News & Notes – 9/23/2017

September 23, 2017 News & Notes 6

News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, and other cool stuff

Book News

 

Literary Losses

Lillian Ross, who wrote for the New Yorker magazine for over 70 years, has died at the age of 99. Her stories included an influential profile of Ernest Hemingway, and she was a frequent Talk of the Town contributor. She also chronicled the making of The Red Badge of Courage in a five-part series (later published as a book entitled Picture.) As a journalist, she sought to keep herself and her opinions out of the story. She never used a tape recorder, instead taking notes as she interviewed and observed. Her style influenced the “new journalism” and journalists like Truman Capote and Tom Wolfe, though she eschewed the flamboyancy they embraced.

Ross was also the mistress of New Yorker editor William Shawn, an affair that continued for more than four decades and remained largely secret until the publication of Ross’s memoir, six years after Shawn’s death. She left The New Yorker when Shawn was fired as editor, returning only after his death at the invitation of editor Tina Brown. In the last decade, she wrote profiles of both J.D. Salinger and In the Heights (and later Hamilton) composer-author Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Ross published several books in addition to Picture, including her memoir, a collection of short stories, and several collections of her New Yorker pieces.

Obituaries and tributes: The GuardianThe New Yorker 

Bibliography and Biography: Goodreads; Wikipedia (an oddly brief biography, but it does include a bibliography that is more complete than the one on Goodreads.)

 

Worth Reading/Viewing

 

Awesome Lists

  • 50 of the Best Fantasy Characters Ever (The Portalist) Well, I would definitely argue against a few of these, and the list makers relied more heavily on movies and TV than on books, but they’ve picked some good ones. And left out some good ones as well, particularly female characters.

 

Feed Your Inner Fan

Fans of Howl’s Moving Castle can now wear Howl’s (reversible) cloak. From Her Universe.

 

Jacquard Middle-Earth-themed scarves, shawls, throws, and baby slings from Oscha’s Middle Earth collection let you wear your LOTR fandom proudly, on Hobbit Day (Sept. 22) or any other day!

 

This Harry Potter decor from Pottery Barn is perfect for your Hogwarts-bound youngster (or adult.) (via Book Riot. Click link for Book Riot article with links to specific items. Click collage to go to Pottery Barn site.)

 

That’s it for this week!

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