Vaddey Ratner's novel of her childhood under the Khmer Rouge, In the Shadow of the Banyan, is a moving personal journey of reconciliation readers can share. Read more » |
In nonfiction, people traumatized by events might be inclined to soften the details as a form of self-protection. Fiction may simply be safer and more tender. Read more » |
Children's Publishing: |
The Doctor Who books helped author Steve Cole learned to read, then he became series editor and wrote one himself. He reflects on a lifetime of time travel. Read more » |
Books that hit us at a tender, impressionable age can stay with us forever. What are yours? Read more » |
From the Archives: |
Authors exiled from Iran, Cuba, Afghanistan, Egypt, Algeria and the Congo discuss oppression, inspiration, and the cost of freedom. Read more » |
Publishing Perspectives
A ‘Fantastic’ Fitzgerald Story, Resurrected in The New Yorker
The New Yorker this week is publishing a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Thanks for the Light,” that it rejected three-quarters of a century ago. Turning the story down in 1936, the editors said that it was “altogether out of the question” and added, “It seems to us so curious and so unlike the kind of thing we associate with him and really too fantastic.”
(Right - Scribners Co./Associated Press .F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934.)
It’s not hard to see why they thought so. The story, though lovely in its odd way, is a long way from “Winter Dreams” or “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz.” “Thanks for the Light,” which Fitzgerald’s grandchildren discovered while going through his papers, is just a vignette — only a page long — almost fable-like, and written in a pared-down style that, at the end especially, seems more Hemingway than Fitzgerald. According to Deborah Treisman, the New Yorker’s fiction editor, the Fitzgerald scholar James West thought it seemed “almost Chekhovian” and suggested to the grandchildren that they give the magazine another crack at it.
The protagonist of “Thanks for the Light” is a widowed, 40-year-old corset saleswoman, Mrs. Hanson, whose main consolation in life is cigarettes. After being transferred to a new sales territory in the west, she discovers that social disapproval of smoking is even stronger there than it had been back east. The story even suggests there is a law against it. Desperate for a cigarette but embarrassed to smoke on the street, she ducks one afternoon into the vestibule of a Catholic cathedral and, finding herself without matches, obtains a light from a heavenly source. (The story’s title may have a double meaning.)
Fitzgerald was himself a smoker and a heavy drinker as well. By the time he wrote “Thanks for the Light,” booze had pretty much destroyed his career and he was trying hard, though not always successfully, to stay on the wagon. So it’s tempting to see Mrs. Hanson’s situation not just as a reflection on the plight of female smokers in the 30’s but as a metaphor for alcohol dependence. If you read the story this way, the ironic, prayerful moment at the end is another version of the sense of loss and spiritual emptiness that Fitzgerald wrote so movingly about in the essays collected in “The Crack-Up.”
And the strange notion of a national ban on smoking? Prohibition had ended just three years earlier. In many parts of the country, though, Prohibition never took on the atmosphere of dour, blanket disapproval suggested by the hatchet-faced anti-smokers in “Thanks for the Light.” Oddly, the era most vividly evoked by the story is our own, where smoking (except in certain neighborhoods downtown and in Brooklyn) is something one does guiltily and on the sly, the butt cupped behind an ashamed hand. The difference is that, unlike Mrs. Hanson, you can’t sneak indoors anywhere, not even into a bar, let alone a church. The street is your only option.
(Right - Scribners Co./Associated Press .F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934.)The protagonist of “Thanks for the Light” is a widowed, 40-year-old corset saleswoman, Mrs. Hanson, whose main consolation in life is cigarettes. After being transferred to a new sales territory in the west, she discovers that social disapproval of smoking is even stronger there than it had been back east. The story even suggests there is a law against it. Desperate for a cigarette but embarrassed to smoke on the street, she ducks one afternoon into the vestibule of a Catholic cathedral and, finding herself without matches, obtains a light from a heavenly source. (The story’s title may have a double meaning.)
