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#FridayReads, Sept. 20–Erskine Childers’ “Riddle of the Sands & Ben Urwand’s “Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact w/Hitler”

September 20, 2013 /1 Comment/in /by


Riddle of the SandsAs noted in the above tweet for my #FridayReads a week ago, I was then enjoying the two excellent books named above. The first–The Riddle of the Sands, published in 1903–is arguably the first espionage thriller of the 20th century, though it’s written nothing like spy fiction is written today. It’s a heady and languorous narrative full of maritime adventuring set in the waters of the North Sea and its tidal rivers. The characters tumble in to some intrigue involving Britain and Germany, and the book fascinatingly anticipates many geopolitical issues that became even more pertinent to international relations in the following decades, during WWI and WWII. I used to stock and sell Childers’ book when I ran Undercover Books from 1978-85 as it was frequently assigned to high school students in the local school systems. This in itself is kind of amazing, because it is a complex, sophisticated book and I have a hard time imagining many high school students nowadays reading it, and getting through it. I think it’s also read often by sailors, mariners, and merchant seamen, for as the title suggests the characters are able to develop keen intuition for navigating the waters and the intrigue in to which they are plunged. Recently, Michael Dirda, one of the best book critics around, wrote a fascinating review of ‘Riddle’ in the BN Review which reminded me I had always meant to read the book. I found the second-hand Penguin edition pictured here, and have been relishing every new turn in the unfolding plot. I recommend you read Dirda’s review, even if you don’t have time right now for the book itself.Riddle of the Sands back

The other book, my nonfiction this week, is  The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler, by a young Australian scholar named Ben Urwand, a revelatory and controversial investigation into what he believes–based on documents and correspondence he found–was the close relationship, even alliance from the 1930s, and in at least one instance stretching in to the 1940s, between several US movie production companies and the Third Reich. I learned about the book in the summer, when the New York Times previewed the book, and I wrote about it then in a post titled Still More to Learn about Corporations’ Complicity with the Third Reich. I wrote then,Collaboration

In 2000, while an editor at Crown Publishing, I acquired a book that later became an international sensation and a bestseller in the US. It was IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation by Edwin Black. I believed it was imperative that the book be published because it documented hitherto unknown revelations such as the fact that IBM’s punch card tabulation system was licensed to the Third Reich which then used the technology to catalog and keep track of Jews and others under its rule they deemed undesirables. Turned out that corporate complicity with Hitler was as American as cherry pie.

I want to add that later, in 2006, I edited and published another book in this area, Ibsen and Hitler: The Playwright, the Plagiarist, and the Plot for the Third Reich, in which scholar Steven F. Sage put forth a startling thesis, that long before the Final Solution, Adolf Hitler’s crimes included a kind of theft of intellectual property. The author marshaled lots of evidence to to show that a trio of plays by Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) had provided Hitler with the script for his hegemonic career. With egotism and braggadocio, he saw himself as the star of a historical drama that mimicked Ibsen’s works. Sage showed that baffling incidents, including poor strategic choices, became understandable as part of a connected plot. He also traces ties between Hitler and a literary cult that warped Ibsen’s humanistic vision to suit their fascist designs, elevating Hitler as their anointed instrument. Sage’s book, and now Urwand’s, point to Hitler’s obsession with narrative drama, whether on the stage or on the silver screen. Both authors document Hitler’s propensity to repeatedly view the same theatrical and cinematic presentations. Sage writes that Hitler would see the same play over and over again, until he reached a point where he felt like he had in some sense become the drama’s hero. It’s striking that the two authors have, in this respect, developed similar theses. If you’re interested, I’ve pasted in the flap copy to Ibsen and Hitler at the bottom of this post which you may click on to read in full. Ibsen & Hitler

There’s already been a fair amount of criticism of Urwand, who is something of an unconventional scholar–he holds no teaching position, is a Junior Fellow of of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, and has a background that includes being part of a successful rock n’ roll band, The Attachments. You can learn more about Urwand and his book here. The critics of the book have included David Denby in the New Yorker, who seems to take personal offense at the thesis, and claims there’s not much in the book we didn’t know already. I don’t share his jaded response and am eager to continue reading how and why executives likes Louis B. Mayer produced movies that they hoped would please the Third Reich and be shown to audiences in Germany.
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Restoring High Bridge, NYC’s Oldest Span, via Gothamist

