CLASSICI
The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume Two: 1923–1925, a cura di Valerie Eliot e Hugh Haughton (Faber). Al centro delle lettere di questo periodo c'è Waste Land, ma anche Bertrand Russell e la vita matrimoniale. TLS. (nella foto T.S. Eliot e Virginia Woolf)
NONFICTION
Jonathan Alter, The Promise. President Obama, Year One (Simon & Schuster). Lucida analisi del primo anno dell'amministrazione Obama. wp.
Jonathan Eig, Get Capone. The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster (Simon & Schuster). Un Capone umanizzato. wp.
Terry Eagleton, On Evil (Yale UP). I cattivi in letteratura. bg.
DA LEGGERE
L'articolo di Ingrid D. Rowland sulla situazione politica italiana, che inizia così, "The Italians have a one-syllable word, an interjection, that means 'I don’t know': 'Boh.' And 'Boh' is probably the only credible commentary anyone can make right now about the country’s political situation." nybooks.
CURIOSITA'
Nel 1959, in A House on the Heights, Truman Capote scriveva, "I live in Brooklyn. By choice. Those ignorant of its allures are entitled to wonder why." Capote ha vissuto in un appartamento di un palazzo di Willow Street in Brooklyn Heights dal 1955 al 1965 (v. foto). Ora questo palazzo è in vendita per 18 milioni di dollari. Il palazzo ha diciotto camere, undici caminetti, e un giardino dove Capote faceva le sue famose feste e dove ha scritto Breakfast at Tiffany’s e In Cold Blood. newyorker.
DA LEGGERE
"Free Fruit For Young Widows", la bella storia - così ebraica - di Nathan Englander sul New Yorker. E, sempre sul New Yorker l'intervista all'autore, sulla genesi di questo racconto (I will pretty much get on a plane to anywhere in the world if it’s to do an event with the Israeli writer Etgar Keret (and, yes, the little boy in the story is named after him). So about a year and a half ago, I flew to Rome to give a talk with Etgar, and, a nice surprise, there in the first row of the audience was an Italian friend of mine. After the talk, we ended up on the roof of her building telling stories for hours. One of those stories was about Etgar’s father, and matching uniforms, and the Sinai Campaign) e altro.
DA LEGGERE
Perché le copertine dei libri cambiano nei diversi paesi. g/o.
DA LEGGERE
"Martin, Maggie, and Me", un brano del memoriale di Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir (Twelve), che uscirà i primi di giugno. vanityfair.
E, sempre su vanityfair, Christopher Hitchens che risponde al Proust Questionnaire. Un assaggio: Your favorite occupation? Travel in contested territory. Hard-working writing and reading when safely home, in the knowledge that an amusing friend is later coming to dinner. What word or expression do you most overuse? Re-reading a collection of my stuff, I was rather startled to find that it was “perhaps.” (Nella foto: Christopher Hitchens, James Fenton, e Martin Amis al Sacré-Coeur di Parigi nel 1979.)
FICTION
Andrew O'Hagan, The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his friend Marilyn Monroe (Faber). Marrilyn Monroe vista da Maf, il cagnolino regalatole da Frank Sinatra. "Andrew O'Hagan has taken on the voice of a dog to write a subtle, funny and moving study of America on the eve of one of its periods of greatest crisis." John Banville, g/o.
Andrea Levy, The Long Song (FS&G). Romanzo storico sulla straordinaria vita di una donna del Diciannovesimo secolo, schiava in Giamaica . wp.
NONFICTION
Sebastian Junger, War (Twelve). Junger, corrispondente di guerra per Vanity Fair, parla degli uomini mandati in prima linea in guerra. wp.
Daniel Maier-Katkin, Stranger from Abroad. Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Friendship and Forgiveness (Norton). Sulla questione dell'adesione al nazismo di Heidegger. nytbr.
NONFICTION Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind (Yale UP). In this ambitious book, acclaimed writer Marilynne Robinson applies her astute intellect to some of the most vexing topics in the history of human thought—science, religion, and consciousness. yaleup.
DA LEGGERE
L'intervista a Marilynne Robinson, in cui la scrittrice parla di religione, insegnamento, scrittura. pbs.
DA VEDERE
Henri Cartier-Bresson al Moma, fino al 28 giugno.
FICTION
Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists (The Dial Press). "This first novel by Tom Rachman, a London-born journalist who has lived and worked all over the world, is so good I had to read it twice simply to figure out how he pulled it off.... it takes place in Rome. The characters are, for the most part, the staff of an unnamed English-language newspaper founded in the 1950s — for reasons not revealed until the end — by an eccentric American businessman with the perfect name of Cyrus Ott. By 2004, his grandson, Oliver, will be in charge of the fates of the staff members whose stories make up the novel. More’s the pity, since Oliver’s only concern in life is for his basset hound, Schopenhauer. nytbr.
Scott Turow, Innocent (Grand Central). "All of which makes for an intelligent, thoughtful novel: a grownup book for grownup readers. It is marred somewhat by the narrative device Turow has chosen. The individual voices of Rusty, Nat and (less frequently) Anna tell Rusty's side of the story, while an omniscient narrator tells Tommy's. This means more or less constant gear-shifting on the reader's part, made all the more puzzling because all the voices sound more or less like . . . Scott Turow. He is always a pleasure to read and sometimes an education as well, but at times here he gets in his own -- and the reader's -- way." Jonathan Yardley, wp.
Eli Horowitz and Mac Barnett, Clock (McSweeney's). (v. foto) "...is a house-shaped board book chock full of mystery, humor and stunning artwork... The mystery takes place in an urban apartment building where detective Roy Dodge and his assistant Gus Twintig, who also serves as the narrator, have been summoned to interview a dozen eccentric residents as they investigate the theft of 12 emerald-encrusted numbers from the tower clock's face. sfc. NONFICTION
Mark Pendergrast, Inside the Outbreaks: The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). "... tells the story of the EIS and of the men and women who served as investigators in its ranks and helped bring about some of the biggest medical triumphs of the last century." bg.
DA LEGGERE Why men don't read books, di Laura Miller. salon.
