Robert Gottlieb: the editor who changed American literature

The man who ushered classics like Catch-22 into the world, Gottlieb has reason to brag. But in his new memoir Avid Reader he prefers to downplay the editor’s role Joseph Heller, the author of Catch-22, once gave an interview where he credited his editor with kicking his work into shape. After the interview ran, Heller got an irritated phone call. The caller was his editor, Robert Gottlieb. Gottlieb told Heller to knock it off. “I felt then, and still do, that readers shouldn’t be made aware of editorial interventions,” Gottlieb writes in his new memoir, Avid Reader: A Life. “They have a right to feel that what they’re reading comes direct from the author to them.”Gottlieb’s book is full of stories like that one. He is a very unassuming person, for an alleged legend – a characterization he laughs at to me, saying his daughter pokes fun at him for so often being called it. Yet beginning at Simon & Schuster in the 1950s and 1960s, flourishing at Knopf in the 1970s and 1980s, and with a brief but memorable detour to the New Yorker (as an editor), Gottlieb’s editing pen has touched the manuscripts of most of the important American writers of the 20th century – and several of the British ones, too. He did it, though, as much from behind the scenes as he possibly could. “I’ve given very few interviews,” he told me when I met him at his book-lined townhouse on New York’s East Side. He is only giving this one now, he says, because he needs to help the publisher sell his book. ... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2016-09-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #avid reader #simon schuster #20th century

Other Publishing stories related to: 'Robert Gottlieb: the editor who changed American literature'


400 years of the African American experience, told by a ‘choir’ of Black voices

Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain gather activists and scholars to write a group history. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-02-05 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #black voices


Back to school for Tele editors after 'activist teachers' exposé | The Weekly Beast

News Corp’s examples of cultural Marxism come up short. Plus: Alan Jones apology relegated to Sky News corrections pageDays after News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch warned of an “awful woke orthodoxy”, the Daily Telegraph demonstrated the boss’s point with a front-page story about political... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2021-02-04 22:44:51 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #weekly beast #front-page story #political correctness #news corp


Eman Quotah’s engrossing debut, ‘Bride of the Sea,’ offers Americans a nuanced view of the Saudi Kingdom

“Bride of the Sea” places a cast of compelling characters in a sweeping plot that spans continents and decades. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-02-02 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |


The Suddenly Digital Taipei International Book Exhibition: Interview with Robert Lin

Losing its physical fair to a COVID-19 outbreak within days of opening, Taiwan's biggest book fair extends its online run—by four months. The post The Suddenly Digital Taipei International Book Exhibition: Interview with Robert Lin appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-01-29 18:42:29 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #physical fair #covid-19 outbreak #book fair


Wilmers steps down as London Review of Books editor

Mary-Kay Wilmers is stepping down as editor of the London Review of Books after nearly three decades in the post. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-29 16:45:23 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #books editor #london review #mary-kay wilmers #thelondon review


London Review of Books editor Mary-Kay Wilmers steps down after 30 years

Influential editor and co-founder of the literary magazine to be succeeded by senior staffMary-Kay Wilmers is stepping down from her role as editor of the London Review of Books, a position she has held for almost 30 years.Wilmers was one of the founders of the literary magazine in 1979, along... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2021-01-29 15:28:52 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #london review #40th anniversary #literary magazine #books editor


How one man’s talks with the dispossessed changed foreign policy

Bob Gersony’s career shows how America can meld security interests and human rights, writes Robert D. Kaplan. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-01-29 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #human rights


The Other Condition: Robert Musil on Theater

THEATER SYMPTOMS: Plays and Writings on Drama is the mother lode for Robert Musil aficionados, a vital piece of the author’s canon. Containing the major play The Utopians, other dramatic material and fragments, and Musil’s theater criticism, much of it translated into English for the first time,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-01-28 18:00:17 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #anthology


New Initiative Brings African Literature Into the IPA-UN SDG Book Club

The new African chapter of the Sustainable Development Goals' SDG Book Club will curate books in Kiswahili, Arabic, French, and English. The post New Initiative Brings African Literature Into the IPA-UN SDG Book Club appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-01-25 15:56:16 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #african chapter #book club


Writing a Saudi American Novel When No One Has Done It Before

Before I spotted Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia on the shelves of a Borders bookstore near my Pennsylvania college, I had never seen a book about a Saudi woman before. Princess, according to its book jacket, which featured a fully veiled woman in high heels, was... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-01-25 09:48:19 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #book jacket #true story #saudi arabia #high heels #bookstore


“Kink” Confronts the Challenge of Turning Sex Into Literature

In this ambitious anthology, short stories sit at various intersections of smolder and technical accomplishment. Continue reading at New Yorker

[ New Yorker | 2021-01-23 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #short stories


The Troubled Task of Defining Southern Literature in 2021

In 2016, while touring in support of my debut novel, Only Love Can Break Your Heart, I appeared on a panel at the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson. Despite (or perhaps because of) its troubled history, Mississippi is the Ground Zero of Southern literature, chiefly because of the towering... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-01-22 09:49:24 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #book festival


How Covid-19 Will Change Publishing

The pandemic will bring permanent changes to publishing practices, especially when it comes to the virtual world. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-01-22 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #virtual world


Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’ is not just an adventure tale, it’s a timely novel about politics and dissent

Stevenson’s classic 19th-century novel is study in loyalty against a backdrop of violence and unrest. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-01-20 16:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #adventure tale


Mclaughlin, Scott and Thomas made editors at White Review

Rosanna Mclaughlin, Izabella Scott and Skye Arundhati Thomas have been confirmed as the new editors of literary magazine the White Review.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-20 09:34:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #white review


‘Crisis and Changes’: Insights From Beijing OpenBook’s Conference

With physical retail down, 2020 was the first year in which Beijing OpenBook tracked a downturn in the Chinese book market since 2000. The post ‘Crisis and Changes’: Insights From Beijing OpenBook’s Conference appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-01-18 22:13:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #conference appeared #physical retail #book market


Trying to Teach English Literature in the Wake of Mao’s Cultural Revolution

My assignment was to offer a survey course on the history of English literature in northeast China. I was paired with a young American teacher sponsored by the United Nations who was to teach phonetics and oral expression. We taught six days a week, and every Wednesday afternoon our students... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-01-15 09:49:40 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #cultural revolution #united nations #wednesday afternoon #english literature


Yinka, where is your editor? Part 3

Debut author of Yinka Where is Your Huzband, Lizzie Damilola Blackburn, and her editor Katy Loftus at Penguin, dish the dirt on the reality behind the dream of being published. Read the previous part here. THE AUTHOR: LIZZIE DAMILOLA BLACKBURN My phone buzzed. My heart thudded. I had just... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-15 09:13:55 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #phone buzzed #editorial feedback #debut author


UK: Welbeck Acquires Australian Illustrator Robert Ingpen’s Backlist

en titles from illustrator Robert Ingpen now form the basis of a new UK children's book publishing imprint, Welbeck Children's Classics. The post UK: Welbeck Acquires Australian Illustrator Robert Ingpen’s Backlist appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-01-14 17:48:52 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #uk children #post uk #welbeck children #children's book


Our Lies: Jenny Offill and James Plath on Conspiracy Theories in History and Literature

In this week’s episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan are joined by author Jenny Offill and literary and film critic James Plath. First Offill shares her reaction to the insurrection and attempted coup at the Capitol last week, and discusses her latest... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-01-14 09:49:01 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #jenny offill #conspiracy theories