September 17, 2013 /5 Comments/in , /by

A fascinating article with photos in Gothamist.com by Evan Bindelglass, covering the history and restoration of the bridge that connected the Bronx and Manhattan beginning in 1842, an interboro link across the Harlem River that was built to bring fresh water via the Croton Aqueduct in to Gotham. The span connects 170th Street in the Bronx to 173rd Street in Manhattan. In a deliciously arcane example of NYC geography, Bindelglass points out, that’s “West 173rd Street and not East,” though this is the east side of the island, “Because it is technically west of 5th Avenue,” the east-west midpoint of the island for road-naming purposes.

High Bridge has undergone numerous reconstructions over the decades. The current renovation–a joint project of NYC’s Parks Department and the NYC Department of Design and Construction–will allow the deck to reopen to pedestrians and cyclists upon its hoped-for completion in June 2014. In a suggestion that would delight many New Yorkers, Bindelglass reports,

“Some are already hailing the High Bridge as another High Line-like project.

 ‘Long linear spaces [are] en vogue in New York City,’ [said] Jennifer McCardle Hoppa,  Administrator for Northern Manhattan Parks for the Parks Department. 

As part of the project, the bridge deck will be restored and parts of it will be resurfaced. (An interesting thing to note is that the original stone arch portion of the bridge—and one stone arch remains on the Manhattan side—was surfaced in a herringbone pattern, but the steel portion was not.)”

My fondness for examples of New York City’s maritime and industrial past is probably well-known to readers of this blog, especially for landmarks like the Little Red Lighthouse, which I toured last weekend. That’s why I also appreciated this quote in Bindelglass’s story:

“‘Just the idea of that reconnection has tremendous symbolism, I think, for both communities,’ says David Burney, Commissioner of the Department of Design and Construction. ‘It’s this piece of industrial archeology, this huge pipe system that was carrying water across and into Manhattan that we’re preserving and keeping as a piece of history,’ Burney says, ‘We do a lot of bridge reconstruction. But this is very special.'”

I have ridden my bike in the neighborhood around High Bridge, and up to the High Bridge tower, which dominates the area around it on the Manhattan side. I look forward to seeing the renovation work completed next year. The work on High Bridge will give all of us access to another splendid city landmark. Meantime, I’m happy I can share this good piece of NY reporting, and one of Bindelglass’s photos from his gothamist.com piece. The image shows the old deck, surrounded by orange fencing. High Bridge tower is in the distance, on the Manhattan side.

High Bridge deck Bindelglass photo

Jan Yoors–Chronicler of the Romany & Tapestry Artist

September 15, 2013 /0 Comments/in , , /by

Jan YoorsSaw this amazing wall-size tapestry at the Robert Miler Gallery’s “Suddenness + Certainty” exhibit, curated by artist Robert Greene. It’s by the late Jan Yoors (1922-77), a Belgian artist and author by whom I once nearly published a book. It was to have been his seminal study Gypsies, for the Kodansha Globe trade paperback series which I edited in the 1990s. As I recall, rights to publish a new edition of the book ended up with another publisher. According to a Wikipedia article about Yoors, at age 12 he ran away with a group off gypsies, living with them for some months until he went back to his parents. He returned to the gypsies periodically over the years. His book, originally published in 1969, was a rare study of the Romany, told from inside the group structure, with their customs and folkways portrayed with rare intimacy and authenticity.

I hadn’t thought of Yoors for years, until I saw his name on the tapestry last Thursday night. It’s a striking work–strong, graphic, and tactile, with a surprising cream-colored shape in the center of  the piece. The price on the list of works in the exhibit was $85,000. I took some pictures of it and asked at the desk if they knew whether it was the author, Jan Yoors, but they weren’t sure. I checked later and confirmed that he was both an author and artist. How nice to be reminded of his book, which I had enjoyed so much, and found so interesting almost twenty years ago. It was a fun night at the Robert Miller Gallery as Kyle and I also got to see paintings by our friend Stephen Lack, who introduced me to his friend Simon Hancock, of HarperCollins.

