Com'era lavorare alla New York Review of Books

Il primo numero della NYR

Ce lo racconta Janet Coleman, che ci lavorò dal 1963 al 1966, i primi anni della rivista fondata da Robert Silvers e Barbara Epstein. 
"I arrived in December 1963, before the NYR had been on the newsstands a year. I was twenty-one. I’d had a similar job at the legendary literary and left-wing political quarterly Partisan Review, entering and updating subscriptions, all hundreds of them, on 3x5” index cards. Through William Phillips and Phillip Rahv, the founding rabbis of the New York intellectual press, I also knew the work (and phone numbers) of the whole Upper West Side of critics newly prominent on the writing roster of the NYR.
From Rahv, the more admired of the partners (Saul Bellow called Phillips a “devious rat”), I’d learned the most important factor in producing our line of work. “Philip,” I’d asked, “What’s the key to great critical writing?” “Sensibility, Janet,” he said. You would never guess from his jackknife prose that Philip Rahv spoke like a Russian bear schooled at City College for a Group Theater production of a Chekhov play. “Sensabitty, Janet,” was what he actually said. “Sensabitty.” nybooks.

La riscossa dei libri

Despite the growth of e-readers and digital technology, New Yorkers are spending more time in libraries than ever.

That's according to a new report out today from the Center for an Urban Future about the changing role of our city’s public libraries in the digital age. wnyc.

Lovers of ink and paper, take heart. Reports of the death of the printed book may be exaggerated. ... Half a decade into the e-book revolution, though, the prognosis for traditional books is suddenly looking brighter. Hardcover books are displaying surprising resiliency. The growth in e-book sales is slowing markedly. And purchases of e-readers are actually shrinking, as consumers opt instead for multipurpose tablets. It may be that e-books, rather than replacing printed books, will ultimately serve a role more like that of audio books—a complement to traditional reading, not a substitute. wsj.

How Books Were Made

In 1947

How I Get To Write

In the morning, I don’t talk to anyone, nor do I think about certain things.
I try to stay within certain confines. I imagine this as a narrow, shadowy corridor with dim bare walls. I’m moving down this corridor, getting to the place where I can write.
I brush my teeth, get dressed, make the bed. I avoid conversation, as my husband knows. I am not yet in the world, and there is a certain risk involved in talking: the night spins a fine membrane, like the film inside an eggshell. It seals you off from the world, but it’s fragile, easily pierced. ... Roxana Robinson, newyorker.

Il nuovo romanzo di Thomas Pynchon

Thomas Pynchon sta scrivendo un nuovo romanzo. Così riporta il suo editore. "The secretive novelist Thomas Pynchon is back. He will publish a new book, titled “The Bleeding Edge,” his long-time publisher, Penguin Press, said. No publication date has been set". nyt.

The Revolution Was Televised

The Revolution Was Televised è il titolo del libro di Alan Sepinwall sulla storia della televisione (sottotitolo, The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever). Dapprima auto-pubblicato, è stato ora comprato da Simon & Schuster. "In the course of chronicling the modern-day history of television, the author Alan Sepinwall has made a bit of history himself, becoming the rare self-published author to be picked up by a major press. On Wednesday, it was announced that the Touchstone imprint of Simon & Schuster had acquired his well-regarded book “The Revolution Was Televised,” which Mr. Sepinwall put out late last year". nyt.

Le donne delle sitcom

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Elaine Blair offre un'interessante analisi delle donne delle sitcom, che tendono a essere single.
"The Mary Tyler Moore Show was the first to make a subject out of a single woman’s romantic life. Moore’s character, Mary Richards, was thirty and didn’t have a steady boyfriend. She was initially going to be a divorcee, but the head of CBS programming balked at the idea. ...  Instead, Mary Richards became someone who was just ending a long-term relationship with a live-in boyfriend. To Burns and his co-creators, there was an exciting realism and urgency in

the idea that people have these long affairs with the man or woman they think will be the love of their life, and it turns out not to be, and they end up alone again, which became the overriding issue, I think, on the show. This woman who finds that she’s not alone, that she’s got this family of people whom she works with.

The idea of being not-alone even when your relationships and dates end in shambles—this would become not only the overriding issue of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but of pretty much every subsequent sitcom about single characters". nybooks.

Narcissism vs Self-Esteem

Secondo un recente sondaggio la grande sicurezza in sé che dimostrano gli studenti universitari americani tende verso il narcisismo e non è affatto una qualità positiva nei confronti del loro futuro lavorativo.
"In The Narcissism Epidemic (Free Press), co-written with Keith Campbell, Jean Twenge blames the growth of narcissistic attitudes on a range of trends - including parenting styles, celebrity culture, social media and access to easy credit, which allows people to appear more successful than they are.
"What's really become prevalent over the last two decades is the idea that being highly self-confident - loving yourself, believing in yourself - is the key to success.
"Now the interesting thing about that belief is it's widely held, it's very deeply held, and it's also untrue." bbc.

Hashtag

Hashtag è la parola dell'anno 2012, secondo l'American Dialect Society. "Hashtag refers to the practice used on Twitter for marking topics or making commentary by means of a hash symbol (#) followed by a word or phrase.
“This was the year when the hashtag became a ubiquitous phenomenon in online talk,” Zimmer [chair of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society] said. “In the Twittersphere and elsewhere, hashtags have created instant social trends, spreading bite-sized viral messages on topics ranging from politics to pop culture.” americandialect.

Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo

Con questa foto del presidente Obama che ha portato le figlie Sasha e Malia a fare compere di Natale a One More Page, una libreria indipendente di Arlington, in Virginia, facciamo a tutti i nostri più cari auguri di Buon Natale e di un Felicissimo Anno Nuovo. 

Arrivederci al 2013. Il blog riprenderà gli aggiornamenti verso il 7 gennaio prossimi. mhpbooks.