John le Carré—author of Cold War novels such The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy—has died. Le Carré, whose real name was David John Moore Cornwell, studied at Oxford, worked undercover for British intelligence, and created one of the best-known fictional spies of all time, George Smiley.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s final book, Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue: A Life’s Work Fighting for a More Perfect Union, cowritten with Amanda L. Tyler, will be published by University of California Press in March.
The New York Times culture desk has announced that it has given new editorial roles to Maya Phillips, Jason Farago, and Matt Stevens.
Sadie Stein will lead a virtual seminar on Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea. The four-week course begins on January 7.
Book deals: Michelle D. Commander has sold her book Seizing Black Space: A New History of Race and Mobility in America to Viking. The book “chronicles African American struggles to make claims on the American landscape—from vibrant slave communities and early free urban enclaves to thriving Black Wall Streets and the ghost towns of communities razed by fear and violence—across four centuries of displacement and renewal.” Bob Woodward and Robert Costa are writing about the transition from the Trump administration to the Biden administration for Simon & Schuster. Poet Nuar Alsadir has sold her first book of nonfiction, Animal Joy, to Graywolf and Fitzcarraldo Editions. According to the publishers: “Writing in an associative style, blending the personal with the theoretical, [Alsadir] ranges from clown school, Anna Karenina’s morphine addiction, Abu Ghraib, [Frantz] Fanon’s negrophobia, smut, the [Brett] Kavanaugh hearings, laugh tracks, the problem with adjectives, slips of the tongue, [Sylvia] Plath’s gnomes, hoarding, la petite mort, to how poetry startles and wakes us up. At the centre of the book is the author’s relationship with her daughters, who irrupt into the text like sudden, unexpected laughter, tiny revolutions.”
In a virtual event that will take place tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7 PM EST, Pamela Sneed will discuss her book Funeral Diva—a collection of personal essays and poems about the “impact of AIDS on Black Queer life”—with author Saeed Jones. You can register to watch the event here.