Another Brilliant Visitors’ Day at the Little Red Lighthouse

September 14, 2013 /4 Comments/in , , /by

Ranger MastrianniReaders of this blog may recall when about a month ago I wrote a post after I discovered one day that the NYC Parks Dept opens the Little Red Lighthouse to visitors the second Saturday of each month from May-October. The LRL is the last lighthouse sited in Manhattan, and a unique urban landmark. It sits under the George Washington Bridge, aka known as the Great Gray Bridge, about even with 178th Street on one of the most westerly points in Manhattan. I had a fabulous time that day, exhilarated by the climb up the three steep steel stairways to the lighthouse’s cupola, where you stand out in the open air, viewing a 360-degree circuit from about 45 feet up in the air. That day I was able to take some great pictures: the shadows cast by the great gray bridge on the Hudson River; shoot south toward points in lower Manhattan; and point my camera in the upstate direction toward Yonkers and well past, fantasizing that the Catskills were just beyond a gradual dogleg in the river’s northward push. When I look that direction I imagine Hendrik Hudson in the Half Moon sailing up-river in the multiple voyages he made between 1709-1712.

I was eager to get back there and take more pictures, and excited that this time my wife Kyle Gallup would be riding up there with me. We set out just before 1 PM. It had been rainy much of the week, but that was finally past, and high barometric pressure had moved in–the air was scrubbed and freshened by the front of new weather. Our ride up the Cherry Walk was right in to 15 mph wind gusts but we pedaled through it.

As we pedaled past what we fondly call Hudson Beach, an exposed area of sand and shore about even with 165th Street, we rounded another bend and there was the lighthouse with its front door swung open for visitors, with a nearby tent staffed by a Coast Guard auxiliary officer. With a friendly demeanor, he had us sign in and added that next month–on October 12 for what will be the final open day of the year–there will be a fall festival in the park around the lighthouse. We left our bikes behind the tent and headed toward the open door of the lighthouse. A female ranger in a broad hat greeted us and showed us the chunky brass key that for many years was used to open the door.

From one’s first step inside, the interior of the lighthouse with its dense, plated steel walls, remindful of a ship or a submarine, makes a powerful physical impression. To learn more of the lighthouse’s colorful history–including details of the children’s book it inspired and the original siting of it at Sandy Hook, New Jersey, in 1880–I invite you to read the full post I wrote about it last month. Please click here to see all of this post’s photos. 

“Hono(u)rary Canadian”–My New Blog

September 8, 2013 /2 Comments/in , , , , /by

Perce-Roche-tumbler6Along with The Great Gray Bridge, which is designed and built* upon a WordPress theme, I maintain a blog–currently on tumblr–where I share briefly written posts with photos and quick hits. It’s often handy when I’m traveling or running around town, away from my desk.** That site was formerly named after this blog, but I’m officially refocusing it–its emphasis will now be on Canadian content and covering Canadian issues. I’m renaming it Hono(u)rary Canadian, in a bid for transnational wit. I make no singular claim to that title, for I know that Canada draws interest and affection from many in the US. I use it though, as kindly Canadians have said it about me, and because I do cherish a near-lifelong deep and personal connection with Canada. In fact, from the time I began The Great Gray in October 2011, Canada has played an important role in my coverage, constituting roughly 20-30% of my writing, links, and sharing. I’ve connected with many Canadian readers over the past two years, and have found there many Facebook friends and Twitter followers. I’m hoping to connect with even more Canadian readers with the newly named site, and more deeply.

Given my interest in Canadian literature, authors, indie music, geography, and politics–and the enjoyment I find in writing about them, this is a natural extension for me. I also plan to write about Canada’s next federal election, which will take place no later than 2015. I’ll also be sharing photos from my many years of travel in Canada, beginning with the image that I’ve chosen as the signature visual for the site. It shows the monumental Roche Percé or ‘pierced rock’ on the Gaspé Peninsula in the most eastern portion of Quebec. I visited the region on a solo vacation in the autumn of 1988. The mighty rock juts in to the Atlantic Ocean with its massive pointed prow facing toward shore. It is a wonder of the world, no kidding. A visitor can only get near it at low tide, as I did on one lucky occasion. I remember spending about 3 hours scampering in and out of the surf and trying to get as close as possible to the pierced opening, with the huge bulk of it towering at least a hundred feet above me. The image at the bottom of the post is a ‘selfie’ I took the same day, long before that term was in the vernacular. It’s a place I hope to see again someday, next time with my family.

