April 20, 2012 Bulletin Hemingway Hotels, Customized Austen, Literary Shame By Sadie Stein Listen to Allen Ginsberg reading “What Would You Do If You Lost It?” at the 92nd Street Y in 1973. One can now purchase a customized classic—think Pride and Prejudice—featuring you as a character. Incredibly lovely calligraphy, in action. Ted Hughes’s ninety-two-year-old brother, Gerald, is writing a memoir about the boys’ Yorkshire childhood. Shameful reading confessions. The life of the pencil elitist. The Roots, Chris Martin, Regina Spektor, and … Captain Ahab. People of the Book unite! (Adorably.) Hemingway’s estate is starting a hotel chain. Hemingway Hotels and Resorts will be Papa-themed. Says the Web site, “An artist needs inspiration to flourish, and so Hemingway was drawn to the world’s most beautiful locales: Paris, Spain, Venice, Key West, Havana, Idaho. Hemingway Hotels will also be found there, and in other beautiful places around the world, in cities and in nature, on beaches and in mountains. Only select hotels will be approved for this iconic brand. For each Hemingway Hotel must be true to its environment, unique architecturally, and committed to providing guests with active, passionate one-of-a-kind experiences that deeply enrich their lives.”
April 19, 2012 Bulletin To Do List: A Celebration of Dovlatov By The Paris Review “The only Russian writer whose works will be read all the way through”—that’s what Joseph Brodsky called Sergei Dovlatov. This prophecy has proved true (at least, one work at a time) for some of us here at the Review. To read Dovlatov is to love him, whether he’s telling stories of his Armenian-Russo-Jewish family, rediscovering the 1960s in the contents of an old suitcase, or relating the misadventures of an alcoholic docent at a Pushkin museum. He writes short, he writes sad, he writes funny. Dovlatov was born in 1941 and grew up in Leningrad. Although he could not get published at home, his early creative work found an audience in the West after friends helped smuggle it out of the USSR. Facing a campaign of harassment by the KGB, the writer emigrated to Queens in 1978, where he wrote books, stories, and journalism. He died in 1990. Tomorrow there will be a celebration of Dovlatov’s work at the Frants Gallery in Soho, with readings by Lara Vapnyar and Barry Yourgrau (whose essay on Dovlatov, “The Troubadour of Honed Banality” appeared on the Daily). The night will mark the opening of an exhibition of Dovlatov illustrations by Alexander Florensky. For details on the event, see the Frants Gallery Web site.
April 6, 2012 Bulletin Vote for TPR in the Final! By Sadie Stein Thanks to our fan loyalty, we have made it to the finals in the Battle of the LitMags. But can we take down worthy rival Georgia Review? It’s a clash of the Titans! But our money’s on our readers. Vote now!
April 4, 2012 Bulletin Vote for TPR in the Tournament of Lit Mags! By Sadie Stein Final 4 Bracket Dear readers, This is a matter of honor. If you love and believe in The Paris Review, now is the time to show what our fans are made of. We are currently in the Final Four of the Bill and Dave’s Cocktail Hour Tournament of Literary Magazines. As they explain, “[Oxford American] will now take on another program with a shining pedigree, The Paris Review, in what promises to be a battle of titans. The surprises this year are all on the other side of the bracket. Many thought that the Georgia program had grown too old and could never return to its glory days under coach Lindberg, but their execution has been flawless, and they play a measured style that has everyone buzzing about the old days. The real Cinderella story of the tourney, however, has been Ecotone, a tiny program that, thanks in part to the recruiting pull of recent grad (and power forward) Edith Pearlman, has made a surprising run, littering the courts with higher seeds.“ You know what to do. (If you don’t, it’s vote in comments.) You gotta believe.
April 2, 2012 Bulletin WBAI Celebrates Issue 200 By The Paris Review Yesterday a whole bunch of us got up earlyish to talk shop with Janet Coleman on “The Next Hour.” Click here to hear Maggie Paley (“Terry Southern, The Art of Screenwriting”), Rowan Ricardo Philips (“Heralds of Delicioso Coco Helado”), Leanne Shapton (“Prose Purple”), Matt Sumell (“Toast”), John Jeremiah Sullivan (“The Princes”), Robyn Creswell, and Lorin Stein.
March 27, 2012 Bulletin Adieu, Deirdre; Bienvenue, Sadie By Lorin Stein Sadie Stein. Faithful readers, we have good news and bad news. The bad news is that our senior editor, Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn, is ditching us for Harper’s magazine. It is a grievous blow. During Deirdre’s tenure as editor of the Daily, our readership has doubled and so has the amount we publish. Truly we have grown by leaps and bounds. At Harper’s, Deirdre will oversee the book section—one of the best in the country—so our loss is America’s gain. That, anyway, is our line, and we’re sticking to it. The good news is that our deputy editor, Sadie Stein, has bravely agreed to step into Deirdre’s seven-league boots. You already know Sadie from her groundbreaking reports on wine cake and exotic meats and “the old ‘do I give my crush a sexually explicit book’ conundrum,” not to mention her weekly roundup, On the Shelf. We trust that you will welcome her in her new capacity—effective April 1—and join us in wishing her luck!