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 ]
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Bird is the award-winning author of seven books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning book that served as the basis for Christopher Nolan’s film 'Oppenheimer,' which won seven Academy Awards last night, including best picture. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-03-11 04:00:00 UTC ]
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It’s 1995, and I’m trying to watch a video on the internet. I entered the longest, most complex URL I’d ever seen into AOL’s web browser to view a trailer for Paul W.S. Anderson’s long-awaited film adaptation of Mortal Kombat. I found it in an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, tucked away in... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-03-01 17:00:14 UTC ]
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The third edition of the survey found the industry to be slightly more diverse in terms of its racial and gender makeup than it was four years ago. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-02-28 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Martin Goodman, publisher of Barbican Press, describes his move from the U.K. to Los Angeles and the challenges of breaking into the U.S. market with transgressive and radical books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-02-23 05:00:00 UTC ]
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A U.S.-based publishing exec for John Murray Press offers five pieces of advice on working with colleagues in the U.K. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-02-23 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Data points and anecdotes about middle grade reading intertwined at a panel on "Recapturing the Tween Middle Grade Market," held at Winter Institute. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-02-22 05:00:00 UTC ]
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When Nas described himself as the “most critically acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winner / Best storyteller / Thug narrator / My styles greater” on his song “Hate Me Now” (1999), he was foretelling something monumental on the horizon. The Pulitzer Prize for Music is considered one of the nation’s most... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-02-21 09:55:55 UTC ]
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The organization held its soft launch party last night in Brooklyn, N.Y., which event coproduced by Hachette Book Group and Kundiman and featured six authors, including Curtis Chin and Kat Chow. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-02-16 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Pratfalls, chaos, and a clumsy, well-intentioned flying piglet have made a bestseller of 'Cupig,' by Flamingo assistant editor Claire Tattersfield and illustrator Rob Sayegh Jr. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-02-13 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Novelist Jacinda Townsend and writer James Bernard Short join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about the movie American Fiction, which is based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett. Townsend and Short discuss how the film addresses race in the publishing industry via... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-02-08 09:08:33 UTC ]
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The movie, with its handful of Oscar nominations, has refocused attention on “Erasure,” a satire of the literary world and its racial biases. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-02-03 10:02:42 UTC ]
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Despite mounting objections from within the American literary community (as well as public condemnation from two prominent novelists who recently cut ties with the organization), on Wednesday evening PEN America’s Los Angeles branch went ahead with its hosting of a conversation between stand-up... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-02-02 19:14:45 UTC ]
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“I pulled the Fitzgerald off a shelf in the bookshop where I had a summer job. It was so delicious and joyful to read, I could canter through it with such bright and sudden pleasure, that it felt almost criminal.” Continue reading at The Paris Review
[ The Paris Review | 2024-02-01 15:52:46 UTC ]
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Booksellers and authors prepare to gather in Ohio’s Queen City for the 2024 ABA Winter Institute. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-01-26 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Lulu Wang's "Expats," premiering Friday on Prime Video, is an adaptation of Janice Y. K. Lee's bestselling book that stars Nicole Kidman and examines the intersection of the lives of three women living in Hong Kong. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-01-25 19:17:55 UTC ]
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The organization, which has had offices in the New York City metro area since its formation in 1900, confirmed this week that it will become a “permanently remote organization” at the end of February. CEO Allison Hill said that the closure “doesn’t change the way we've been working.” Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-01-25 05:00:00 UTC ]
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The former editorial director of Bantam and Ballantine and founder of Villard Books at Random House and an eponymous imprint at Houghton Mifflin, whose long and storied career in trade book publishing lasted into his final hours, died on December 31. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-01-11 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Miss Americana has been discussed in English literature classes for some years now – sometimes alongside Shakespeare. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2024-01-02 11:01:25 UTC ]
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In one of Electric Lit’s most-read essays of the year, “Black Women Are Being Erased From Book Publishing,” Jennifer Baker examines the publishing industry in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. She holds the publishing industry accountable for appointing high-profile Black... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-12-21 12:15:00 UTC ]
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There is no denying that African literature is having a moment on the global literary stage. In 2021, African writers took the literary world by storm. It is in light of this that the South African writer Damon Galgut said in his acceptance speech at the 2021 Booker Prize ceremony that “2021 was... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-12-18 09:49:40 UTC ]
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