If you're in New York this weekend, you really must go to the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday. There are too many events to list, but here are just a few highlights: Joshua Cohen and Matthew Sharpe will talk about Kafka; poet John Ashbery will discuss his work with Paul Auster; and Bookforum co-editor Albert Mobilio will talk about international noir with Mexican author Paco Ignacio Taibo II, French author Caryl Férey, and New York's Pete Hamill. Other participating authors include Mary Gaitskill, Colson Whitehead, Russell Banks, and Stephen Elliott. There are also a number of related events on Friday and Saturday nights. You'll find us at the Saturday-night Bell House event DJ'd by Rob Sheffield.
The Wall Street Journal will unveil its new stand-alone book review, edited by Robert Mesenger (formerly of The Weekly Standard and The New York Sun) in the next few weeks. As The New York Observer points out, this appears to be another one of Rupert Murdoch's direct challenges to The New York Times.
The latest issue of N1BR, a.k.a. The n+1 Book Review, is out. In addition to reviews of Mary Gaitskill and Paul Berman, it includes a very smart essay by Naomi Fry, the first writer we know of to really grapple with the "toxic environment" of Bret Easton Ellis's Imperial Bedrooms.
Thomas Guinzburg, a co-founder of The Paris Review, dies at 84.
At The New Republic, Ruth Franklin has a persuasive article—with data—about The New York Times's treatment of women writers. Now, Slate follows up with a number-crunching report on The New Republic.
