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'


Forced into camps, Japanese Americans found respite in football

In “The Eagles of Heart Mountain,” Bradford Pearson provides a compelling and necessary history of Japanese American incarceration in World War II. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2021-01-13 16:04:01 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #heart mountain #bradford pearson #pearson


Forced into camps, Japanese Americans found respite in football

In “The Eagles of Heart Mountain,” Bradford Pearson provides a compelling and necessary history of Japanese American incarceration in World War II. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2021-01-13 16:04:01 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #heart mountain #bradford pearson #pearson


Eric Jerome Dickey, best-selling African American novelist, dies at 59

Described as ‘one of the few kings of popular African-American fiction for women,’ he wrote 29 books that together sold more than 7 million copies. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-01-06 13:20:32 UTC ]
More news stories like this |


What does climate change look like? Twelve photographers force us to confront reality.

“Human Nature” brings together the work of photographers documenting the earth’s altered landscape. It’s not all bad news. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-01-05 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #climate change #bad news


African Literature and Digital Culture

IN THE 21ST CENTURY, digital literary culture originating from the African continent has exploded. I still remember the early years, when Kindles first came into our lives and everyone was weighing in on whether ebooks were going to mean the death of literature. Back then, everything was fresh... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-01-04 18:00:58 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #african literature #digital culture #21st century #african continent #early years #ebooks


American Savior by Roland Merullo, Read by Dion Graham

Every Monday through Friday, AudioFile’s editors recommend the best in audiobook listening. We keep our daily episodes short and sweet, with audiobook clips to give you a sample of our featured listens. What would happen if Jesus’s second coming occurred in America, and he believed the best way... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-01-01 09:00:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #dion graham #editors recommend #audiobook listening #audiobook clips #featured listens #audiobook


College Admissions Fiction and the Asian American Teen Imaginary

“GUYS ARE LIKE school admissions,” Claire Wang’s mom tells Claire in Parachutes, a new YA novel by Kelly Yang. “Get in first. Then worry if you like them back.” The analogy is cheeky yet revealing: colleges and boyfriends function on a model of scarcity, and thus attainment is far more important... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-12-26 16:00:45 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #kelly yang #ya novel


Pushing the bounds of form in ‘The Glorious American Essay’

Phillip Lopate's choices for this fine anthology may stretch the parameters of an essay, but he's made distinctive and evocative selections. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-12-23 21:36:26 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #phillip lopate #fine anthology #made distinctive #evocative selections #anthology


Pushing the bounds of form in ‘The Glorious American Essay’

Phillip Lopate's choices for this fine anthology may stretch the parameters of an essay, but he's made distinctive and evocative selections. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-12-23 21:36:26 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #phillip lopate #fine anthology #made distinctive #evocative selections #anthology


Pushing the bounds of form in ‘The Glorious American Essay’

Phillip Lopate's choices for this fine anthology may stretch the parameters of an essay, but he's made distinctive and evocative selections. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-12-23 21:36:26 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #phillip lopate #fine anthology #made distinctive #evocative selections #anthology


The virus isn’t transforming us. It’s speeding up the changes already underway.

The accelerating shifts, often for the worse, in digital life, inequality, foreign policy and other realms. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-12-18 14:22:16 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #digital life #foreign policy


World Literature Today’s 75 Notable Translations of 2020, by Michelle Johnson

Lit Lists Literary translation’s 2020 story is one of abundance and adaptation. Like most books published this year, dozens of new translations were published during a global pandemic. Events quickly moved from bookstores to Zoom. Writers and... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2020-12-14 20:55:17 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #fig tree #dubravka ugrešić #memoir


Ben Bova, Science Fiction Editor and Author, Is Dead at 88

As editor of the magazines Analog and Omni, he was a champion of a new generation of authors, including George R.R. Martin. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-12-14 19:27:29 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #science fiction


John le Carré, who lifted the spy novel to literature, dies at 89

A onetime British spy, he used the Cold War as his canvas in such novels as “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-12-13 10:56:56 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #cold war


Year-End Changes: PRH Canada Separates Knopf and Random House

CEO Kristin Cochrane retains Anne Collins while moving Martha Kanya-Forstner to lead Knopf Canada and bringing in Sue Kuruvilla for RH Canada. The post Year-End Changes: PRH Canada Separates Knopf and Random House appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-12-09 21:22:13 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #random house


How a DACA recipient came to tell the stories of 'The Undocumented Americans'

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio talks about her eye-opening book "The Undocumented Americans" and what it taught her about herself. She'll join the LAT Book Club on Dec. 15. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-12-08 15:00:23 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #undocumented americans #ll join #book club


Bill Gates says to read these 5 books for ‘a change of pace’ this holiday season

The billionaire philanthropist offers some recommendations to get you through the final stretches of quarantine. While Bill Gates’s 2020 summer reading list concentrated on the pandemic and its economic repercussions, the Microsoft founder opted for a “change of pace” in considering his... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2020-12-08 11:00:59 UTC ]
More news stories like this |


Nobel literature prize winner Louise Glück to publish new poetry in 2021

The poet, whose acceptance speech will also be released on Monday, will publish Winter Recipes from the Collective in 2021Nobel laureate Louise Glück is set to publish her first poetry collection in seven years in 2021 – her first since becoming the 16th female winner of the literature... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-12-07 11:00:36 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #poetry collection #acceptance speech #previously won #pulitzer prize #gold medal #american academy #literature prize


Announcing WLT’s 2020 Pushcart Prize Nominees, by The Editors of WLT

News and Events Photo: Quarantine portrait. Tulsa, Oklahoma. March 22, 2020, by Joseph Rushmore. This photograph accompanied the publication of Rilla Askew's "Cataclysm" in the Summer 2020 issue of World Literature Today. The editors of World... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2020-11-30 21:07:51 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #vital contribution #international literature #anthology