NYRB NEWS
Godard’s ‘Contempt’ at Film Forum
A new 50th anniversary restoration of Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963), the director’s look at a crumbling marriage, will play at Film Forum for a two-week engagement starting on September 6. The movie stars Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, and Jack Palance.
Phillip Lopate will introduce the 7:45 PM show on Friday, September 6, at a special event co-sponsored by The New York Review of Books. The NYRB Classics edition of Moravia’s novel will be on sale at Film Forum during the run. Film Forum is located at 209 West Houston Street in New York City.
Praise for Alfred Hayes, author of ‘In Love’ and ‘My Face for the World to See’
In Love and My Face for the World to See, books by Alfred Hayes that were just released in the NYRB Classics series, received significant reviews this week.
In The New York Observer, Michael H. Miller calls In Love “one of the greatest, bleakest breakup stories ever told.” He notes Hayes’s ability to write a relationship—particularly the end of a relationship—in so psychologically astute a way as to make it palpable half a century later.
In The Guardian (UK) Nicholas Lezard also calls attention, in his review of My Face for the World to See, to the way Hayes can write timeless interpersonal situations. He offers high praise indeed:
What makes this book last (once again, I have to salute NYRB for fishing out from obscurity yet another masterpiece) is the glimpse it gives us of the sort of person who goes to Hollywood in order to become famous—her face for all the world to see—only to find herself slipping closer and closer to despair and degradation. The madness of the woman here is so plausibly depicted it chills; she has constructed a world to account for her failure, and reality is only a paper-thin membrane which could dissolve at any moment.
Check out these lasting novels for yourself!
“Cine-Simenon” Series at the Anthology Film Archives
Georges Simenon’s extensive body of work has inspired many films. These romans durs (“hard novels”—akin to what we would call a psychological thriller) have the right stuff for it: gritty settings, psychological tension, questionable morality, and sex.
Cine-Simenon will run for two weeks (Thursday, August 8, through Wednesday, August 21) at the Anthology Film Archives in the East Village. Four of the fourteen films in the series are based on NYRB Classics:
- Three Bedrooms in Manhattan, August 9 (the film is called Three Rooms in Manhattan)
- The Engagement, August 11 and 17 (Monsieur Hire is the film’s title)
- The Man Who Watched Trains Go By, August 12 and 21
- Red Lights, August 16 and 19
For more information about Cine-Simenon, click here.
‘Waiting for the Barbarians’ Shortlisted for PEN Literary Award
Daniel Mendelsohn’s collection of essays—Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture—has been shortlisted for the 2013 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Awarded each year by a panel of judges, the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award honors work that “exemplifies the dignity and esteem that the essay form imparts to literature.”
This year’s judges are Sven Birkerts, Robert Gottlieb, and Mark Kramer. The final winners and runners-up will be announced later this summer and will be honored at the 2013 PEN Literary Awards Ceremony on Monday, October 21, 2013, at CUNY Graduate Center’s Proshansky Auditorium in New York City.
Marc Simont, 1915-2013
It is with great sadness that NYRB marks the passing of the gifted illustrator Marc Simont.
Born in Paris, Simont studied drawing with his father (also an illustrator) and at schools in France and the United States. Over the course of his illustrious career he worked on over 100 children’s books, including The Backward Day, The Wonderful O, and The 13 Clocks (all available from The New York Review Children’s Collection).
He was the recipient of a Caldecott Medal (for A Tree is Nice), two Caldecott Honors (The Happy Day and The Stray Dog), and—in recognition of his work as an occasional political cartoonist—the Grambs Aronson Award for Cartooning With a Conscience.
Margalit Fox of The New York Times described his work as “embodying both airy lightness and crackling energy.” We will miss that lightness and energy—and return to his work for its vivacity, intimacy, and charm.
Antonioni’s ‘Le Amiche,’ based on a novel by Cesare Pavese, will be screened at Film Forum
Ian McEwan Calls ‘Stoner’ “A Minor Masterpiece”
In a recent interview on BBC 4 morning radio show “Today,” acclaimed novelist Ian McEwan beamed about Stoner by John Williams.
The novel tells the story of the life of William Stoner—from his roots as the son of dirt-poor Midwestern farmers to his education and discovery of literature, from the disappointments of his professional life to his attempts to find love and solitude. McEwan called the book “a joyful discovery,” noting that “as soon as you start reading it you feel you’re in very, very good hands.”When asked whether this book—with its subtle plot and small protagonist—would make a good summer read, McEwan replied emphatically “I can’t convey well enough, this is the book to take. It will thrive in the hotel room and on the beach. It is a marvelous discovery for everyone who loves literature.”
Listen to the interview here.
A Tribute to Russell Hoban
To celebrate the publication of Turtle Diary, NYRB Classics and McNally Jackson have planned a July 8th tribute to Russell Hoban, author of many books for children and adults.
Ed Park, author of Personal Days and the introducer to Turtle Diary, John Wray, author of Lowboy, Brigid Hughes, editor of A Public Space, Damion Searls, translator of Robert Walser’s A Schoolboy’s Diary and Other Stories, and Phoebe Hoban, daughter of Russell Hoban, will be participating.
The event will take place on July 8, at 7pm at the McNally Jackson Bookstore. For more information, click here.