I invite you to visit Hono(u)rary Canadian in the days, weeks, and months to come. I’ll post on both sites, share often between them, and do lots of cross-linking. My interest in reading, book culture, live music, city life, media, and current events, and my writing about them–covering New York City, the US, and Canada–is growing so that I need the two sites. Thanks for reading me at one or both of them.

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* My excellent designer, who adapted the WordPress theme I chose for this site, is Harry Candelario, who when I first met him was known as the Mac Doctor, for his work on Apple products. I frequently suggest him to people when they ask me to recommend a web designer. I should add he also offers helpful advice about WordPress, various Web platforms, SEO, and generally helps to increases one’s Web savvy.
** Though I may soon convert it from tumblr to WordPress.

#FridayReads, Sept 6–Celebrating Robertson Davies’ 100th

September 6, 2013 /0 Comments/in , , /by

#FridayReads, Sept. 6–The many books of Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, which I have had the pleasure of reading and enjoying over the past 30 years.

August 28, 2013, was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Robertson Davies, the great Canadian novelist and all around man of letters. The Canadian postal service is marking the anniversary by issuing the stamp below. When I ran Undercover Books in Cleveland, Ohio, which opened in 1978, we introduced thousands of U.S. readers to books by Canadian authors, particularly including Davies.* We were doing so much business in his books at one point in the early ’80s that I wrote Davies a letter c/o of his publisher Viking Penguin to let him know. He responded from ivied Massey College in Toronto, where he was a Don of Letters, and a pleasant correspondence between us ensued over a couple of years. Later, organizers of a writing conference at Case Western Reserve University asked me to invite Davies to a big meeting of theirs, but he declined, explaining he was averse to travel. The organizers asked me if I would instead speak on the combined experience of reading and selling Davies’ books, an invitation I accepted. In my files somewhere is a transcript of the talk I gave and the letters I exchanged with Davies. I will dig them out someday soon and scan them for this site and my newly renamed tumblr, Hono(u)rary Canadian, where I’ve also covered the new Davies stamp.

If you haven’t yet read Davies’ work, I still recommend his books highly. Most readers start with his Deptford Trilogy, and its opening book, Fifth Business, which was first published in 1970, followed in the trilogy by The Manticore and World of Wonders. Their motifs are indelible painted in my mind, though I haven’t re-read the books in more than 20 years: saints, snowballs, magicians, and freakish beauty. His earlier books–Tempest-Tost, Leaven of Malice, and A Mixture of Frailties–collectively known as the Salterton Trilogy, are also very enjoyable. His first break-out book, as a hardcover bestseller, was Rebel Angels, thanks in good part to the enlarged audience that my store, and other indie booksellers, brought to his books.

I’m really glad Robertson Davies is being remembered with this special stamp, which was announced at the Canada Post website and covered at Quill & Quire magazine. Below the stamp are photos of my copies of Davies’ books.  Please click here to see all photos.Robertson Davies stamp
* In a page on this website devoted to my career, Philip Turner–Professional Background, under the heading “Hono(u)rary Canadian” I present more info on Canadian authors I’ve worked with:
As a native of the Great Lakes region, I have a keen affinity for Canadian books and authors, seeing the book world of the U.S.’s upper Midwest and Canada’s southern tier (and one might argue, the whole of the Pacific Northwest) as contiguous literary cultures. As an Ohio bookseller, I introduced thousands of U.S. readers to such Canadian authors as Robertson Davies, Margaret Atwood, Mordecai Richler, Margaret Laurence, Timothy Findley Farley Mowat, and Pierre Berton. As an editor and publisher, I broadened that effort, publishing U.S. editions of books by Atwood, Richler, Mowat, Berton, and Dallaire, as well as Paul Quarrington, Antonine Maillet, Ken McGoogan, Julian Sher, William Marsden, Elaine Dewar, Bonnie Buxton, Howard Engel, Joan Barfoot, George Eliot Clarke, Steven Galloway, Stephen Strauss, Joel Hynes, Paul Anderson, Sheila Munro, and Jan Lars Jensen, among others.

