in Literature seven-to-one. For more on the dubious practice of betting on literary awards, see this interview from last year with an employee of the London-based company responsible for calculating the odds.
Because Reading and Driving at the Same Time is Dangerous, People!
“5 Under 35” honoree Lydia Peelle reads you some “fiction for driving across America” at BOMB.