Vanity Fair’s Joe Pompeo talks to staff at the Washington Post, where columnist Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance and possible murder have pushed his colleagues “into a frenzy.” “Even people who aren’t involved in the coverage are all talking about it,” said one journalist. “How’s the administration gonna respond? What does this mean for our other overseas journalists?”
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark is donating $2.5 million to New York Public Radio, bringing “his total philanthropic efforts involving media in the last year to $50 million,” the New York Times reports.
“I had been thinking a lot about the connections between luck and empathy,” said Tana French on the origins of her new book, The Witch Elm. “Lately I’ve been thinking about, ‘Okay, what about somebody who’s been lucky in every way, all along, who’s always come out on top of the coin flip?’ . . . What would that do to his ability to take on board the fact that other people’s very different experiences are, in fact, real? And then, what would happen if something happened to him that meant he was no longer on the right side of all the coin flips?”
Following the announcement of Anna Burns as the winner of this year’s Man Booker Prize, judge Val McDermid reflects on this year’s judging process, which she calls “the best book club in the world.” “Even when we had to make our final choice, there were no ultimatums, no horse-trading, no sulking. Fuelled by coffee and chocolate, we talked our way through the shortlist one by one, itemising pros and cons,” she explained. “And after more chocolate and another hour or so, Anna Burns’s remarkable novel emerged as the one we all felt was the right choice. Then it was finally time for the champagne.”
Tonight at Books Are Magic in Brooklyn, Nausicaa Renner talks to Meghan O’Gieblyn about her new book, Interior States.