Doubleday has announced that it will publish Jeffrey Toobin’s next book, which will investigate the scandals of Donald Trump, focusing in particular on the probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and on the Congressional inquiries into Trump’s possible collusions with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. Toobin, whose previous books include The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court and American Heiress (about Patty Hearst), says, “We’ve been telling this story in bits and pieces for the past year, but I’m hoping to pull it together in single narrative that tells the tale in all its bizarre glory.”
Rumaan Alam talks to novelist Louise Erdrich about climate change, Faulkner, and her new book, Future Home. Erdrich’s work has long been compared to that of Gabriel García Márquez and William Faulkner, connections that she’s no longer excited about. “I’m getting tired of this,” Erdrich replied after Alam mentioned Faulkner. “It was a great compliment in the beginning . . . but it’s over for me.” “A compliment like that ends up being both a constraint and a misunderstanding,” Alam reflects. “To be fair, there really isn’t another writer like Márquez, or like Faulkner. And there may never be another writer like Erdrich.”
At the New York Review of Books, Marilynne Robinson reflects on democracy, respect, and Trump’s first year in office.
After announcing that Disney had banned the paper from covering its films, Los Angeles Times employees tell the New York Times that they were discouraged by recently-appointed editor in chief Lewis D’Vorkin from using social media to share the investigative journalism that had led to the blacklisting. Some staff felt that the request was meant to avoid angering Disney further, but D’Vorkin told the paper that “the warnings about social media were intended to remind the staff to ‘stay away from opinion and stay away from drama.’”
Tonight at the New York Public Library, Rebecca Mead talks to Daniel Mendelsohn about his latest book, An Odyssey.