Author Archive
What We’re Doing: NYPL Discussion, Tonight
May 22, 2012 | by The Paris Review
Here’s something important: tonight, our friends at n+1 and the New York Institute of the Humanities are sponsoring a panel entitled “The Central Library Plan and the Future of the New York Public Library.” Panelists will discuss objections to the New York Public Library’s Central Library Plan as well as the petition calling on NYPL President Anthony Marx to reconsider the $350 million proposal. For details, go to n+1’s Web site.
App Time at The Paris Review
May 21, 2012 | by The Paris Review
As David Carr reported in today’s New York Times, The Paris Review is partnering with The Atavist to bring you an app worthy of the magazine, with complete issues, rare archival material, our entire interview series ... and (natch) the Paris Review Daily. Starting late this summer, you’ll be able to read us on your iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Kobo, Nook, or Sony Reader.
Foreign readers, take heart! For four decades we’ve been looking for a cheap and timely way to get the Review to our fans abroad. Soon, whether you’re in Melbourne or Milan, you’ll be able to read our stories, interviews, and poems at the same moment as everyone else.
Lovers of print, you take heart, too! Even those of us who hold no brief for gizmos will want to check out this app—for hard-to-find back issues, special anthologies, plus audio and video of your favorite writers. This is stuff we can only bring you digitally—and stuff nobody else can bring you.
Stay tuned.
What We’re Loving: Girls, Cribs, and Literary Detective Work
May 18, 2012 | by The Paris Review
How often have you read a TV review by a writer of our generation and thought of Susan Sontag? It's never happened to me—until this week, when I read Elaine Blair’s review of Girls in The New York Review of Books. By paying attention to one little sex scene, Blair makes deep arguments about sex scenes in general, the limits of romantic comedy, and the real meaning of sexual freedom. —Lorin Stein
About a decade ago, my friend Mikey loaned me a book he thought I’d enjoy. I’ve only just got around to picking it up. Though I’m a bad friend, he isn’t: the book—Leonid Andreyev’s The Little Angel—is terrific, after a fashion. The stories are intriguing, especially “At the Roadside Station” and “The City," but the translation is rather bad. I’d love to see it revisited by another publisher and translator. I’m looking at you, NYRB Books. And how about Natasha Randall? I loved her translations of We and A Hero of Our Time. —Nicole Rudick
For those with a green thumb and a love of literature, look no further than Writing the Garden: A Literary Conversation Across Two Centuries for an insightful glimpse into garden writing over the last two-hundred years. Lush illustrations color the pages and accompany extensive excerpts from the writings of influential figures of gardening’s past and present, such as Thomas Jefferson, Gertrude Jekyll, and Michael Pollan. Gain a little inspiration for your own beckoning plots, or simply get yourself excited for summer’s peak. —Elizabeth Nelson
The Art of Poetry, Live
May 14, 2012 | by The Paris Review
Photograph by Dominique Nabokov
The interview will be followed by a Q & A with audience members.
For details, visit the NYPL’s web site. We’ll see you there.
Our New Tote, Designed By … You!
May 14, 2012 | by The Paris Review
It has long been a source of chagrin here at 62 White (and to George Plimpton before us) that our love for the Strand went unrequited.
Though we whiled away our weekends amid their shelves, brought them armloads of books every time we moved, and always spent more than we got paid, the Strand refused to carry so much as a single copy of The Paris Review. We tried not to take it personally. We were told it was company policy—no magazines. But in our heart of hearts, we always knew we should be together. Was there no room for us in their sixteen miles of books?
Now, all is right with the world. Starting June 13, not only can you purchase America’s finest literary quarterly at 13th and Broadway, but you can join us there, too, for a series of events featuring the best fiction, poetry, movies, actors, and readers we can find. It’ll be smart. It’ll be fun. And it will come with an original tote bag celebrating these two venerable New York institutions.
And who, you ask, will design this tote? You, dear reader! That’s right: we're holding a contest. Get in touch with your inner graphic designer/illustrator. Here are the details:
Design a bag that features the original Paris Review logo (as seen on our homepage and the cover of the magazine) and remember to leave room for the Strand oval, too. You can incorporate old cover art, go all-graphic, or dream up something completely your own. (For further inspiration, check out our current totes!) We want to know what the Review means to you!
Top entries will be posted on The Paris Review Daily. The grand-prize winner will receive a Strand shopping spree and a year subscription to The Paris Review. Plus, of course, your tote.
What We’re Loving: Janácek, Cooke, and Literary Booze
May 11, 2012 | by The Paris Review
My brother-in-law described First Position as Spellbound without the hard words. He meant that in a good way. This story of six kids in training for an international ballet competition is just as touching and absorbing—and almost as funny—as Jeffrey Blitz’s 2002 documentary about the national spelling bee. —Lorin Stein
I saw Janáček’s The Makropulos Case on Saturday, and three-plus hours standing has never gone by so quickly. Based on Karel Čapek’s popular 1922 play of the same name (sidenote: Čapek gave us the word robot as we know it), it’s the tragicomic tale of a labyrinthian legal case, a man-eating diva, and the elixir of life. (Intimations of the decline of European aristocracy are in there, too.) The score—and the chatty libretto, for that matter—stand alone, but Karita Mattila’s performance (in what is considered one of the toughest soprano showcases) is worth seeing. —Sadie Stein
Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers not only instructs us on how to get tipsy (or rip-roaring drunk) on William Faulkner’s favorite mintjuleps or Raymond Chandler’s companion gimlet, it also offers us whimsical fodder for our perfect boozy daydreams: “Imagine a warm summer evening out on the shore of Long Island—say a party at Gatsby’s house, the bartenders serving up light, refreshing Gin Rickeys as the jazz band swings.” Yes, please! (Drinking stories and famous imbibing passages included.) —Elizabeth Nelson
For fans of Soviet-era sci-fi, Olena Bormashenko’s new translation of Russian classic Roadside Picnic is being published this month. The book was originally written by brothers Arkady and Boris Stugatsky in the 1970s, but took eight years to get past Soviet censors unscathed and has been out of print in the English for three decades. Now it’s finally back on the shelves, and judging by the praise Bormashenko has received for her work, it’s in excellent shape. The hero of Picnic is a “stalker,” or a go-to guy in the black market of alien technologies that appeared on Earth after the perplexing and ancient “Visit.” And yes, it is the “stalker” of Roadside Picnic that served as inspiration for the spellbinding film by Andrei Tarkovsky. —Allison Bulger
Sam Cooke—Greatest Hits: Here is a singer too often overlooked in the great expanse of pop classics. You can have your ol’ blue eyes, I’ve got nothing against him. You can have your Bing and your Brown. All I need is a little bit o’ Cooke. I’ve been listening to this CD every minute of every day. Though blatantly missing “(Ain't That) Good News,” it makes up for it in the lounge jazz beats of “Win Your Love” and the eerily foreboding “Frankie and Johnny.” The song ends with Frankie shooting Johnny over a misunderstanding. Cooke died at thirty-three under similar circumstances. —Noah Wunsch
