The New York Times has an in-depth profile of Ho Pin, the publisher of Mirror Media Group. Based in Great Neck, NY, Ho's Chinese-language list is a mixture of politically daring and just-plain-salacious books. “One of Mirror’s latest additions is a 334-page book about Chinese leaders and their offshore accounts that were uncovered by the Panama Papers only weeks earlier. Another book on its shelves is a 2009 volume that claims to depict the extramarital sex lives of China’s top leaders, including Mr. Xi.”
Dave Eggers attended a rally for Trump. “When I parked, I glanced at the car next to me, and found that a young couple in casual business attire was engaged in casual amorous activity,” Eggers writes. “It was the first, but not the last time, that it was clear that a good portion of the audience saw the rally as not purely a political event, but as . . . an entertainment, a curiosity, an opportunity to sell merchandise and refreshments, a chance to do some late-afternoon groping in the parking lot.”
Leonardo DiCaprio, nominated for an Academy Award for his starring role in The Wolf of Wall Street in 2014, will testify in a case against the film, which sent up the office culture of the stock brokerage firm Stratton Oakmont. A lawsuit brought by Andrew Greene, a former executive of the firm, alleges that the minor character of Nicky “Rugrat” Koskof—played by the actor P. J. Byrne and not DiCaprio—is based on Greene and portrays him as a “criminal, a drug user and a degenerate.”
“These days, just about all the exciting work in the murder-for-entertainment business descends not from Arthur Conan Doyle or Hammett but from Highsmith, who has had many more daughters than sons.” InThe Atlantic, Terrence Rafferty argues that women crime writers have outstripped their male counterparts.
Lois Duncan, best-selling author of I Know What You Did Last Summer and other classics of the YA genre, died last week at 82. “Life continues," Duncan wrote in Stranger with My Face, "and we all of us keep changing and building, toward what we cannot know.” “Sit down every day and DO IT," she said about writing. "And when you're not writing, READ.”
The Neu Jorker, a new magazine with a ready-made storied tradition, hits the digital stand.
