paper trail

Annie Ernaux on writing collective memoir; Chris Lehmann named editor of the "New Republic"

Annie Ernaux

Annie Ernaux talks to The Guardian about aging, privilege, and and why she avoids “I” even when writing autobiography. “When I think of my life, I see my story since childhood until today, but I cannot separate it from the world in which I lived; my story is mixed with that of my generation and the events that happened to us,” she explains. “This is the story of events and progress and everything that has changed in 60 years of an individual existence but transmitted through the ‘we’ and ‘them.’ The events in my book belong to everyone, to history, to sociology.”

Chris Lehmann has been hired as the editor of the New Republic.

Wall Street Journal arts editor Andrew LaVallee is joining the New York Times books department as senior editor of news and features.

Former BuzzFeed News reporter Emily Tamkin is working on a book about “the genesis of the myths around George Soros.” Tamkin recently sold the book, The Backer, to Harper.

“I had really deep guilt about writing anything negative about him, because he’s not here,” Erin Lee Carr, daughter of late writer David Carr and author of All That You Leave Behindtells the Times of writing a book about her dad. “But that is so not David Carr. So I just typed out these phrases, like ‘I’m mad at you,’ to see how it would feel.”

“Private-equity firm Great Hill Partners has agreed to acquire Gizmodo Media Group from Univision Communications Inc.,” Ben Mullin reports, “ending the Spanish-language broadcaster’s foray into English-language digital media.”

The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove claims that Megyn Kelly is considering a return to television. “The 48-year-old Kelly has been ‘healing’ and ‘chilling,’ according to friends, since last Oct. 24, her final day of work on network television—going to yoga classes, attending school events and field trips with her kids, experimenting in the kitchen, skiing in Montana, and having date nights with her husband,” Grove reports. But the unemployed TV host “is starting to formulate a comeback strategy and getting ready to test the marketplace.”