NYRB Publishing

On the dawning of the Buruma era at NYRB: https://nyti.ms/2xVDaQl

Once again recommending you guys track down video of MoMA interview in which Peter Handke gets annoyed at him.

Elizabeth Hardwick books on sale today in honor of her birthday

They released their 500th title a few months ago. I've definitely read over 50, must be close to 100 of these (although not in an NYRB edition). Maybe we should pick some all-time favourites and (for me) talk about what does and doesnt't work.

For next year: Victor Serge's Notebooks, Benjamin's Storyteller Essays sounds like an inspired collection, an edition of Vasko Popa's poetry, a reissue of Tucholvsky's wonderful Castle Gripsholm and Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad.

Of ppl I haven't read before Riberyo's The Word of the Speechless and Gabriele Tergit's Käsebier Takes Berlin look good!

Ooh, that's a good idea. I hadn't realized they'd been around for so long. Looking through their site, they've published so much more than I thought.

Some favourites would include Gillian Rose's Love's Work, Adolfo Bioy Casares' Invention of Morel, and Victor Serge's Memoirs of a Revolutionary.

I got the new translation of Berlin Alexanderplatz earlier this year and am looking forward to reading it. Also am intrigued by their upcoming publication of Uwe Johnson's epic, Anniversaries. Still haven't gotten around to either Stoner or Renata Adler. I've added Castle Gripsholm and Vasily Grossman on the to-read list, thanks for sharing those.

My dad, a huge Serge fan, had been in touch with NYRB about their plans to reprint The Long Dusk, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside.

now rumored on twitter that the nyrb has jian ghomeshi doing a cover story

Yeah I saw some tweets last night. These are the same ppl who published the job on Ferrante last yr so if nothing else its consistent.

I want to resist linking to a blog from a guy with a CV but this is a run down of THe Long Dusk. Hadn't heard of it before.

http://adamdavidmorton.com/2012/11/6-on-victor-serge-and-a-requiem-for-paris-the-long-dusk/

The Fall of Men, are you fucking kidding me? pic.twitter.com/T4p7hCybQM

— Mark Krotov (@markkrotov) September 14, 2018

interview with the editor of the nyrb (a good one)

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/jian-ghomeshi-in-the-new-york-review-of-books-we-asked-ian-buruma-why.html

You say it’s not your “concern,” but it is your concern. If you knew the allegations were true, I assume you would not have run the piece.

Well, it depends what the allegations are. What you were saying just now was rather vague.

Punching women against their will.

Those are the allegations, but as we both know, sexual behavior is a many-faceted business. Take something like biting...

Christ, what an asshole

canceled subscription –– and explained why. jerkwads.

Last question: If—

Many last questions.

it's one thing a good editor defending running a strong piece of writing that argues a very bad political line (perhaps even an evil one?): but here we have a self-confessedly* bad editor NOT really defending an eye-stretchingly BAD piece of writing arguing nothing more than he jian ghomeshi is the real victim here.

*buruma stating in public that the facts in the case are "not my concern" undermines all his staff and all his writers, and (obviously) spits in the face of his readers, who have the absolutely right to expect otherwise. he might as well have said "i am entirely incompetent and very out of my depth." if he doesn't resign pretty quickly it will destroy the magazine i think.

trying to think which of the Great Liberal Institutions in magazine terms actually now *has* a good editor these days:

certainly not the new yorker
nor the atlantic
new republic has a miserable past to recover from and (under j.j.gould) is perhaps somewhat doing so?
the nation: katrina vanden heuvel trundles on, but i don't remember the last time i bothered read anything there
LRB: mary kay wilmers shakily past her best i feel (she's 80 and there are more blunders than there were)

NYRB vs LRB and its neither. In fact its the TLS atm who is doing fine work oh wait

no LRB no Lanchester-blogging from fizzles so this is a tough call

Eh David Remnick is fine, the Bannon thing is whatever.