Fitzgerald was himself a smoker and a heavy drinker as well. By the time he wrote “Thanks for the Light,” booze had pretty much destroyed his career and he was trying hard, though not always successfully, to stay on the wagon. So it’s tempting to see Mrs. Hanson’s situation not just as a reflection on the plight of female smokers in the 30’s but as a metaphor for alcohol dependence. If you read the story this way, the ironic, prayerful moment at the end is another version of the sense of loss and spiritual emptiness that Fitzgerald wrote so movingly about in the essays collected in “The Crack-Up.”
And the strange notion of a national ban on smoking? Prohibition had ended just three years earlier. In many parts of the country, though, Prohibition never took on the atmosphere of dour, blanket disapproval suggested by the hatchet-faced anti-smokers in “Thanks for the Light.” Oddly, the era most vividly evoked by the story is our own, where smoking (except in certain neighborhoods downtown and in Brooklyn) is something one does guiltily and on the sly, the butt cupped behind an ashamed hand. The difference is that, unlike Mrs. Hanson, you can’t sneak indoors anywhere, not even into a bar, let alone a church. The street is your only option.
Doug Schmell/Pedigree Comics.Com Silver Age Collection brings $3.94+ million in world record auction
Art Daily Newsletter
 X-Men #1 Pacific Coast pedigree (Marvel, 1963) CGC NM/MT 9.8 White pages. Sold for: $492,937.50.BEVERLY HILLS, CA.- The multi-million dollar Doug Schmell/PedigreeComics.com Collection, featuring the single greatest grouping of Silver Age Marvel CGC #1 Registry sets ever assembled, realized more than $3.94 million on July 26 as the centerpiece of the vintage comic book offerings in Heritage Auctions' July 26 Vintage Comics & Comic Art Signature® Auction. The top offering in Schmell's incredible grouping was the Pacific Coast pedigree X-Men #1 (Marvel, 1963) CGC NM/MT 9.8, which brought an incredible $492,938. "I still can't believe the X-Men #1 9.8 went for nearly went for half a million dollars," said Schmell. "I can't thank the professional team at Heritage enough, especially Steve Borock, who helped me and my family through the entire selling and auction process, who answered every question we had. It was not an easy decision to sell these prized books, but Steve made the transaction much easier, exceeding all my expectatio ... More |
Philadelphia's Rosenbach Museum & Library features Colbert with James Joyce, Maurice Sendak
Art Daily Newsletter
 A playful new exhibit at the Rosenbach Museum & Library pairs priceless material by James Joyce and Maurice Sendak. By: Kathy Matheson, Associated Press PHILADELPHIA (AP).- Talk show host Stephen Colbert's foray into children's books has landed him alongside some exalted literary company. A playful new exhibit at the Rosenbach Museum & Library pairs priceless material by James Joyce and Maurice Sendak with, um, perhaps less valuable items used by Colbert to write "I Am A Pole (And So Can You!)." Colbert's pens, beer bottles and lunch remnants are certainly not the usual fare for the Rosenbach, the Philadelphia institution that houses the only complete manuscript of Joyce's "Ulysses." But museum officials say the display reinforces their mission to engage and inspire visitors with collections that include papers from Lewis Carroll, Bram Stoker and Miguel de Cervantes. "If I can do that ... More |
LANDMARK WORK WINS NEW ZEALAND POST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A landmark book – New Zealand’s Native Trees by John Dawson and Rob Lucas – has won the country’s supreme publishing accolade, The New Zealand Post Book of the Year.
The book - which took seven years, more than 100,000 four-wheel-drive kilometres and countless hours’ walking in dense forest to complete - was presented with the honour by the Hon. Christopher Finlayson, Minister for Arts, Culture & Heritage at a gala dinner ceremony in Auckland tonight.
New Zealand Post Book Awards judges convenor, Chris Bourke said on behalf of the judging panel that New Zealand’s Native Trees is a masterly example of publishing of the kind that is seen only once in a generation.
“From the detailed and authoritative research, accessible and comprehensive writing, detailed yet expansive photography, near flawless editing, design and layout this is a quality book from start to finish. Its impact on the community and on generations to come is self-evident.”
The book contains more than 2,300 photographs, many of which took photographer Rob Lucas several visits to some of the country’s most inaccessible areas to capture. The book also won the Illustrated Non-Fiction Category.
