Saints and Sinners è il titolo del nuovo libro di Edna O'Brien (Faber), una raccolta di racconti che, secondo Sylvia Brownrigg del Guardian, non parla veramente di santi e peccatori, ma di "personaggi imperfetti: il melanconico e il confuso, lo speranzoso e l'innamorato - persone che vivono il loro complesso presente, anticipando le perdite che subiranno nel futuro". guardian.
Nel 1981 Andy Warhol regalò a Berkeley Reinhold, la figlia di John Reinhold, un caro amico collezionista d'arte e mercante di diamanti, un libro di disegni del simbolo del dollaro su carta bianca. Di questi disegni ora è uscito un libro dal titolo di Making Money (Skira Rizzoli), con la prefazione di Reinhold. "In the book's introduction, Reinhold shares the experience of growing up in the New York art world of the nineteen-seventies and eighties" citando molti curiosi aneddoti. newyorker.
I lettori editor di case editrici, a caccia di buoni libri a buon mercato, saranno interessati alla presentazione del Guardian di 10 classici della letteratura anglofona quasi dimenticati (e anche da noi in gran parte assenti dai cataloghi). Come The Vet's Daughter di Barbara Comyns (1959), pubblicato da Virago. "Everyone should read Barbara Comyns. Graham Greene was a fan and so is Alan Hollinghurst. Plus, there is no one to beat her when it comes to the uncanny. The Vet's Daughter tells the story of 17-year-old Alice, who lives with her savage veterinary father (a 'terrible genie' in a waxed moustache and yellow gloves) in a horrible south London suburb. When she escapes his tyranny – she moves to the country, where she discovers a peculiar talent – Alice's life seems to be improving. But it can't last. A return to Daddy and his new wife and things grow nastier than ever. Nightmarish." guardian.
Entrare in un college in America è un'impresa epica, che coinvolge l'intera famiglia per parecchi mesi. Crazy U: One Dad's Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College (Simon & Schuster) di Andrew Ferguson la descrive in maniera molto divertente. Alla fine il figlio viene accettato in un college, viene accompagnato dai genitori malinconici, e dopo qualche giorno telefona a casa piuttosto preoccupato. Si trova nella lavanderia, spiega Ferguson, e "Which goes in the hot water, colored stuff or white stuff?" chiede al padre. "Mom told me and now I can't remember. . . And nobody here seems to know either." wp.
Ne è appena uscita una raccolta presso Viking dal titolo di Under the Sun. The Letters of Bruce Chatwin, selected and edited by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare. Il libro "contains letters written across four decades, from the time Chatwin was a boy in an English boarding school to letters dictated from his deathbed. They cover his years at Marlborough College and as a boy wonder at Sotheby's in London, where he became, while still in his 20s, one of its experts on antiquities and modern art. ... This book runs through his years as a star feature writer for The Sunday Times in London, and his solo wanderings across the globe to report his own books. Mostly these letters are to his wife (who was not blind to his double life) and to a few close friends." nyt.
Che tristezza! Randy Cohen, The Ethicist del New York Times Magazine, lascia il giornale. Mi spiace moltissimo perché leggevo la sua rubrica settimanale con grande piacere. Rispondeva, in modo sempre molto spiritoso e umano, a lettere di lettori che gli sottoponevano problemi etici. "I say with some shame, there has been no such gradual change in my own behavior. Writing the column has not made me even slightly more virtuous. And I didn’t have to be: it was in my contract. O.K., it wasn't. But it should have been. I wasn't hired to personify virtue, to be a role model for the kids, but to write about virtue in a way readers might find engaging." Nel suo commiato dice però che sta sviluppando un programma sulla radio pubblica dal titolo A Question of Ethics. A presto, spero! nytmag.
E' il titolo del nuovo libro di Niall Ferguson, edito da Allen Lane. William Skidelsky parla con il noto storico sul Guardian. "... it's a book that belongs at the more populist end of the Ferguson oeuvre. In fact, he [Ferguson] says, he wrote it largely with his children in mind. (He has three, two sons and a daughter, ranging from 11 to 17.) 'The book is partly designed so a 17-year-old boy or girl will get a lot of history in a very digestible way, and be able to relate to it,' ... Civilization sets out to answer a question that Ferguson identifies as the 'most interesting' facing historians of the modern era: 'Why, beginning around 1500, did a few small polities on the western end of the Eurasian landmass come to dominate the rest of the world?' In other words, the book attempts to explain the roots of something – western power – that has long fascinated its author." guardian.
Fob stands for 'fresh off the boat,' and is a term often used to describe Asian immigrants who just aren't quite on track with American culture. My Mom Is a Fob è un divertente libro di Teresa e Serena Wu (non imparentate), che come sottotitolo fa: Earnest Advice in Broken English from Your Asian-American Mom, ed è pubblicato da Perigee Trade. E' anche un blog tenuto dalle stesse autrici. newyorker.
Shady Characters è un blog dedicato alla punteggiatura.
E' uno scrittore e sceneggiatore americano di origini iraniane. Questa settimana sul New Yorker è uscito un suo bel racconto, "Paranoia" sull'amicizia di due uomini. Cressida Leyshon lo intervista: "Q. When you started thinking about the story were you drawn first to the friendship, or to the idea of young men facing the prospect of a war, or to something else altogether? A. But when I began working on “Paranoia” I was most strongly drawn to the idea of a city and the ways in which it responds to war. In this particular case, a mid-sized, post-industrial city. newyorker.
War is Boring: Bored Stiff, Scared to Death in the World's Worst War Zones è il titolo di un graphic novel del corrispondente di guerra David Axe e del disegnatore Matt Bors (NAL Trade) e anche il titolo di un sito web molto popolare. "The tragedy of Axe's book is not the actual tragedy of war, nor his boredom with it. It's his boredom with himself and the rest of humanity, and for this reason his account should be read by budding war reporters, so that they might safeguard themselves against developing his outlook. Axe does offer a bit of wisdom at the end, but it is cold comfort. 'The more of the world I see, the less sense it makes,' he writes: 'The more different people I meet, the less I believe in their humanity. The older I get, the less comfortable I am in my own skin….the things we can believe in shrink into a space smaller than our own bodies. To preserve them, for as long as you might, arm yourself, and be afraid." Elissa Lerner sul newyorker.