Anyway, we already had a whole generation of liberal institutions become neoconservative institutions, surely some new ones will arise to disappoint us later. Heck, Jacobin is already disappointing everyone!

NYRB editor Ian Buruma will be appearing Sunday at the Brooklyn Book Festival: https://t.co/dBBxaB4mo5

— Melissa Gira Grant (@melissagira) September 15, 2018

The only good coming out of the Bannon 'thing' was how they cancelled his appearance 24 hours later. Even then inviting him was an error and not fine.

i wasn't even thinking of the stupid bannon thing: remnick is a not-great and very self-congratulatory writer who tackles big topics that deserve better (ali, russia, obama) and two out of every three longform NY pieces i read needed to go back to the writer with editor's notes requiring better unpacking of some sections and less glib handwavey assumption overall -- not everything the magazine runs needs to be heavyweight, the light-hearted scan is right there in the eustace tilley DNA and that's fair enough, but my overall mark for DR's reign as editor is "dude, could do better"

also:
https://i.imgur.com/FGL4WOu.jpg

I assume Borowitz is someone’s unacknowledged child and employed by the magazine as a sop to keep him quiet.

it calls everything else into question. like someone you're dating wondering how we can really 'know' vaccines are safe

borowitz really brings the hits to the website, apparently. at least they don't put him in the magazine (to my knowledge)

this thread is about nyrb *publishing* can u talk about john gomeshi somewhere else

what about borowitz?

new yorker thread

If the magazine shuts down it may take nyrb publishing with it. It doesn't really matter, its not like its a huge derail.

”It was unclear if Mr. Buruma resigned or was fired. He did not respond to a phone call and email seeking comment.” https://t.co/fyBrhZI8Oy

— Davey Alba (@daveyalba) September 19, 2018

being discussed here Book Reviews? LRB vs the failing New York Review of Books vs ... ?

ah thanking you

If the magazine shuts down it may take nyrb publishing with it. It doesn't really matter, its not like its a huge derail.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, September 17, 2018 6:00 AM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think publishing would survive

It would, but i would be sad. NYRB books are great.

Think maybe I’d better get me a copy of Moderan before they go under.

Mine just arrived today. It has a LOT of stories--contents list is 3p long--for a 320p book.

A great NYRB book:

https://www.nyrb.com/products/store-of-the-worlds

Their sci-fi selections in general are few and eclectic but very high-quality.

Among which is the ILBeloved Inverted World

https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-et-jc-nyrb-covers

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/02/06/fat-city-fifty-years-later-an-interview-with-leonard-gardner/

good new interview with leonard gardner about "fat city"

thanks. really loved that one

btw someone wrote a biography of john williams, author of noted ILB text 'stoner'

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-substantially-good-book-on-charles-j-shieldss-life-of-john-williams

Since this seems to be the de facto John Williams thread:

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/02/20/mrs-stoner-speaks-an-interview-with-nancy-gardner-williams/

Too many good lines to quote from that interview. Mrs Williams seems like a very cool lady.

a dissent

Novelist John Williams is enjoying a bit of a revival. There’s just one problem: his books are not good. https://t.co/ZSomxtafwt

— The Baffler (@thebafflermag) February 22, 2019

counterpoint: i've read all of his books, they're fuckin good

His books are also misogynistic. Women in his novels are frigid, they are bitches, they are, usually, stupid; at their best, they are a liability

ctrl+f "augustus" "julia"

His newfound popularity has also coincided—again, not surprisingly—with the fetishization of the book as an object. This kind of book-fervor is a few years old now, but as the recent backlash to Marie Kondo’s dry suggestion that most people only need thirty books indicates, it’s far from gone. Books now exist as book-objects; they are written by writers, loved by “book lovers,” made into lists, declared important. As objects they can be staged, as purveyors of relatability they can be used. But there’s a pervasive sense that they aren’t really meant to be read, critically evaluated, hated, or loved.

also weird tangential paragraph talking about something old as if it is new: dud