Internationally recognised novelist and creative writing teacher, Paula Morris (Ngati Wai) is this year’s New Zealand Post Book Awards Fiction Category winner for her work, Rangatira.
The historical novel which is based on Morris’ tupuna (ancestor), Paratene Te Manu’s 1863 visit to England, was exhaustively researched.
Mr Bourke said the judges were impressed by the refreshing purity of purpose to Morris’ story-telling.
“It never seems jaded or cynical or calculating; instead the struggle to comprehend otherness is rendered perceptively, directly, consistently — and compellingly.”
Sue Orr, former speechwriter to Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright, took this year’s People’s Choice Award for her short story collection, From Under the Overcoat. The award is much-coveted by authors as a reflection of their book’s popularity.
Journalist, playwright, author and producer Chris Winitana (Ngati Tuwharetoa and Ngai Tuhoe) was presented with the New Zealand Post Māori Language Award for his book, Tōku Reo, Tōku Ohooho : My Language, My Inspiration; a book that explores the struggle to save the Māori language over the last 40 years.
New Zealand Post Book Awards judge and Māori language advisor, Paora Tibble said that as a te reo Māori publication, Tōku Reo, Tōku Ohooho is groundbreaking.
“Chris Winitana mixes traditional language with modern metaphors. He shows te reo Māori as a living language; creating new contexts for words and phrases buried in our not too distant past. His knowledge of te reo is remarkable.
“With this book, Chris Winitana takes us on the adventure of a lifetime. For 40 years, Māori have fought to revitalise their language. This is their story.”
Rhian Gallagher's second collection, Shift, which encompasses a departure from London where she lived for 18 years, and a return to New Zealand, her country of birth, won the Poetry Category Award.
Mr Bourke commented that Rhian Gallagher’s collection was an example of lyrical poetry at its very best.
“The poems offer elegance, mysteriousness, musical harmonies, satisfying quietness and subtle emotions. Sounds and themes stitch the collection with an assured and unifying touch. You fall upon little autobiographical traces in the shadows, traces that are both moving and intense.”
Historian and novelist, Joan Druett won the General Non-Fiction Category Award for her work, Tupaia: The Remarkable Story of Captain Cook’s Polynesian Navigator.
“Tupaia’s richly detailed drawings and paintings are a precious legacy and are stunningly reproduced in a book which will intrigue and inspire. Everything about Tupaiareflects Druett’s careful research and passion for her subject.
“This is a wonderful book.”
The full list of 2012 New Zealand Post Book Awards winners is as follows:
New Zealand Post Book of the Year winner:
New Zealand’s Native Trees by John Dawson & Rob Lucas (Craig Potton Publishing)
Fiction Award winner:
Rangatira by Paula Morris(Penguin Group, NZ)
Poetry Award winner:
Shift by Rhian Gallagher (Auckland University Press)
General Non-Fiction Award winner:
Tupaia: The Remarkable Story of Captain Cook’s Polynesian Navigator by Joan Druett(Random House NZ)
Illustrated Non-Fiction Award winner:
New Zealand’s Native Trees by John Dawson & Rob Lucas (Craig Potton Publishing)
Māori Language Award winner:
Tōku Reo, Tōku Ohooho : My Language, My Inspiration by Chris Winitana (Huia Publishers)
People’s Choice Award winner:
From Under the Overcoat by Sue Orr (Vintage, Random House NZ)
The New Zealand Post Book of the Year Award winner received $15,000. The Māori Language Award winner and the winners of the four Category Awards each received $10,000 and the People’s Choice Award winner $5,000.
The winners of the 2012 New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Best First Book Awards - announced earlier this year - were also honoured tonight. They are:
NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction: Hamish Clayton for Wulf (Penguin Group, NZ).
NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry: John Adams for his collection Briefcase (Auckland University Press).
NZSA E.H. McCormick Best First Book Award for Non-Fiction: Michael Smythe for New Zealand by Design (Random House, NZ)
Each NZSA Best First Book Awards category winner received $2,500.
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