Richard Nash is a very smart publishing person, and plenty smart enough to know when an experimental direction he’s taken isn’t working out. As a result, he gave a talk this week at the Books into Browsers conference in San Francisco conceding that Cursor, the enterprise he announced with great anticipation in 2010, hasn’t really […]
In recent months there have been a number of terrific graphic novels released, including Kate Beaton’s Hark, Vagrant, Michael Kupperman’s rendition of Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910-2010, Ludovic Debeurme’s Lucille, and Nick Bertozzi’s Lewis & Clark. Last April, as part of the PEN World Voices Festival I had the privilege of covering a special comics reading […]
The personal essay pasted in below chronicles a formative episode in my publishing career, when I had the privilege of working with William Styron on an Introduction to a nonfiction book that told the story of an innocent man on Death Row in Virginia. It was called Dead Run and Styron helped me champion it to […]
Excellent Slate article by Christopher Hitchens on Mormonism, its core beliefs, and how it should be discussed in the context of the presidential campaign. Hitch’s piece includes a reference to a terrific book I republished in 1995, by Facebook friend Alex Shoumatoff. It’s his superb study of human kinship and genealogy, The Mountain of Names. […]
Happy to see the U.S. State Dept. sees value in placing Pres. Obama’s books in embassy libraries in Egypt, S. Korea, Indonesia, etc. The Moonie-run right-wing Washington Times is trying to stir up a controversy with a story on this, “But State Department spokesman Noel Clay said the book purchases followed regular government procurement rules. […]
I really enjoy posting each week in #fridayreads what my current fave book is. For this week it’s ‘Darker Than Amber,’ a 1966 Travis McGee suspenser by John D. MacDonald. Great series, great character. Also enjoying finding new virtual friends at McGee fan site: http://drmar120.wordpress.com