Nick Robinson, RIP–Inspired Publisher and a Good Man

September 3, 2013 /2 Comments/in , /by

Nick Robinson When I was an editorial executive at Carroll & Graf Publishers from 2000 until 2007, Nick Robinson was a frequent publishing partner based in the UK. His company, Constable & Robinson, brought out many books in Britain that we then published in North America. Each publishing season there were between 10-20 titles. Mysteries, solid nonfiction like Jack Holland’s Misogyny: The World’s Oldest Prejudice, and lots of books that just balanced our list very well. A backbone of our program with them were the editorially smart, superb value-oriented series of Mammoth Books, with well over 75 titles in the program, some of them shown below. My senior colleague Herman Graf first met Nick in 1983. They worked together very closely, meeting in London and NYC and at the int’l book fairs. When I began attending the Frankfurt Book Fair for my new company I had the good fortune to meet Nick and work with him, too. He liked that I’d been a bookseller before I became an editor. Nick hired people well and so had great colleagues who always attended our group dinners in Frankfurt, including one female executive, Nova. At those dinners, he was always cheerful and funny, showed great knowledge of food and wine, and always called for a toast and set aside time for all to savor our collective moments together.

Another of C & R’s books that C & G published in the US and Canada was The Great Hedge of India: The Search for the Living Barrier that Divided a People, a fascinating book on an entirely forgotten landmark from colonial India that actually figured in 20th century India’s history, though it had been all but forgotten. I still recommend this book to friends interested in the history of the subcontinent and those, say, who enjoyed Richard Attenborough’s film, “Gandhi.” Hedge author Roy Moxham also wrote, Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire, a book I still own and plan to read one day.

After leaving Carroll & Graf at the end of 2006 I learned from Herman that Nick and Nova had gotten married, and I was glad for them. At my new job, Union Square Press at Sterling Publishing, I had little reason to be in touch with Nick or his company, so we lost touch, though Herman kept me informed. He told me once that Nick had become ill, though he didn’t know if it was serious.

When I left Carroll & Graf, its parent company, Avalon Publishing Group, was on the brink of being sold to Perseus Books. Herman stayed around there for a little while, but soon the changes took full effect and Perseus absorbed many of the titles that we had published from Constable & Robinson. The crime books went to Soho Press, but the Mammoth Books stayed with Perseus, at Running Press. From time to time, I thought of Nick but after leaving Sterling in 2009 I had little reason to be in touch with him. But just last week, with August ending and the autumn publishing season commencing, I was planning to email Nick and let him know about a book project I’m developing, focused on classic swashbuckler fiction, that I knew would be of interest to him personally, and which I thought might be suitable for his company. I was so sad to read this morning in Book Brunch, a daily UK publishing newsletter, that Nick had died last Friday. The story (available by subscription only) reads in part:

Widely admired independent publisher Nick Robinson, 58, died on Friday 30 August 2013 following a longstanding illness. He founded Robinson Publishing in 1983, later merging it with Britain’s oldest independent publisher Constable & Co in 1999 to create Constable & Robinson. He brought new life to the Constable name, then propelled it into the 21st century with a series of innovations. Constable & Robinson was named both Independent Publisher of the Year at the Bookseller Industry Awards and IPG Independent Publisher of the Year in 2012….Nick Robinson is survived by his wife Nova Jayne – who also serves as a C&R director and now becomes Chair of the Board as part of the succession plan – and his son and his daughter.

Nick was a very good man and a brilliant publisher. I spoke with Herman Graf today. He told me that he considered Nick “a mensch for all seasons.” I know Herman will miss him very much, as will I, and all who had the good fortune to know and work with him. I extend my deepest condolences to his wife Nova, his two children, his colleagues, and all those among us who knew and admired him. Please click here to see all photos associated with this post.