September 21, 2012 On the Shelf Books for Readers, Nonreaders By Sadie Stein A retired bibliophile in Manila has turned his home into a public library. He also runs a “book bike” to book-deprived areas. “As a book caretaker, you become a full man,” he says. Remembering the late, legendary Knopf editor Ashbel Green. Authors: consider working naked. Books for nonreaders. (Not illiterates; those who don’t enjoy books.) From MoMA, the A to Z of alphabet books. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
September 20, 2012 Bulletin Never Fear! Your Mugs are Coming! By The Paris Review Friends! We are so excited about the enthusiasm with which you have greeted our super-duper new mug! (We can’t wait either.) But we wanted to warn you: due to a slight print delay, they’ll be shipping out a little later than we planned. We didn’t want you to worry and thought we’d tell you right away: you will get your mug in plenty of time for fall cider sipping! They will arrive in early October, so sit tight!
September 20, 2012 Bulletin Tonight: “Get in the back of the van!” By Sadie Stein When BAM asked The Paris Review to choose a film for screening in concert with the Brooklyn Book Festival, the choice was obvious. So, tonight, please join Leanne Shapton, Lorin Stein, and yours truly for a special screening of the cult classic Withnail and I. To the uninitiated: the film, directed by Bruce Robinson, stars Paul McGann and Richard E. Grant as two wastrels in 1969 London who decide to take a restorative holiday in the countryside; obsessively quotable mayhem obviously ensues. Some find it baffling; some find it disturbing; for the rest of us, it is a magnificent obsession. All three camps are invited! Starts at 7 P.M. Discussion to follow. Click here for tickets.
September 20, 2012 Arts & Culture Dead Authors at Fashion Week: Part 3 By Katherine Bernard Virginia Woolf attends the Burberry Prorsum Spring 2013 show. I dread not the PR girls at the door this morning at Burberry Prorsum, though the invitation I possess is not mine. Sneaking in? Dressed as a fashion dude? I hardly consider dressing as a man to gain entry immoral; unlike me, half the so-and-sos present don’t even know what Prorsum means; O! Prorsum; Opossum. Those people invited who are supposedly “forward” thinking; people who discuss fashion though they’ve never worn Burberry; never felt the blue-black silk lining of a trench-coat sleeve; the plunge of putting on a sturdy work of satin and cotton sateen. I wanted to come in holding something. Flowers? Yes, flowers, since I do not trust my taste in Filson bags. I take my seat and then, parading in from backstage quite composedly, the models are copper-rose clones; carrying swollen candy satchels; attractive and shiny hosts in a grand entryway; it is all perfectly correct. Some designers are to be seen as poets. Christopher Bailey; coming and going with a pin in hand; a pin and a vision; no country but England could have produced him. Happiness is this, I think. The lights come on and the end suddenly comes in a rush; the luster has gone out of it; no showgoer looks photoworthy like before; glimpsing the future, that hot pants are still in for spring, ruins everything. We rise instantly. Then: “Virginia! Your menswear look is Uh-mazing! Your oxfords are so cute!” Somehow I am recognized, in people’s eyes, in the swing and shuffle as we depart, it’s become known who I am. “Comme des Garcons,” I hear a lady with silver hair ornaments say, and now I confess a bit of shock overtakes me. Suddenly everywhere in the crowd I see women in blazers and fine gray-white trousers; ladies wearing collared shirts like spruce old men. Is that a tie? Awesome prorsum. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
September 20, 2012 Bulletin Object Lesson: Classics By The Paris Review As you may recall from prior bulletins, in Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents the Art of the Short Story, the editors approached twenty contemporary writers, presented them with our vast fiction archive, and asked them to write an introduction to their favorite short story. And did they deliver: the anthology is not just a great collection, but a veritable primer on what makes this medium work. Today’s quiz: Can you guess who wrote the following selection? I always noted this tablet to the boys on their first day in my classroom, partly to inform them of their predecessor at St. Benedict’s, and partly to remind them of the great ambition and conquest that had been utterly forgotten centuries before they were born. Afterwards I had one of them recite, from the wall where it hung above my desk, Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” It is critical for any man of import to understand his own insignificance before the sands of time, and this is what my classroom always showed the boys. Find out! And pre-order a copy today!
September 20, 2012 On the Shelf Fake Books, Fictional Detectives By Sadie Stein “Would anyone go and ‘consult’ him? One feels not.” In a rediscovered Agatha Christie document, the author admits to a love-hate relationship with her creation, the debonair Belgian detective Poirot, and critiques other mystery writers. The Marquis de Sade wanted even more days of Sodom? Unfinished novels of great writers. “Wanting for some unknown reason to fill a space in his study with a selection of false books—complete with witty names he thought up himself—[Dickens] wrote to a bookbinder with a list of ‘imitation book-backs’ to be created specially for his bookshelf.” Now, the New York Public Library has re-created several of these fake books. And speaking of the NYPL! Thanks to a donation, the library has reconsidered its controversial plan to relocate many of its books. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]