* Alfred A. Knopf, Jr. has died.
The only child of the publishing titans Alfred A. and Blanche Wolf Knopf, Alfred A. Knopf. Jr. -- or Pat Knopf, as he was known -- worked at his parents' company for several years before leaving to become one of the founders of Atheneum Publishers in 1959, The New York Times noted.
* Gideon Lewis-Kraus takes readers inside the Frankfurt Book Fair (and lands the cover of Harper's in the process)>
* The Elie Wiesel Foundation is another Bernard Madoff victim, "having lost nearly all its assets" according to USA Today.
* Xu Lai, a Chinese writer and blogger, has been stabbed in Beijing.
* Show me yours and I'll show you mine: Who gets the earliest look at new work from novelists?
Literary agents say most authors tend to show their writing first to one of two people: "It's a toss up between your agent and the person you're sleeping with," says Clare Alexander of Aitken Alexander. "I'm the first reader for a lot of my authors, but a lot have other trusted friends, or very often their marital partner - for whom it must be terribly difficult."
* Is it just us, or have there been an awful lot of "How [SO-AND-SO] Hid Rushdie After the Fatwa" pieces these days. (Ok, there have been two, it's just us.)
* Both links above are taken from the New Yorker profile of Ian McEwan that's just now making the rounds.
* Brief thoughts on literary feuds from the Tribune, though the piece sadly makes no real effort to unpack just what can make a literary feud both satisfying and salutary.
* Murakami on why he accepted the Jerusalem Prize. Something to do with eggs.
* We found The Reader an almost perfectly unreadable horror, so there's less than no chance of our seeing the film, but Ron Rosenbaum makes the case for why it deserves no Oscar. (Although for our money, the worst Holocaust film ever made must surely be Roberto Benigni's moronic and offensive Life is Beautiful.)
* The Australian Literary Review has launched a blog which is well worth your attention.
* The latest Dinner Party Download is an interview with Sarah Shun-lien Bynum.
* And, finally, there's no better way to remind you to come out and see Joseph O'Neill at the Hammer Museum (Sidebar, left) next weekend than to point you to Wyatt Mason's reliably insightful week of posts looking at a single sentence from Netherland.
Can I just rant about the New Yorker for a second???
I was so excited to see the Ian McEwan profile that, not wanting to wait for my next trip to the newsstand, I decided to purchase the online edition.
The credit card payment went through, but the website won't let me log in! I contacted their customer service, and have yet to receive a reply.
So bottom line: no Ian McEwan profile yet! Very disappointed in the New Yorker and thoroughly frustrated!
:(
Posted by: ORS | February 17, 2009 at 05:58 PM
No, it's not just you thinking there's a lot about Rushdie/Fatwa. Videos, articles, and now a new book coming out -- I've felt swamped. I mean, I'm fascinated by it, admittedly, but you're right there's a surge.
Posted by: John Fox | February 17, 2009 at 09:44 PM
The Reader, as a film, works. Best picture, not sure. For my money, The Dark Knight deserves a place among the nominees.
Thank you for saying that about Life is Beautiful, though. My God. That film reeks of sappy, emotional manipulation. His Oscar performance solidified my opinion. With the film Defiance, some have called for an end to Holocaust films. I think that's a bit much - considering The Counterfeiters came out recently and blew me away.
Posted by: JW | February 17, 2009 at 10:43 PM
Oh, I hated The Reader as well - not only was the story horrible, but the writing was pure crap. I haven't seen the movie either - and won't - I also loved the Rosenbaum article and posted a link on my blog!
Posted by: Wendy | February 22, 2009 at 05:38 PM